EXECUTIVE lawlessness is on display in Kano, where Governor Abba Yusuf, fresh from his inauguration, immediately launched a spate of demolition of public and private property in the historic city. At the last count, he had levelled a recently built roundabout and attached monument, several commercial buildings, houses, a petrol station and one hotel. An NGO assesses the value of the properties so far destroyed at over N200 billion and counting. Governance is anchored on law and due process. Therefore, Yusuf should be compelled to act only within the law.
Governance in Nigeria is becoming bizarre. Just as President Bola Tinubu departed from his prepared inauguration speech to pronounce an immediate end to petrol subsidies, triggering higher inflation and chaotic fuel queues in his first hour in office, Yusuf’s inaugural speech contained a directive to law enforcement agencies to immediately take over all land and properties allegedly illegally sold to “cronies and agents” of the preceding administration.
Within 72 hours, the bulldozers were out in force, pulling down structures. Having revoked ownership and allocation papers, buildings were hastily marked for destruction. First to go were four properties, including a three-storey complex with 90 shops near the Nasarawa GRA, the three-star Daula Hotel reconstructed by the Abdullahi Ganduje administration under a Public-Private Partnership arrangement, a building at the Hajj Camp, and a complex of shops at the Kantin Kwari textile market.
Many more followed. Yusuf possibly has a strong case, but he is going about it with impunity and without regard for due process. He anchors his stance on otherwise credible grounds. He accused his predecessor of improperly selling off public land, including around schools, religious and cultural sites, hospitals, graveyards, and green areas and along the famous Kano City Wall heritage sites. This is plausible as the Ganduje government was also noted for its arbitrariness and was dogged by allegations of massive corruption.
To correct any such anomaly, however, all Yusuf needed to do was to follow due process; establish the case by way of judicial or administrative inquiry, and criminal investigation, and then take possession or pull down, only after being duly empowered by the necessary legal instrument. Under Nigeria’s law, there are clearly laid down legal procedures for recovering, seizing, or demolishing illegally acquired public assets. The onus now lies on Yusuf to prove that he followed the law.
The damage has been extensive. Yusuf reportedly personally led some of the demolition operations, fuelling allegations that he is out for vendetta. The state government arbitrarily demolished the N160 million roundabout and monument near the Government House that was built to commemorate the state’s 50th anniversary.
Underscoring the prevailing culture of lawlessness, religious exclusivity and intolerance by successive Kano State governments, its spokesman said the roundabout had to go because it had what it termed a “Christian symbol.” Another structure in the city was brought down for the same “offence” of having a symbol that resembled a cross, adjudged to be a Christian emblem.
Two persons taking refuge in the skeleton of the demolished Daula Hotel died and several others were injured. Some of the affected residents are now homeless and traders are counting their losses.
While it is proper for government to recover public assets improperly given away, or to reclaim public land converted to other uses, the governor should have explored the legal route. The Coalition for Good Governance and Change Initiative, an NGO that organised a protest march last week, accused Yusuf of destroying property worth N226 billion within just three weeks in office!
Nigeria is not new to governors impatient with due process. Ex-governors of Rivers and Kaduna states, Nyesom Wike, and Nasir el-Rufai respectively, are examples. In May 2020, Wike supervised the demolition of two hotels in Eleme and Onne for allegedly violating the state-wide ban on operations of hotels during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project and other rights groups described the governor’s action as unlawful and wicked.
El-Rufai took his penchant for demolishing buildings during his tenure as Federal Capital Territory Minister to Kaduna where he ordered several structures, including churches, demolished up till his last hours in office. Deaths and injuries attended the exercise in Gbagyi in the Chikun Local Government Area. Schools, residential buildings, and other structures belonging to the Islamic Movement in Nigeria and its members were levelled. The restaurant of a lady in Kaduna wrongly alleged to be the venue of a planned “sex party” was brought down despite evidence of the falsehood of the allegation.
In January 2020, a building used by political opponents in Ilorin, Kwara State, was demolished by the Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq administration after the land title was revoked on the grounds of illegal allocation.
Governors should be upholders of the rule of law. It took a motion ex-parte instituted at the Federal High Court in Kano by a citizen, Saminu Muhammad, to stop Yusuf from further demolition of structures and property in the state. Some aggrieved victims of the Kano demolitions have also gone to court to seek redress; others should follow. Nigerians should constantly resist tyranny and executive highhandedness using all legal means.
The Kano State House of Assembly should shun partisanship and intervene on the side of the law. If it is established that public land was indeed illegally sold or converted to private use, the state should use all lawful means to recover them and prosecute the perpetrators. In doing so, all functionaries must act within the law.
There are diverse challenges confronting Kano State, which Yusuf should tackle frontally – illiteracy, child begging, drug abuse, poverty, and unemployment. The state has over three million out-of-school children, the highest in the country, while 10.5 million residents, representing 66.3 percent of the population, are multi-dimensionally poor, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. State governments should tighten the laws on illegal land acquisition and discourage arbitrary building on public land. Meanwhile, victims of the demolition should seek redress and compensation in the courts.
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