Governor of Kano Ganduje turns his back on Buhari’s visit

Barely 24 hours after advising President Muhammadu Buhari against going ahead with his visit to Kano State on Monday, Kano State Governor Umar Ganduje has reversed course and said the state is now ready to receive him.

The governor led a delegation of critical stakeholders from the state to meet President Buhari on Sunday at his mansion in Daura, Katsina state, after which he revealed the change of position to correspondents.

“We are all set to host him, and we have commissioned a lot for him, including federal government projects and state government projects. They are state-of-the-art projects,” he said when asked if the state was willing to receive Buhari on Monday.

Ganduje revealed in an interactive session with critical stakeholders, including scientists, legislators, political leaders and business in the state, that his administration had asked the president to postpone the trip, saying the state was deeply concerned about the hardship, mainly induced by the ongoing cash swap from old to redesigned banknotes.

He said the decision was made to avoid unforeseen circumstances.

Consequently, the state government wrote a letter to the president explaining the reasons why the planned visit is no longer favorable at this time.

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According to a press statement released on Saturday by Abba Anwar, the governor’s chief press secretary, the decision to advise against the president’s visit was endorsed by the state’s critical stakeholders.

The statement from the governor’s spokesperson reads in parts: “Deeply concerned about the hardship caused by the limited time given by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for stopping the use of old Naira notes, and to For security reasons, the Governor of Kano State, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, reveals that the state has decided and written to the presidency that the visit of the president to commission some projects will be postponed.

“While waiting for this important visit, we found ourselves in this situation, which puts citizens in untold difficulties. For security reasons, we wrote to the Presidency that President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to Kano will be postponed.

“We have received an acknowledgment of receipt of the letter. People are really suffering because of this policy.

“There are no banks in most of our rural communities. How these people get new Naira notes is a big concern. Just look at what is happening in our urban areas, people are spending hours in benches. And without any guarantee that you will get the new banknotes.’

However, despite Ganduje’s objection, President Buhari had insisted on allowing Monday’s visit to go ahead.

Presidency sources had revealed that he was going there to have a number of projects run by the federal government.

But during Sunday’s visit to the president, Ganduje confirmed that he was leading the delegation to Daura on the issue of ongoing currency exchange and that he was happy with him.

He said, “Seeing is believing. You can see I led a powerful delegation from Kano State on the issue of new naira notes and we have spoken to Mr. President. We have lodged the complaints of the Kano people and we are very happy.

“He explained to us and he also assured us that the time will be extended and the amount of new naira (bills) will increase so that the suffering of the people will be reduced.

“We told him that Kano is the most populous state in the federation and also the commercial nerve center of the northern part of Nigeria, after Lagos.

“But in terms of cash transactions, Kano is much higher than Lagos because Lagos has gone far in terms of cashless society, cashless transactions. But since Kano State is relatively a rural state, we still have 24 local governments with no banks. Most banks are concentrated in the Kano metropolis.

“So you can imagine the suffering of the rural areas, rural people in terms of cash transactions. But we are happy that the time has been extended and the number of naira notes will also be increased.

“So we’re so thankful to the president for the effort.”