The Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido, has warned that unless the people of the North change their culture, they will continue to be backward and in abject poverty.

The emir made the comment in Gusau where he moderated a paper titled ‘The role of universities in nation building’ presented by Dr Usman Bugaji at the maiden convocation of the Federal University, Gusau on Friday.

The emir argued that the culture of marrying more than one wife by those who could not even properly take care of a single wife and producing many children was the main reason why the northern region would continue to remain backward and in object poverty.

He said, “There are people who cannot afford to feed one wife but are ready to marry three wives and have more children than they cannot feed, talk less of paying for their school fees?”

He stressed that unless this negative attitude was changed, the north would continue to be left behind by other regions.

According to him, “The poverty level of the North is 80 per cent; while in the south, the percentage is 20 per cent, simply because of the culture of marrying many wives and producing many children who, at the end, are left on the streets to beg for what to eat.”

He lamented that some of the wives would be divorced by their husbands, living them with the children to take care of, a situation which he said was also responsible for producing hardened criminals.

“The issues we have today such as drug abuse, Boko Haram, banditry and unemployment would be nothing compared to what we will be dealing with in the next 20 or 30,” he said.

He urged northern universities to come up with solutions to the issues.