By METROWATCH Reporter
Immediate past Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, says he had planned slapping his predecessor in office, Rabiu Musa Kwakwanso, if he had met him. face-to-face in the Aso Rock Villa Friday, but they didn’t get to meet.
Ganduje was in the Villa to report Kwankwaso to President Bola Tinubu over the current demolition of property going on in the State. Kwankwaso too, was in the Villa at the same time as Ganduje, but they did not get to meet.
When asked about the President’s response and if they had reconciled inside the Villa, Ganduje said “I know that he is in the building. But we did not meet inside. I would have slapped him if I met him inside.”
Ganduje described the demolitions in Kano carried out by Governor Abba Yusuf as “illegal”,’
The distraught former Governor said the demolition was carried out without due process and, therefore, breached the law, calling him a stooge of Kwankwaso.
Ganduje said the demolition exercise was done without carrying out any investigation or giving due notice in line with the provisions of Land Use Act.
Recall Yusuf in his inauguration speech on May 29, gave a marching order to security agencies in Kano to immediately repossess all public properties believed to have been sold by the Ganduje administration.
He alleged that they were illegally acquired and built by the Ganduje’s administration.
Some structures demolished in the recent fiasco include Hajj camp, Daula Hotel and shopping complexes around the Eid Prayer Ground in Kano, structures Ganduje said were products of Public-Private Partnerships.
The former governor said he came to brief the President about the security situation in Kano State, especially “the looting and vandalization that is going on in Kano. And we don’t want it to result into religious or tribal conflict. Thousands of traders have been rendered no business”, he said.
Ganduje who served as Kwankwaso’s deputy from 1999 – 2003 and 2011 – 2015, blamed his former boss for directing the new administration under Yusuf to carry out what he termed a vengeful campaign against the previous administration.
He lamented the fact that the shopping complex around the new Daula Hotel developed under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement, approved by the state’s executive, was demolished on the directive of Kwankwaso, without any investigation, without any notice, by the Yusuf administration.
“We appointed a technical committee right from the beginning. They submitted a report to the Executive Council. The executive council approved for the PPP project. The PPP project is 90% executed, but now without any investigation, without any notice, this new government under the directive of Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso demolished the building. The issue is in a court of law.”
Yusuf had said the demolition exercise was part of the fulfilment of his campaign promise to “restore” the urban development masterplan of the city.
He had also insisted that the exercise was not a vendetta against the past administration of Ganduje and that many more demolitions would follow.
But Ganduje said he spoke at length on the issue while reporting the matter to the president and had petitioned the Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba with video evidence of the looting and vandalisation that trailed the demolition.
He said he had briefed the president adequately on the demolition exercise that even affected the supporters of Kwankwaso whom he accused of ordering the action.
He said the governor who he described as a “stooge” of Kwankwaso was no longer happy because of the condemnation that greeted the move.
Asked to give figures to properties lost to the demolition exercise, he said some human rights organizations were working on the level of damage.
He, however, said one of the developers who was affected had sued government demanding over N10 billion.
Although both men were in the Villa at the same period to see the President, Ganduje said they did not meet face to face.
