Loyalists of the former Kano State governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, have petitioned the Chinese government and China Development Bank not to grant the €684m request by the Kano State Government for the Light Rail Project.
Kwankwaso’s loyalists also lodged their petition with the Senate President, Ahmad Lawal; Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed; and Director-General of the Debt Management Office, Patience Oniha.
The former Kano governor’s loyalists, under the aegis of Kwankwasiyya Movement, expressed fears that such a loan would plunge the state into further indebtedness and mortgage the future of the present and incoming generations, whose lives were already threatened by immense poverty.
The group’s spokesperson, who was also the Peoples Democratic Party deputy governorship candidate in the 2019 election in Kano State, Aminu Abdulsalam, at a press briefing in Abuja, accused incumbent Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of embarking on what he described as a “reckless borrowing spree from both local and international financiers.”
“The Chinese Development Bank has been contacted via a petition in respect of the illegality and crass procedural violations by the state government; both the executive and the legislature. The attention of the Chinese Embassy in Nigeria has been drawn to the risks of the proposed transaction with Ganduje,” he said.
But on Monday, Kano State Government in a statement by the Commissioner for Information, Malam Muhammad Garba, vowed that it won’t allow the criticisms by the opposition to deter it from carrying out laudable projects aimed at transforming Kano into a Mega City.
Garba said since the foreign loan had already been approved by the China Export-Import Bank, “government would go ahead with the projects as the state lawmakers have recommended the contractor, Messrs CR18G-CRCEGJV, to commence with lot I, which starts from Dawanau Graiins Market-Bata, being Phase I of the project and to be completed within 20 months.”
