Kano cancels Buhari’s visit to avoid possible protest

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By Ismail Auwal

Kano State Governor Abdullahi Ganduje has announced the cancellation of President Muhammadu Buhari’s planned visit to the state in response to residents’ complaints about the difficulty in obtaining new naira notes.

The governor on Saturday said lawmakers from the state, political leaders, and business community backed the decision to postpone the planned visit while urging for the extension of the deadline to return old naira notes.

“Deeply concerned with the hardship caused by the limited time given for halting the use of old Naira notes by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and for security reasons, Kano State governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje reveals that the state resolved and wrote to Presidency that, the visit of the President to commission some projects to be postponed,” the governor’s media aide Abba Anwar said in a statement.

According to the statement said the decision was taken on Friday at the Government House during an interactive session with scholars, legislators, political leaders and the business community.

The decision was taken to avoid any unforeseen circumstance, the statement added.

The president was scheduled to visit the state between 30 and 31 January to commission some projects built by the Ganduje administration.

“As we are waiting for this important visit, we found ourselves in this situation, which puts citizens into untold hardship. For security purposes, we wrote to Presidency that President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to Kano is postponed.

“We got an acknowledgement copy of the letter. People are suffering because of this policy,” the governor said.

” During the meeting with sections of citizens in the state, they accepted that the decision was a unanimous one. As they all spoke in support of the letter sent to the Presidency.

“Two serving Senators from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Kabiru Ibrahim Gaya and Barau Jibrin, Twenty members of the House of Representatives and Thirty legislators from the State House of Assembly were amongst the groups that put their weight behind the governor.

“There are no banks in most of our rural communities. How these people get new Naira notes is of great concern. Just look at what is happening in our urban areas, people go and spend hours upon hours in banks. And without any assurances of getting the new notes,” the governor lamented.

“Even at Point of Sales (POS) according to the governor, one cannot transact with ease, hinting that, many of them closed shops due to uncertainty,” the governor added.

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