President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to Kano State yesterday was uneventful as some angry youths hauled missiles at his advance convoy despite the presence heavily-armed security personnel stationed across the Kano metropolis.
Recall that the governor of Kano State, Mr. Abdullahi Ganduje had asked Buhari to defer his January 30 and 31 planned visit to the state due to insecurity and complaints from locals about difficulty in swapping the old N200, N500 and N1, 000 notes for the new ones.
The governor made the request in a letter to the president in a statement signed issued in Kano by Ganduje’s media aide, Mr. Abba Anwar.
The statement said the decision was taken on Friday, January 27 at the government house during an interactive session with scholars, legislators, political leaders and the business community.
According to Anwar, 52 lawmakers made up of two serving senators from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), 20 house of representatives members and 20 legislators from the state house of assembly attended the meeting and okayed the decision.
The governor was quoted as saying that lawmakers from the state, political leaders, and the business community backed the decision to postpone the planned visit while urging for the extension of the deadline to return the 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.
“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.”
In one of the videos that have gone viral, irate youths were shown pelting stones at the helicopter believed to be conveying the president.
In another video, urchins were seen struggling with some unidentified security agents while a convoy made its way through their midst.
Yet, another video showed a road littered with stones while teargas canisters were being fired to disperse the angry mob.
The protesting youths were also heard chanting “ba mu so” (we don’t want) as they set a bonfire of tires along Hotoro Road where the president had left after commissioning the Muhammadu Buhari Interchange.
In spite of the protests, the president inaugurated some projects including the Dala Inland Dry Port hosted by Kano State government in collaboration with the federal government, the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA)-funded 10MW Haske Solar Plant in Kumbotso local government area, and the Family Homes Funds Estate, Darmanawa, Kano, which consists of 469 affordable housing units with ancillary infrastructure.
Speaking at a State Banquet in Kano at the end of the visit Buhari was quoted in a statement by his spokesman, Mr. Femi Adesina, as saying “we have a great country but we do not appreciate it until we visit our neighbours and other countries where the preoccupation is for people to have one good meal a day.
The president also said he was impressed by the infrastructural development in Kano.
“When I fly by helicopter, the number of high-rise buildings I see and the amount of development on the ground are fantastic. We thank God,” he said.
He was also quoted as calling on the citizens to appreciate what they have as the situation in the country is not dire when compared with other countries.
On insecurity, the president alleged that some foreign elements were part of the conspiracy that used Boko Haram to destroy the country.
“We have shown Nigerians and the rest of the world that we have so many natural resources. Boko Haram insurgents took over the control of 17 local governments in Borno State. Out of the 27 LGs in the state, 13 were under Boko Haram and only four were with the government.
“Half of Yobe State was in the hands of Boko Haram. I suspect there is an international group that wants to destroy Nigeria, if not how can Western education be Haram” he queried.
“I was a minister of petroleum when I was there for four years. Go to Chad Basin and see what we established there, and then you go to Sokoto Basin. So, we have to pray hard and also thank God.
“We fight for our land from the groups that are trying to destroy Nigeria, but we are very lucky. I am very happy that Nigerians showed me support, they identified with me and I identified with them also.”
Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) the attack on the president describing it as “organised.”
Spokesman for the party, Mr. Debo Ologunagba, said in a statement that the attack on the president was part of a plot by the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Party (APC), Mr. Bola Tinubu to undermine the presidency.
“This organised attack on the person of the President is outrightly treasonable and a sacrilegious assault on our national sovereignty which must be condemned by all.”
“Our Party is alarmed that this attack is part of APC Presidential Candidate’s alleged plot to undermine the Presidency, cause confusion, trigger violence in the country, disrupt the conduct of the 2023 general elections and derail our democracy; having realized that he cannot win in a peaceful, free and fair electoral process.
“More disquieting is the fact that the APC Presidential Campaign sought to humiliate and harm President Buhari while performing his official duties in Kano,” the party said.
Ologunagba also stated that Tinubu had not hidden his contempt for the president who had told Nigerians to vote for the candidate of their choice.
“It should be noted that the APC Presidential Candidate has been displaying open aversion and making inciting statements against President Buhari since Mr. President’s declaration, in line with democratic best practice all over the world that Nigerians should freely vote for any candidate and Party of their choice in the 2023 general elections.
“The apparent frustration of Asiwaju Tinubu to resort to encourage or condone violence is fueled by his entitlement mentality, that it is his turn to be President, despite his numerous ineligibility and disability baggage.
“Nigerians are reminded about Asiwaju Tinubu’s infamous statement in London where he declared to his supporters that “political power is not going to be served in a restaurant, it is not served a la carte. It is what we are doing; It is being determined; you do it at all cost; fight for it, grab it, snatch it and run with it”.
“Only recently, Asiwaju Tinubu further incited his followers against President Buhari at APC’s Presidential Rally in Abeokuta, Ogun State, where he accused Mr. President of attempting to subvert the electoral process.
“It is now clearer why the APC Presidential Candidate brazenly established a militia code-named “the Jagaban Army” which is designed to undermine our national security, unleash violence on institutions of democracy and disrupt the electoral process.
“The PDP counsels the APC Presidential Candidate to come to terms with the fact that Nigerians are determined to have free, fair and credible elections and that they are unwavering in their choice of the PDP presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar as the next President of our country.
“Asiwaju Tinubu should note that no threat by any means can divert Nigerians from the path to rescue and rebuild our nation; which aspiration is embodied in Atiku Abubakar,” it added.
Similarly, spokesperson for the presidential campaign council of the PDP Mr. Dino Melaye, blamed the attack on Tinubu.
“The fight between Tinubu and Buhari is entering a new dimension. The attack in Kano was properly coordinated and funded allegedly by Asiwaju.
“The meeting to push Buhari to submission or face sponsored attack in the north was said to be hatched in Burdillon. Me, I am busy with Atiku,” he wrote in a post.
A political activist, Deji Adeyanju, who shared another video of the reported attack, said, “They are showing Buhari and APC Shege in Kano and many northern states.”
In its reaction, the APC presidential campaign council described the allegations as “fake news.”
Spokesman for the PCC, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, said in a statement that the PDP was bereft of good things to tell Nigerians.
“We were not surprised to read of the imaginary attack on the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria being peddled by the Peoples Democratic Party since the party has nothing tangible to tell Nigerians from its crumbling Presidential Campaign.
“This invented attack on President Muhammadu Buhari must have happened only in the fertile imagination of PDP National Publicity Secretary, one Debo Ologunagba.
“Nigerians should disregard this fake news from a party that has lost touch with reality and is suffering the agony of violating its own rules on power rotation.
“Just as it has been masterminding fake news against the APC presidential candidate and trying vainly to cause disharmony in the APC family, we believe the party may have planned to embarrass President Buhari in Kano and then put the blame on host Governor Ganduje and Tinubu.
“This is because PDP has recently morphed from being a Buhari virulent critic to strangely becoming a Buhari spokesperson. The last time, it issued a self-serving misinterpretation of Asíwájú’s statement in Abeokuta as an attack on President Buhari.”
Onanuga further said the fear of impending defeat may have pushed the PDP “into frenzied hallucinatory mode of mindless, ridiculous, ludicrous litany of lies and fabrications against APC and its candidate.
“The PDP is a drowning party feverishly clawing at any straw of lies and lashing out in all delusional directions to keep afloat – but sink it will.
“We believe Nigerians are not taken in by the jejune antics.
“The PDP now runs the most unethical, pernicious and inelegant, abusive, obtrusive and nationally divisive campaign in the history of electioneering in Nigeria.”
