President Muhammadu Buhari has highly commended the contributions of Bill and Melinda Gates as well as Aliko Dangote foundations to humanitarian and developmental activities in Nigeria.
Meeting with the duo on the sidelines of the 74th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, the President said they had touched humanity in many positive ways.
He congratulated them “for achieving what you had set out to do”.
According to a statement by the Special Adviser (SA) on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, the President added: “Thanks for deriving pleasure in helping people. Congratulations to you for returning part of your wealth to the people in diverse ways. Whatever we save in areas in which you have intervened, we can deploy to other areas, like building of infrastructure.”
On agriculture, in which Dangote makes huge investments, President Buhari noted that farmers are very happy in Nigeria now “as we have made fertiliser available, cut the price by half and given many other incentives. They have no regret going back to the lands. The more we invest in agriculture, the better for us”.
Mr Gates congratulated President Buhari “for assembling a cabinet that excites us”.
The American philanthropist said he was pleased that one of the priorities of the administration was human capital development, of which health, nutrition and education are key components.
He said the Bill and Melinda Gates and Aliko Dangote foundations kept track of Nigeria’s attainments on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as enunciated by the United Nations (UN).
The global businessman submitted that the foundations were encouraged that there was improvement in reducing child mortality.
“Every local government area has better health/education situation today than in year 2000. We are delighted about that. Nigeria is our biggest commitment in Africa. It’s only in India we do more in the world,” Gates said.
Packaged by Alice Egbedele
