The Kano State governor-elect, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of the All Progressives Congress, APC and Deputy Governor to Governor Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso spoke to journalists on how he intends to move on with the Kwankwassiyya philosophy which is gradually putting Kano on the front pew of a mega city. MADUABUCHI NMERIBEH was there…

How were you able to defeat your major opponent with such a wide margin?

I have to thank the Almighty Allah for sparing our lives and allowing us to conduct a peaceful election in Kano state; and I will like to appreciate the contributions of various communities in Kano State and the people of Kano state who stood by me—I thank you very much for assisting and facilitating the conduct of peaceful election in Kano state.

We are very grateful to the various segments of the society. I will like to thank members of the security agencies for conducting themselves in a very civilized manner. I will also like to appreciate staff of the INEC for conducting themselves and their activities according to the law—and in particular, for insisting on the use of the card-reader machines and for reporting to the polling units early enough, carrying all necessary materials needed for the election; conducting the election in a very peaceful way and collating the results in a very transparent manner.

Also, I appreciate the role of the youths for being peaceful and for coming out en masse to vote for us; we know that even those who are not in our party voted for us. This is a very historic occasion here in Kano; and I think our contribution to democracy has to be acknowledged in Nigeria today, because we contributed the highest votes during the presidential election—1.93 million; we won all the three senatorial districts; we won all the 24 House of Representatives seats; we won the governorship election and we also won all the 40 state House of Assembly seats. Previously, we conducted local government elections and we won all the 44 chairmanship seats and also all the 484 councillors were won by our great party—the APC.

So, our own victory here in Kano is from top to bottom—it is homogenous! I have to thank His Excellency, Engr. Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso, the executive governor of Kano state for providing a good leadership that set the foundation for the consolidation of the Kwankwassiyya Movement in Kano state that gave birth to a very highly committed team who worked together and were able to transform Kano into a very appreciable position that can be seen and commended by everybody today. So, I have to thank the executive governor of Kano and congratulate him on winning the election as senator-elect for Kano Central, under the APC. I am also grateful to my friends in the opposition who I am convinced used their PVC to support my victory at the polls. I am set to run an open door government where everybody’s advice would count; but at the end, we will always go back to the drawing board and make the best decisions for the interest and development of the state and betterment of our people.

People have continued to wonder how you have been able to sustain long political relationship with Governor Kwankwaso?

Our own is different because the executive governor and I have been together for a very long time. Specifically, in 1999, we were together—he was the governor of Kano state, I was his Deputy. When we lost election in 2003, he was appointed Minister of Defence of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and I was his adviser. When he contested election again in 2011, he nominated me as his running-mate, we won the election and I became his deputy. Also my nomination as the APC gubernatorial candidate is historic.

Why do you describe your nomination as historic?

It is historic because we believe in continuity. If you follow the trend, you will understand that we believe that the issue of continuity is very important, therefore, with my huge success in this election, my primary objective is to ensure that there is continuity, because lack of continuity has remained a problem in most state governments in Nigeria, even at the federal level. We have a situation whereby if you have a new administration, the trend is that you have to discard whatever was done by the previous administration because you want to start your own, forgetting that it is public funds that is being used to do whatever that is being done; and it is the responsibility of government to continue with such programmes and policy that are favourable to the people.

•Abdullahi Umar Ganduje

What is your major policy thrust?

You see, we are going to consolidate on what is already on ground. That means that all the projects that are not completed, we will put in efforts to complete them, the ones that are completed will be put into operation, we will maintain them so that the overall development of Kano state can be achieved.

So, I assure you that all our major projects that we started and could not complete within the time frame of this administration, for example the N14 billion hydro electricity in Challlawa, we shall continue to work on it, until we complete it and connect it to the national grid. Also another major project that is yet to be completed is the two kilometer flyover in Sabon Gari, we shall make effort to complete it; and then another major project which costs over N10 billion is the Jakara road project.

Of course, another one is our advancement in education. We will maintain the tempo. In particular, my emphasis will be on quality education and to ensure that education is made compulsory for all Kano state children so that the issue of roaming about of Almajiris is completely stamped out. Quality of education is very important because it is a vehicle upon which our children will be encouraged to further their education and it is also a vehicle through which our children can be efficient and effective, so, we will examine that issue very seriously.

