– As Gov Ganduje assures support, cooperation
By Ismail Auwal
African Development Bank (AfDB) set to spend the sum of One Hundred and Ten Million Dollar ($110m) for rural roads, transport infrastructure, water and sanitation and agricultural productivity.
This was disclosed by the President of African Development Bank, Dr Akinwumi Adesina when he paid a condolence visit to the governor of Kano state, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, over the death of Sani Dangote, at Africa House, Government House, Kano, Saturday.
He said “We are using $110m to Kano for our programme on Special Agricultural Industrial Processing Zone. We are in all, having about $563m that will be dedicated to that project in various states of Nigeria.
With this $110m that will be used for Kano state just imagine what we could do. Investing in rural roads, investing in transport infrastructure, investing in water and sanitation and we also invest in agricultural productivity to raise production of food.
And we are processing adding value and lots of hundreds of thousands of jobs because of that.”
After commending the transformation of the state by Ganduje administration, Dr Adesina said he was pleased to discuss with the governor around the work of African Development Bank in the state.
Dr Adesina reveals further that, “With this programme of hundreds of US Dollars, will help develop consolidated infrastructure in rural areas.
That will allow private sector food and agribusiness companies to reduce the amount of losses they have, create more competitive value chain, transform the rural areas from the zones of misery to the zone of economic prosperity. And to increase the amount of resources the state has.”
In his response governor Ganduje thanked the AfDB President for the new development and assured his total support and cooperation for successful implementation of the project at all levels.
He said “This is what we mean by genuine development, when institutions are strengthened and individuals or collections of individuals are rightly directed.”
Governor Ganduje also thanked the AfDB President for appreciating development in the state. That “We thank you for appreciating our modest development since we came into office 2015.”
Explaining that “I was Commissioner for Works, Housing and Transport for six years during Military administration. So I am conversant with the Master Plan of Kano. And I am conversant with the features of Mega Cities, Smart Cities.
So my dream is to promote Kano into a Mega City. And a Mega City is not only a collection of population. It is a collection of an environment where things are working, where traffic flows, where health services are excellent and aimed at reducing medical tourism abroad and where you can have security using technology.”
