New Telegraph

Kano elders petition Buhari over Ganduje’s moves to borrow from China

Kano elders’ forum, the Kano Unity Forum, headed by a former presidential candidate of the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC), Alhaji Bashir Tofa, has petitioned President Muhammadu Buhari, the National Assembly, Federal Ministry of Finance, against moves by Governor Umar Ganduje to take a N300 billion loan from China. The elders expressed reservations about the insistence of the governor to obtain the loan from the China Development Bank to construct Phase 1 component of the light mono rail project in the state.

The petition, signed personally by elder statesman, Alhaji Bashir Othman Tofa, on behalf of Kano Unity Forum, which was made available to newsmen, explained that; “Save for few in official circles, nobody else knows the terms and conditions of the loan agreement,” adding that “the exact amount being borrowed is shrouded in secrecy. “The strongly-worded statement noted that; “A First Phase of the project, costing over N300 billion, or may be even the N828 billion mentioned by others, coming mostly from a foreign loan is mind-boggling, to say the least. A rethink is not only needed, but necessary.”

Tofa in the statement said “based on the analysis of the present indebtedness of Kano State as provided for by the Debt Management Office (DMO) in Nigeria, it is extremely difficult, almost impossible for Kano State to sustain any indebtedness beyond the current liability portfolio of the state.”The forum cautioned that; “It needs to be noted that a rail project is never a project to be put in haste as we observed that it is neither in the medium nor long term plans of the state government. The forum added that; “If indeed the Chinese want to genuinely help with cheap loans, they should be requested to support critical sectors such as education, health, agriculture, power, science and technology, infrastructure, industry and water supply,” adding that; “after all, the Chinese have become world leaders in these aspects of transformative development.”

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