I will also look into the critical infrastructure for Kano metropolis and also the rural area. Kano is assuming a position of a mega-city and a mega city should be a city where things are working. So, we shall take seriously the issue of transportation within metropolitan Kano. In terms of the road network, we are going to review the Kano master plan. It has been a long time that the master plan of Kano has not been reviewed, so, we shall look into that because there are new settlements and there is need for re-alignment; and there is a need to identify critical areas where we need flyovers, under-pass, where we need completely new roads to connect different communities and where we need to rehabilitate some of the roads. More so, we are going to come up with very articulated transport policy so that our traffic can flow easily and to ensure that all the infrastructure that are necessary to control the traffic will be put in place like the traffic light, like the road furniture, and people who are controlling the traffic. Also another critical infrastructure that should be put in place in metropolitan Kano is water supply. Already, there is a gigantic one going on; the plants are there but we shall be able to complete the laying of the pipes so that we shall be able to achieve even distribution of water to Kano metropolis.

Another critical issue is that of security. Security is important for an emerging megacity like Kano. We shall continue to work closely and cooperate with security agencies. We shall also strengthen the Security Trust Fund. We shall make that policy functional. We shall make the Board of Trustee independent so that they can be able to collaborate with the private sector and source some funds to ensure that the entire necessary infrastructure for security within the metropolitan Kano will be provided, particularly, the CCTV cameras and other necessary infrastructure that are needed to keep the metropolitan Kano safe.

Also, we shall look into the areas of human development, such as areas of health to see that the less privileged ones are given adequate attention; to see that the health sector is generally improved to world standard so that we can discourage people from travelling abroad for medical treatment. Already the present administration has laid a good foundation for that. We are going to emphasize on the primary health care because we know that prevention is better than cure; and considering that we have a very high population, the probability of our people contracting infectious disease is very high—so we will be looking at the preventive aspect so that we can save our people.

For the rural areas, what we are going to adopt is integrated rural development. I will look into the road networks of the rural areas so that the new settlements there can be connected to other communities. You know, many of the roads there are dilapidated; some places require some bridges; and we shall see how we can improve the road networks within the rural areas.

Very importantly, agriculture is the strongest opening for economic empowerment, especially, here in Kano. We shall identify different agricultural groups to how we can improve the agricultural production, especially, to transform it into commercial agriculture. We shall took at the statistics of who are the real farmers so that we know the middle men who are making agriculture business very expensive. If we take the statistics; and using the modern technology, we shall find out the size of the farms so that each farmer will know the size of his farm, and we will know what are his requirements and we will see how that could be effective and efficient. For example, first of all, there must be improved seeds; and we shall establish centres for improved seeds so that our farmers can get optimum production The next thing I intend to do is to ensure that there is production of fertilizer, both during the dry season and during the rainy season, we will have fertilizer from our plant—KASCO; we shall see how KASCO can be put into optimal utilization. We may partner with the private sector or the government will put it in place; but the most important thing is that we shall see that the management of KASCO is very effective so that production of fertilizer will be almost 24 hours. As we intend to do this, we also intend to run away from the traditional system where fertilizer is only produced on subsidy. What we plan to do is to identify those farmers that will require subsidy and we will give them fertilizer with subsidy; and at the same time, we will identify those who can buy our fertilizer at the normal price. Another area is irrigation; already, we have a number of dams, we shall see how we can put them into use. We have network of rivers and streams, what we intend to do is to produce a master plan for our rivers, to see how our rivers can criss cross within Kano state; and to also find out the level of underground water, because underground water is very important for irrigation; so we shall find out different locations of underground water in Kano and see how best we can utilize our rivers in Kano and see how we can work together to provide facilities for farmers and the rural people. I think if we do that, the influx of the rural people to the urban areas will be drastically reduced.

We shall look into the health facilities within the rural areas. Already, we have achieved a lot on eradication of polio; we shall continue to do that until we are certified polio-free in Kano state—and not only polio but also other infectious diseases. Most importantly, we must emphasize routine immunization so that whenever we have new born children, they are being immunized.

Also, in terms of revenue generation, we have to look inwards. We shall not always depend on stipends that come from Abuja. When we look inwards, we have to be careful so that the less-privileged will not be unduly taxed, we shall target those citizens who have enough assets and have not been able to give back to the state what they have gotten from it. We are not charging anything extra, but we will see how we can get the best. Most importantly, we will try to block leakages in delivery and also in government expenditure. We shall look into our budget in order to maintain good relationship between the recurrent and the capital expenditure. We are going to be transparent and we shall continue the practice of publicizing our council proceedings.

We shall also insist on people to be law abiding, because whatever you do if people are not law, abiding, you will find it very difficult to succeed. I will also find out specifically our women folk—what are the real issues concerning them and what can we do to assist our women in Kano state because of their contribution to democracy. Also, we shall look into the problems of how we can empower the youths, how we can assist our youths in terms of education. Apart from laying emphasis on quality education, also we are laying emphasis on technical education.