Abba Dukawa
Recently, Kwankwasiyya movement accused Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of illegally selling public properties to cronies and family members. The baseless allegations are on the sale of Daula Hotel, Triumph Publishing Company, part of the Eid Ground, Panshekara Modern Abattoir, Hajj Camp, Shahuci Motor Park and the State Zoological garden.
Another laughable act by the movement is the threat that they would not fold arms and allow public assets to rot away.
Despite the financial difficulty the country and the state are facing, Governor Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje is doing very well for the overall development of the state.
Let them wake up from their slumbers and recall that it was former Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso’s (RMK) administration that ordered the closure of Daula Hotel and sacked all the staff. RMK handed over the property to School of Hospitality and Tourism but only 10 per cent of the structure was occupied by the school.
Unknown to most people at that time, when the hotel was closed down, some reputable hoteliers drew the attention of then administration in power to sign an agreement with them to manage Daula Hotel under Public Private Partnership (PPP). This, out of stubbornness RMK turned down, maybe he had other cynical motives.
So, let me dissects some of the issues raised by the Kwankwasiyya movement.
Ganduje’s administration engaged private developers through Public Private Partnership (PPP) to convert the former Daula Hotel premises into residential buildings, Malls and Hotels in an effort to explore more ways to enhance revenue generation in the state.
There is nothing wrong if such comatose and structurally defective properties would be turned around with committed stakeholders through Public Private Partnership agreement with willing investors in the best public interest, as part of a noble futuristic move to make the ancient city catch up with modernity for a befitting mega city status.
The present administration works assiduously in seeing to the actualization of bringing back to life Triumph newspaper. Governor Ganduje showed his commitment in revitalisation of the Triumph Publishing company knowing that the Company is not just a newspaper publishing company but a training ground for journalists across the country.
Around October 2012, we the staff of the company on Thursday at about six o’clock, we were going about our normal duty when we saw a team of security operatives in the premises of the company accompanied by then state commissioner of information who told us that Governor RMK has decided to closed down Triumph Publishing Company.
This brutally and unceremoniously closure would remain in our minds even though, (we) the staff of the newspaper were not treatmented like Daula staff.
I can testify that Triumph Publishing Company is relocated to a convenient place befitting a newspaper house to pave the way for the development of a more economically viable and modern Bureau de Change Market that can generate more revenue to the state and provide employment opportunities to the teeming populace.
On the Zoological Garden, no government will fold its arm and watch the lives of its citizens endanger. One may recall last year when one of the Lion kept in the Zoological Garden escaped.
That incident caused serious trauma to the residents around Gandun, Tukuntawa and Zoo Road Housing Estates.
Most zoological gardens across the world are not found in a residential area. There is nothing wrong if the zoological Garden is relocated from residential area to outskirt of town for public safety because when the zoological garden was established, it was on the outskirt of Kano.
If the garden is relocated, the space will be put to a more economic use.
For the residence of Fagge, Zango, Kofat Mats, Kofar Wambai areas, the Eid praying ground remains scary place to a passer-by because some miscreants have turned the ground into a hiding place to commit heinous crimes from phone snatching to other dangerous criminals and loss of lives.
Today, the structures surrounding the Eid praying ground has reduced the level of insecurity and has drastically beautified the area.
Kwankwasiyya have forgotten that during the first tenure of RMK, some parts of Kofar Mata Eid ground were allocated to some individual closed to his administration.
Civil servants and their families would not forget how the then Governor Kwankwaso sold government properties (GPs) at exorbitant price that the occupiers could not afford.
There are available records on how the same government sold GPs to cronies of the administration at giveaway price. At the tail end of the administration, some vehicles belonging to the state government valued at millions of naira were sold to government functionaries at giveaway prices.
Despite state’s laws prohibit anyone from using public funds to discriminate and promote the personal ego of an individual, against the collective interest of the public, we witnessed how Kwankwaso’s administration inscribed political slogan on public buildings which personified them.
Note that all public projects executed or being executed by the state government were done with public funds held in trust by the governor for all the people of Kano State.
Sadly, almost six years out of power, RMK and his misled foot soldiers go about with erroneous impression of self importance by presuming to be undefeatable power brokers in the state. They delude themselves in a frame of mind convincing themselves of having the powers to do and undo, make or mar as well give power to whomsoever they wish and wrest same from whomsoever they disapprove.
Funny enough, a significant number of kwakwasiya movement have not realized that the movement is a paper tiger and has crumbled like a pack of cards. It is important to observe that the antisocial activities being perpetrated by RMK and remnants of his supporters are possible because of the tolerance of the present administration’s broadmindedness of the governor and his democratic credentials.
Members of Kwankwasiyya movement are in hurry to forget of when their leader was at the helm of affairs, the freedom they now enjoyed under this administration was not guaranteed by RMK. In fact, the administration did not only unprecedentedly narrow democratic space in the state through the antidemocratic actions, it undoubtedly retarded commercial activities rather than promoting commerce for which Kano has been well-known.
One laughable thing that further reduced the movement to ridicule, is, in the fact that members of the group have now metamorphosed to defender of public properties. If there is any governor in the history of the state that treat public property with reckless abandon is Musa Rabiu Kwanwanso.
He felt on top of the world doing that because he was power drunk, while his rabid supporters gave him the erroneous impression, he was untouchable leader wearing shoes made of metal to step on any body’s toes no mater how highly placed.
This is not to count the ordinary citizens, civil servants and pensioners who suffered varied degrees of maltreatment by Kwankwaso’s government. In fact, taking into consideration the trouble the state found itself during second coming of RMK, the prayer should be that God should forbid and don’t allow it to repeat itself in future.
We have not forgotten how billions of naira belonging to state pension fund was borrowed to build Bandarawo and Amana Housing Estates that are so expensive that only ample of government department and agencies now occupy. This wrong policy of Kwankwanso is now making it difficult for pensioners to get their gratuities when they disengage from service.
Ganduje’s administration has taken the Kano to the highest feat with the free and compulsory education for the teeming children, most of whom are wards of the poor in the society.
Dukawa wrote in from Kano, can be reach via abbahydukawa@gmail.com
