•••SAYS BUHARI CAN NOW VISIT
The Governor of Kano State, Umar Ganduje, on Sunday changed his mind that President Muhammad’s Buhari can now visit the state.
Ganduje made the u-turn after advising the President to call off his planned visit to the state on Sunday as a fall out of the harsh effects of the implementation of the Naira redesign policy.
The latest position was taken after the Governor led stakeholders to a meeting with President Buhari in Daura, Katsina State.
He said that the state was prepared to receive the President as a lot of state-of-the-art projects’ have been lined up for him to commission.
Ganduje had said during an interactive session with critical stakeholders in the state that he asked the President to put the planned visit on hold because of security reasons and the hardship foisted on the people by the Naira redesign deadline.
Present at the meeting were academics, lawmakers, political leaders, and members of the state’s business community.
The spokesman to the governor, Mallam Abba Anwar said in a statement on Sunday the Naira redesign policy had caused serious suffering in the state with many of the villages without any bank.
“Deeply concerned with the hardship caused by limited time given for halting use of old Naira notes by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and for security reasons, the 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 be postponed.
“As we are waiting for this important visit, we found ourselves in this situation, which puts citizens into untold hardship. For security purpose we wrote to Presidency that President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to Kano be postponed.
“We got an acknowledgement copy of the letter. People are really suffering because of this policy.
“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 statement read
The Network gathered that the President insisted on the visit in spite of the objections as he wants to commission some projects implemented by the federal government.
However, the Kano Governor said that
he led a delegation to Daura to discuss the harsh effect of the Naira redesign deadline on his people.
According to him, the President listened to the delegation and gave the assurance that there would be an extension.
He said: “Seeing is believing. You can see that I have led a powerful delegation from Kano State on the issue of new naira notes and we have seen Mr. President. We have laid the complaints of the Kano people and we are very happy.
“He explained to us and also he assured us that the time is extended and the quantity of new naira (notes) will increase so that the suffering of the people will be reduced.
“We informed him that Kano is the most populous state in the federation and also the commercial nerve center of the northern part of Nigeria, second to Lagos.
“But in terms of cash transaction, Kano is much higher than Lagos because Lagos has gone far in terms of cashless society, cashless transaction. But Kano State being comparatively a rural state, so to say, still we have 24 local governments without banks. Most of the banks are concentrated within Kano metropolitan.
“So, you can imagine the suffering of the rural areas, rural people in terms of cash transaction. But we are happy that the time has been extended and also the quantum of the naira notes will be increased.
“So, we are so grateful to the President for effort.”
