Aliko DangotePresident of the Dangote Foundation, Alhaji Aliko Dangote has said that the economic direction to which the presidency of Bola Ahmed Tinubu put Nigeria in the next four years, will either make or mar the country’s fortune.
He said: “we genuinely believe that the National Economic Council and the decisions that you will make over the next four years will determine whether Nigeria has sound economic growth.”
Dangote, today, June 22, at a parley with some Governors under the auspices of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum and Bill Gates, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, said the economic direction would also show whether the citizens are happy eventually and whether the sustainable development goals are achieved.
He said that for a long time, he had been in partnership with Bill Gates as well as with both the Federal and State Governments, supporting the efforts in eradicating polio and improving routine immunization, nutrition and primary healthcare in the country.
This was even as Bill Gates said that his foundation had recently announced the intention to commit $7 billion to Africa in the next four years.
He said that the intervention is meant to support routine immunization in Nigeria, and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in Northern Nigeria.
Meanwhile, Vice President Kashim Shettima has given assurance that the federal government is determined to address the concerns that surround the financing of the nation’s primary healthcare system.
Describing polio as one of the major primary healthcare challenges in the country, the Vice President said: “the proposal is to provide timely domestic financing for the procurement of vaccines, which couldn’t have come sooner, to boosting our industrial capacity to produce vaccines.”
He acknowledged the threats facing Nigeria in the area of polio, but that Nigeria’s three dose pentavalent vaccine coverage has improved from 33% in 2016 to 57% in 2021.
“The variant polio virus has declined in Nigeria by 84% from 2021, falling to fewer than 200 cases in 2022. He therefore commended the states that have achieved high category immunization coverage, which is between 60% and 80% of the target demographic and the number of states has expanded from 12 to 21 states in five years.
“The Federal Government and our respective state governments are going to set in place a transparent process and structure to undo the reality of the country as one with one of the highest proportions of non-immunized infants in the world over the last decade.”
Vice President Shettima said that the Federal Government is committed to eradicating variant poliovirus by the end of the year, ensuring that every Nigerian child is covered in the routine immunization campaigns.
On the issue of production of vaccines for immunization of children, he assured: “we are going to work together to ensure that these vaccines are made available even to zero-dose children, of which ours, at 2 million, are the highest in the world after India.”
The Vice President expressed the appreciation of the Federal Government to partners such as Alhaji Aliko Dangote’s Foundation and that of Bill Gates Foundation, whose empathy shone through that uncertain period in history.
The Chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Alhaji Abdulraman Abdulrasaq and some Governors who spoke at the parley, lauded the philanthropic interventions of the Dangote and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations in critical areas, including healthcare, education, agriculture and human capital development. The Governors expressed the readiness to further collaborate with the Dangote and Gates Foundation in the coming years.
