Ganduje steps up road construction and refuse collection in area affected by supplementary election

KANO State's Governor Abdullahi Ganduje has stepped up the construction of infrastructural projects in the Nassarawa Local Government Area of the state where supplementary elections are due to take place on march 23 in a desperate bid to win over voters.

On March 9, voters in Kano went to the polls to elect a new governor and members of the state house of assembly but due to irregularities, the Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec), declared the polls inconclusive. Due to a series of malpractices, including ballot box snatching, over-voting and violence, results from several polling stations were cancelled and Inec now plans to have a re-run in these areas.

As is the case in five other states, Inec plans to hold supplementary elections on March 23 in the affected local government areas before declaring the winner. So far, Abba Kabir-Yusuf of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is leading the race with 1,020,465 votes, while Governor Ganduje is in second place with 987,459 votes.

Desperate not to lose the election, Governor Ganduje is exploiting his power of incumbency to the maximum by embarking on massive projects in the Gama ward of Nassarawa Local Government Area. At least three projects, comprising refuse evacuation, the mass drilling of boreholes and road reconstruction have been launched within the community over the last three days.

Gama’s result was cancelled on March 9 following an attack on the local government’s collation centre on March 11 led by top officials of the Abdullahi Ganduje administration. Apparently, the attack was believed to have been led the Kano State deputy governor, Nasiru Gawuna, who had to be taken away by the police afterwards.

In the aftermath of the fracas, Alhaji Murtala Garo, the Kano State commissioner for local government and chieftaincy affairs and the chairman of the local government area, Lamin Sani, were arrested by the police at the scene. later, the police issued a statement confirming the involvement of Messrs Garo and Sani, promising to charge them to court after investigation.

Gama, a densely populated area of Kano metropolis, is bedevilled by a number of infrastructural and development challenges, which is why Governor Ganduje is very unpopular in the area. On Friday, refuse vehicles were dispatched to the area to evacuate long-abandoned dump sites, while yesterday, two other projects sprang up, including an asphalt overlay on Gama’s main artery, Audu Utai Road and the digging of at least 11 boreholes in the area.

Local resident Auwal Danlarabawa, said: “These refuse sites have been a source of concern to us. From time to time they would come and pick a bit of it and leave but it seems this time around they would do it all before the elections.

“Within just today, the road is almost completed. They started from early in the day.”

Activists have condemned Governor Ganduje’s action with one of them describing it as mass bribery and a clear case of voter inducements. Also, Governor Ganduje's All Progressives Congress has been accused of commissioning women who go door to door to buy votes from people in areas affected by the rerun.

On Wednesday, the police announced the arrest of three men and two women on allegations of buying voters card at a cost of between N500 and N3,000. They, however, did not reveal the party or the identity of the accused persons.

Lawyer and activist Abba Hikima, said: “The ongoing road project in Gama is everything voter inducement is. You can also conveniently describe it as vote-buying because even in the law, an apparently lawful act can becomes an illegality if done with bad motive.

“The Gama people were left by Ganduje’s government to tread a dirty, muddy road all through the rainy months of June through August despite calls and pleas, only for them to wake to up to this rushed project.”

Mohammed Garba, the Kano State information commissioner, however, said the timing of the projects was purely coincidental. He added that having awarded contracts for the projects earlier, their implementation was affected by the elections.