Ganduje makes U-turn, says Buhari free to visit Kano as planned

Barely few hours after Kano State Governor, Umar Ganduje advised President Muhammadu Buhari against visiting his state, he has now rescinded his early decision, saying the president was now free to go ahead with his scheduled Monday visit to the state.

He changed his mind after he led a delegation from the state to meet with President Buhari in his country home in Daura, Katsina State on Sunday.

According to Ganduje, “We are now ready to receive him and we have a lot for him to commission including federal government projects and state government projects. They are state-of-the-art projects”.

Ganduje, had in an interactive session with some stakeholders including scholars, legislators, political leaders and business community in the state, revealed that his government had requested the President to postpone the trip, saying that the state was deeply concerned about the hardship principally induced by the ongoing cash swap from old to redesigned notes.

He said the decision was taken to avoid any unforeseen circumstance.

Consequently, the state government wrote a letter to the President outlining the reasons why the planned visit is no longer auspicious at this time.

In a statement issued on Saturday by Abba Anwar, Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, the decision to advise the President against the visit was endorsed by the critical stakeholders of the state.

The statement by the governor’s spokesman reads in parts: “Deeply concerned with the hardship caused by limited time given for halting use of old Naira notes by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and for security reasons, the 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 be postponed.

“As we are waiting for this important visit, we found ourselves in this situation, which puts citizens into untold hardship. For security purpose we wrote to Presidency that President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to Kano be postponed