DO WE REALLY NEED FLYOVERS IN KANO
Ali Abubakar Sadiq
Though nostalgically, i remembered with deep gratitude to the almighty, how over a decade ago in the height of Boko Haram terror attacks in Kano, one could ply Zaria Road, one of the busiest streets in the metropolitan area with only few motorists and scanty pedestrians at 2:00 pm in the afternoon.
Resolutely, the over 20 million people in the state shakes off the fear through cooperation, prayers and outright rejection of Boko Haram ideologies and campaign of terror and bounced back as the most hustle-bustle city north of the Niger River. As i write this, Kano and Jigawa states are the only Islands of stability in the Boko Haram, Banditry and Kidnap infested region of the North West. But it feels and seems as if the leadership and people of Kano are oblivious of this gift. It is a gift indeed considering we are no better than our neighbour’s who wanted to farm their lands but consumed by the conflict and couldnt.
When the former President announced the anchor borrower program in his first term, the biggest benefactors of the program was Lagos state due to its visionary and people-oriented government that immediately went into partnership with Kebbi State to produce rice. Is that not a shame to all the northern states, especially Kano? The partnership secures Lagos a steady source of rice and they went on to build the Imota Rice Mill. The rice mill in Imota was build on 22 hectares of land, with the mill itself occupying 8.5 hectares. It will be the largest mill in Africa and the third largest mill in the world. The rice mill has a capacity to produce 2.8 million of 50 kg bags of rice yearly, while generating 1,500 direct jobs and 254,000 indirect jobs.
With recent APC government fiasco in policy by removing the fuel subsidy which in a way is robbing Peter to pay Paul, as all governments are earning more than they did in the previous administration at the detriment of the harsh policy robbing the citizenry of the only benefit they enjoy from government (The Fuel Subsidy). Lagos state government under Sanwo-Olu announced the reduction of transport fares of state-owned buses by 50% as well as commercial yellow buses by 25% on all routes as part of efforts to cushion the effect of the removal of the petrol subsidy, which ran for six months. They also increased workers salary which eased the burden on civil servants. The state government also introduced the procurement of food item to boost local business and distribute to 500,000 vulnerable households in various communities across the state.
Lest you say i am campaigning for Sanwo Olu, let me get back to my dear Kano. After the 8 wasteful years of Ganduje in failing to leave any everlasting legacy, many citizens of Kano were celebrating the victory of Abba Gida-Gida and we look forward to a new direction for development of the state not for the few of its citizens. Unfortunately, the Governor started with a large-scale destruction of properties, at some estimate worth 226 billion, of alleged illegal structures.
The election tribunal dealt a serious blow to the winning party by announcing victory for Gawuna which also became a succour for land and property owners. To make matters worse, the Appeal Court upholds the Tribunal judgment. This decision almost paralysed the state government and fear engulphed the red-cap wearing stalwarts of the Kwankwasiyya Movement. Instead of the midnight bull-dozing activity in demolitions, the Kwankwasiyya apparatchik started looking solemn and sombre, like a delirious zombie. But God’s help came with the supreme court judgment against all expectations and Abba Gida-Gida retains his victory.
I am usually wary of Sanusi Lamido’s grandstanding and criticism in most cases, except when he criticizes Ganduje during the former’s attempt to awards the 1.8 billion Dollar metro rail line between Bata and Dawanau. Even though the criticism later cost him his throne, eventually it saved Kano from the extortions and kick back that would have followed the contract.
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I thought when God vindicated Abba Gida-Gida with his victory, he would avoid any entreatment from any quarters on embarking on misprioritized projects. And the recent contract of 30 billion awarded for two flyover bridges along BUK Road is a gross mispriority. First of all, if you draw a circle which starts from Gidan Murtala at the city centre going North-West through Ibrahim Taiwo Road, Murtala Muhammed Way, Katsina Road, Muhammadu Buhari Way down through BUK Road and back to your starting point, you will count no less than 8 flyovers strewn along the circumference…yet you want to add two more on them? While Kurna road, a major artery into Kano has been two-lanes for over 40 years? Tens of dilapidated and unpassable roads in the metropolitan area besides the hundreds of unmotorable dirt roads all over the over 40 Local Governments in the rural areas?
Kano is home to 22 Dams across the state and only one, the Tiga Dam, has been utilizing only 40% of its capacity utilization. Most of these dams are there sleeping idly while people surrounding the area are wallowing in poverty. Can you imagine how much tonnage of rice, wheat, tomato and fish could be farmed on those dams, which would create thousands of jobs and bring in the much-needed foreign exchange to the state?
A few days back, we have seen the furore generated by the mock-resignation of Malam Daurawa and how every well known cleric (except few), not only in Kano but across the North, lend their voices in the drama. For a day or two wherever you go in Kano and most northern capitals the only trending issue was the resignation that polarised society between the yeah’s and nayers. Did you hear a single cleric saying the flyover construction is not a priority in this artificial harsh economic quagmire? In a saner clime, i am sure if something like this happens, people will troop into the street with placards saying “Spend our money where we needed them”, pressure groups writing petitions to the state assembly, lobbyists crying foul as clerics would mount their pulpits and protest the move. But the silence on this mispriority is deafening, but it is not surprising because whenever the leadership is engrossed with self-interest, and clerics turned ideological-cum-economic merchants with a docile and poverty-stricken populace…everything may come to pass.
Kano, in the next few decades is going to have a population of many countries (40 million people) and when you traverse the city between 1-2 pm as our children close school hours, if you see girls in droves, who are being prepared in the next few years to be mothers themselves, nothing is scarier considering no provision is made for them and their unborn children. The number of Almajirai trooping into the city on a daily basis is scarier because in every nook and corner you will hear the soft cries of children as young as five years, weakened by hunger begging “I swear to God ma’am i am hungry” (Wallahi Iya yunwa na ke ji). Even if you dont have any children of your own, your heart will break at the helplessness of the child and the wickedness of the system.
Is Boko Haram not warning enough for us as we continue to neglect our responsibilities? Should our leaders continue to ignore our basic needs and keep squandering and looting our commonwealth? Is this the image we want to continue to project to the world as people proud of our ancestry and religion but living as a caricature of it all? As we race towards the bottomless abyss, we, i mean all of us are responsible for our current situation and it is only all of us that can save us from plunging down the abyss or halt and return to a better life by doing the right thing, individually and collectively. But Government must take the lead and Kano should take a cue from Lagos. We must take the advantage of the relative peace, fertile land, extraordinary water resources of 22 dams and two river system and millions of unemployed youths, to steer the economy towards utilizing our resources maximally. Kwankwasiyya is proud to be people-oriented movement, and to live up to its name and ideologies must let it show in the kind of people-oriented projects they execute. Sincerely speaking Kano do not need any flyover at the moment, what the masses need are jobs and food security, especially with the current hyper-inflation squeezing all and sundry dry. If you add the 30 billion flyovers cost to the 226 billion of the demolition, you are talking of 250 billion deficit in the economy. That amount could make us the largest producers of rice if we invested in our dams alone. We are calling on the governor to refocus his attention and reward the good people of Kano for voting him into power and remember his mandate was almost stolen and four, or rather three years, that remains, would be just like a blink of an eye.
