EXCLUSIVE: Ganduje orders emergency allocation of land to Kano INEC officials
By Ibrahim Sha’ban
The
governor of Kano State, Abdullahi Ganduje, has ordered speedy
allocation of lands to officials of the Independent National Electoral
Commission, INEC in Kano State ahead of the March 9 governorship
election, DAILY NIGERIAN can report.Credible sources told this
newspaper that the governor granted the approval to “some top officials”
of INEC on the eve of the general election.Weeks to the general
election, leaked copies of the application forms obtained by DAILY
NIGERIAN revealed that Mr Ganduje, on February 5 directed the Permanent
Secretary of the Kano State Bureau for Land Management, Muhammad
Yusuf-Danduwa to process the allocation.The governor is the de
facto commissioner of Land since the integration of the Ministry of
Lands and Physical Planning with Kano Geographic Information System,
KANGIS, in June 2007, which gave birth to the Kano State Bureau for Land
Management.But most of the allocation forms seen by DAILY
NIGERIAN contained minutes of the governor giving directive to the
permanent secretary to “process early”.Already, sources said,
the allocations for the plots at at Umarawa, Bandirawo and other places
have been approved by the governor.When contacted for comment,
Mr Yusuf-Danduwa neither picked our reporter’s call nor responded to a
text message seeking his reaction to the last-minute allocations to the
electoral officials.
INEC spokesman in Kano, Garba Lawan, said he would direct DAILY
NIGERIAN inquiry to the Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, Riskuwa
Shehu, “in a short while”.
But several calls to the INEC spokesman two hours after the first inquiry have not been responded to.
Mr
Ganduje is facing a supplementary election tomorrow (Saturday) with his
major contender, Abba Kabir-Yusuf of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
The
re-run election would take place in 28 local government areas, with 75
registration points in 207 polling units whose results were all
cancelled.
A total of 128,324 registered voters are expected to participate in the rerun elections in all the affected areas.
Source:- DailyNigerian
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