Sultan of Sokoto Saad Abubakar congratulates Kwankwaso after formally opening the coronation hall

Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, governor of Kano state, used the occasion of the coronation of the Emir Muhammed Sanusi, to reel out the achievements of his administration the past three years and nine months.

“Let me use this opportunity to underscore some of the various accomplishments we have been able to achieve in the last three and a half years or so. We began by improving our internal revenue base from 400 million to about 2billion naira. We also avoided frivolous expenditures by MDA’s and cut recurrent expenditures saving up to N500 million monthly. We have passed legislations ranging from the ban on street begging, street hawking and stray animals on our streets. We have also implemented policies and social reform programmes like the mass wedding programme, house numbering and street naming exercise and other empowerment initiatives anchored by the Community Reorientation Committee (CRC) and our 26 manpower development institutes like the Reformatory, Corporate Security, Sports, Hospitality and Tourism etc. So far over 360 thousand women and youth have benefitted from these programmes.

“Furthermore, we established 44 Garment Industries one in each of the LGA of the State and to give our young entrepreneurs access to finance; we established 37 Micro-finance Banks in 37 Local Government Areas. We also made available a 6 billion-naira soft loan scheme. Where the State Government provided N3 billion while the Central Bank, Banks of Agriculture and Bank of Industry provided N3 billion. It is worthy to mention that our Emir Muhammad Sanusi II was instrumental in the actualization of these loan schemes. Other development endeavours in order to improve and expand our infrastructures,included the dualisation of all major road networks and putting up security plazas on all roads leading into Kano. We are also constructing 5km dualised road with street light in each of the 44 Local Government Areas of the State.

“We have also constructed three flyovers, two of which have been commissioned and the third is nearing completion. This is in addition to underpasses and overhead pedestrian bridges at different locations of the city. We have also reconstructed some of the old city gates, established 3 new modern cities namely Kwankwasiyya, Amana and Bandirawo; laid about 200km of 400 – 1000 D.I pipes to ensure enough water supply to the State; we are constructing a 35MW Independent Power Project at Challawa-Gorge and Tiga Dams. We are glad that today Kano is adjudged to be the most lit State in Nigeria.

“The people of Kano are also living witnesses to how our administration has achieved remarkable feats in the area of Education where we established the University of Science and Technology Wudil in our first tenure in 2001 and the North West University in our second term in 2012. We were also able to construct a Main campus and other faculties including a Medical College for the new University. Our administration also converted most of abandoned public buildings into model secondary schools, which includes Governor’s College, Janbaki Girls College and First Lady College. We also and re-introduced Boarding Primary School along with 2 Bi-lingual Colleges in Niamey and Damagaran in Niger Republic. To accommodate the rising number of our school enrolment figures, which rose from 1 – 3million; we constructed and furnished over 3000 classrooms and completed 1000 abandoned classes.

“We also equipped 300 science school laboratories and 100 libraries and computer rooms. Our concerted effort towards encouraging our people to acquire education was what led us to declare free education at all levels from primary to tertiary. We were also able to sponsor over 2,600 postgraduate and undergraduate students to study in 14 countries around the world and I am glad that a good percentage of these students have already graduated with excellent results.We have also been able to bring about a positive attitudinal change in our people. Our young men and women now hold jobs that were considered menial like security guard and taxi driving with pride and dignity.

” While our administration strives to continue to consolidate on these achievements, we expect the traditional institution to complement our efforts in that direction by constant sensitization and enlightenment of the citizens on governments’ laudable policies and programmes. In this respect and in the trying moment of security challenges, we call on the cooperation of the traditional institution to continue supporting Government in the maintenance of public order and security, which include intelligence sharing and monitoring.