BILL GATES CANCELS TRIP TO NIGERIA...WHY? PRESIDENT GOODLUCK GRANTED STATE FUND LOOTER ALAMEYESEIGHA PARDON!

Former World's Richest Man/United States' Richest Man, Bill Gates, has cancelled his scheduled 27 March visit to Nigeria, to support his anti-polio campaign! Why? The controversial pardon granted by President Goodluck Jonathan to ex-convicts Diepreye Alamieyeseigha and Shettima Bulama.

It was reliably gathered that Gates was to meet President Jonathan, state governors and officials of the Federal Ministry of Health concerning the aggressive polio eradication campaign his Bill and Melinda Foundation is undertaking in the country.

It was gathered that Gates has already instructed his staff to inform the federal government, the secretariat of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum and the Federal Ministry of Health that he was no longer coming.

The United States' State Department spokesperson, Victoria Nuland had told reporters in Washington that, 

“We see this as a setback for the fight against corruption, and also for our ability to play the strong role we’ve played in supporting rule of law and legal institution-building in Nigeria, which is very important for the future of the country obviously.

“We have made clear to the Nigerians that this puts a question mark on the kinds of work that we’ve been trying to do with them,”

Nigeria is the number beneficiary of US AID in Africa. The U.S. government spent about $226 million on health and governance programmes in Nigeria, while about $600 million has been requested for 2013, according to U.S. government data.

Whereas Mr. Gates is the biggest foreign supporter of the campaign to eradicate polio in Nigeria since 2009 over the matter.

His foundation has developed a six-year strategy through 2018 that will help combat polio in Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan and has set aside $1 billion per annum for the purpose.

The bulk of that money is meant for Nigeria which currently has the highest cases of polio in the world.

He last visited Nigeria in November 2012. During that visit, his foundation entered into a four-year alliance with the Dangote Foundation which promised to provide funding, equipment and technical support to the Kano state government to strengthen polio immunisation.