I Didn’t Fight With Bill Gates— El-Rufai

The Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, on Thursday denied attacking American billionaire founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, over his comment on Nigeria’s economic plan and public spending.

The governor said although there is nothing wrong in attacking Mr. Gates, he never did but only put things in proper context.

Mr. El-rufai stated this at the closing session of the Kaduna Investment Summit (KADINVEST 3.0) . “A few weeks ago, when Microsoft founder Bill Gates came to Nigeria and appealed to Nigerian government to invest more in education, I made a comment that was reported widely as attacking Bill Gates. It was not an attack on Bill Gates, it merely putting things in context. “What I told Mr. Gate is that, you have identified the problem correctly, but you are looking at the wrong tier of government to handle it. “The state and local governments have the responsibilities to invest in education and healthcare. So, it is up to state governments to invest more in education and healthcare and I gave example of what we are doing in Kaduna . “I also urged my colleagues, the governors to do same. Because, unless the state governments do so, the country will be clapping with one hand. “That is what I said, but it was misrepresented to mean that I was attacking Bill Gates. There is nothing wrong with attacking Bill Gates, we can differ, but that is not what happened, I merely explained the context, where the investment should be,” the governor said.

Mr. El-Rufai further added that Mr. Gates is a big partner as he has invested $1.6billion in Nigeria, pointing out that a large percentage of the money he invested was invested in Kaduna State.