By ABDULMALIK SULEIMAN
A lot of talks have continued to trail the decision of the Kano State Government to rework the master plan of the Kano metropolis which was distorted by last administration of Abdullahi Ganduje. Those commenting on the move have remained divided in their commentaries depending on their political leaning or their prejudices.
Others have however been offering their intervention based on the scope of information that has been made available to them either by biased interested parties or the media, who have been feeding the public with the required information they (the media) was willing to put forward into the public domain.
The media is said to be the market place of ideas where people go to propagate their views on any given issue which is considered as being of public interest.
Anyone is availed the opportunity of ventilating their opinion via the media but when opinion is untrue and laced with falsehood and half-truths then it is compelling and necessary for those who know the truth to educate the people by telling them what is the real truth of the issues involved.
One issue that has remained vary contentious and significant is the demolition of the popular roundabout close to the Government House, which the former government of the Alhaji Abdullahi Umar Ganduje claimed to have constructed with the sum of N160 million of taxpayers’ funds.
The evaluation cost of the project by various team of valuers maintained that the cost of the project was over-invoiced by at least three times the actual cost.
This is not even the main reason for the demolition of the roundabout but more importantly, the security implication of the roundabout which was perhaps the major over riding reason for bringing it down in the first place.
Perhaps those who conceptualise the project to those who gave designed up to the level of those that made the approval failed to consider the security implication of the roundabout before setting out for the actual construction.
Officials of the Gov. Abba Kabir Yusuf led government upon assumption of office took a tour to the round about and discovered a grave danger posed by some design error in the project which prompted the action.
For instance, it was discovered that the project was too close to the entrance of the Government House for comfort. The second reason being that the design error highlighted earlier revealed that anyone with sinister motive could hide inside the roundabout to commit grave harm on any government official.
The various openings provided for in the design architecture could provide shelter to people who seek to kill or harm any government officials going or coming out of the Government House. Those who might eventually get harmed include the governor himself, his deputy as well as top government officials. Our much revered Emir of Kano too could be exposed to arm too should the project is left untouched.
This is the main reason for taking the action and not the much trumpeted and regurgitated claims of former Governor Ganduje whose propaganda machinery has been telling the people that the main motive for carrying out the move was because of the project painting some imagery of Christian cross.
The question is, how could the government of Kano State pull down a project that was executed with several millions of Naira because it carried the imagery of a Cross? The claim was that it is a very well calculated move to pitch the Christian community in the state against the new government which will never work because the average Kanawa is too sophisticated to be hoodwink by such mundane claim that lacks any basis.
Gov. Abba must be commended for taken the bold step in resetting the Kano master plan since assuming office rather than politicize his good intentions.
To us, this is a propaganda being churned out by the media machinery of a politician whose glory and popularity amongs the people is fast fading away.
