Bill Gates in Hot Water Over ‘Helpful’ Advice He Gave to Nigeria
American billionaire Bill Gates is in hot water with a number of Nigerians following a comment he made when speaking during Nutrivision 2024 on Tuesday. The event which is a pan-African youth dialogue on nutrition was held in Abuja on Tuesday, and during his speech, Bill Gates answered a question about financing mechanisms the Federal Government of Nigeria can adopt for funding large scale public health interventions.
It is during his answer to that question that Bill made a statement that has gotten a lot of Nigerians riled up. Here’s what he said.
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During his speech about financing mechanisms the Federal Government of Nigeria can adopt for funding large scale public health interventions, Bill Gates said:
BILL GATES: In agriculture, Nigeria, today, is a net food importer given the geography, if the right credit facilities and advice to farmers, soil surveys, (and other) things are available, there’s the opportunity for Nigeria to more than double its food output which would be pretty transformative because it would mean that you’d be a net food exporter instead of having to use very scarce dollars particularly at the current exchange rate to go buy food, you’re bringing dollars in.
Particularly, agricultural productivity is important for the incomes in the rural, more northern areas and so embracing digital approaches, better seeds to get this kind of an agricultural miracle to take place that’s going to help the country in terms of equity, in terms of women, and in terms of these nutrition issues. The health piece will have to be a priority.
Over time, there are plans for Nigeria to fund the government more than it does today. The actual tax collection in Nigeria is pretty low.
Our foundations are involved with a lot of the examples, showing the way in terms of making sure the money is spent well, running a very efficient primary health care system where the employees are doing great work, the centres are where they should be, you don’t have under-loaded centres or overloaded centres.
It’s exciting that we’re driving the credibility of those health programmes, and so the citizens will feel like yes primary health care is amongst the priorities that should be very funded as you get some fiscal flexibility.
That portion of him saying “The actual tax collection in Nigeria is pretty low” has been highlighted and circulated around blogs, and people are INFURIATED.
For example, when BBC Pidgin posted the quote, people in the comments were quick to call Bill all sorts of names from “ekwensu” to saying that he’s been bribed.
