Ganduje reverses his position and says Buhari is free to visit Kano as planned

Only a few hours after Kano State Governor Umar Ganduje urged President Muhammadu Buhari not to visit his state, he has now reversed his earlier decision, stating the president is now free to visit the state on Monday.

He changed his mind after leading a state delegation to President Buhari’s country house in Daura, Katsina State, on Sunday.

“We are now ready to greet him, and we have a lot for him to commission, including federal government projects and state government projects,” Ganduje said. They are cutting-edge projects”.

Ganduje revealed in an interactive session with some stakeholders in the state, including scholars, legislators, political leaders, and the business community, that his government had requested the President to postpone the trip, citing the state’s deep concern about the hardship caused by the ongoing cash swap from old to redesigned notes.

He stated that the decision was made to avoid any unexpected circumstances.

As a result, the state government issued the President a letter stating the reasons why the scheduled visit is no longer auspicious at this time.

The decision to advise the President against the visit was backed by the state’s major stakeholders, according to a statement published on Saturday by Abba Anwar, Chief Press Secretary to the Governor.

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

“As we are waiting for this significant visit, we find ourselves in this scenario, which puts citizens into unimaginable difficulty. We requested that President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to Kano be postponed for security reasons.

“We received a letter acknowledging copy. People are suffering as a result of this policy.

“Most of our rural communities have no banks. It’s unclear how these people will acquire new Naira notes. Just look at what’s going on in our cities: individuals are spending hours upon hours in banks. And with no guarantees of receiving the fresh notes.”

But despite the Governor’s objection, Buhari had made up his mind to go ahead with the Monday visit.

Presidency sources had disclosed that he would go there to commission some projects implemented by the federal government.

But during Sunday’s visit to the President, Ganduje affirmed that he led the delegation to Daura over the issue of the ongoing currency swap and was happy with him.

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.”