Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, governor of Kano State, has said that the Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso administration, in which he served as deputy governor, started selling government assets in the state.
Ganduje made this declaration in response to demands by the new government of Abba Kabir Yusuf of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) to investigate all purchases of government property by the Ganduje administration, which was stated in a recent viral tape.
WITHIN NIGERIA reports that the transition committee set up by Yusuf, a protégé of Kwankwaso, has issued “public warnings” to developers who purchased government properties to stop developing or working on the properties, implying that such sales will be reviewed when the governor-elect is sworn in on May 29.
In response to the governor-elect’s remarks, Governor Ganduje claimed that selling government assets was nothing new and that the governor-elect should go ask his political father (referring to Kwankwaso) how the programme was implemented.
Ganduje served as Kwankwaso’s deputy for two terms of 1999-2003 and 2011-2015 before succeeding him. They, however, fell out shortly into his first term.
In the now viral audio, Ganduje could be heard saying, “Kwankwaso and Ganduje’s government, we are the ones who brought that policy, we sold out houses, most of them to workers, some to politicians.
“They are saying that we have sold government houses not knowing that his father in politics, his grandfather in politics was the one who started selling government houses.
“If he said it’s not true, let him go to a radio station and will get the list of the government houses his grandfather sold. Government houses that his father in politics sold out. This is not the time to enter that chapter.
“If I am to call out names of senior government workers and politicians that bought government houses, we can spend the night counting.”
The governor added that the sale of government properties was “nothing new”, adding “it has not started now, will not stop now and it is not a crime.
“This is nothing new. I worked in Abuja, I resided in a government house and at last, the federal government sold it to me.”
The governor added, “From the Federal to state level, the government is no longer building houses for its workers to reside. The ones it has have been sold to workers. It is nothing new.
“Government workers residing in its houses, most of them have been sold but those who bought them couldn’t reside because government workers are occupying them.
“Because there are new houses, government workers are being transferred into these kinds of offices and leave the houses to those who bought them.”
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