Kano approves N8.9bn for proposed Buhari interchange

Kano State government has approved the release of N8.98bn for the construction of Muhammadu Buhari Interchange at NNPC Mega station, Rotary Intersection, Hotoro, along Maiduguri Road in the metropolis.

Recall that Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje had recently visited President Muhammadu Buhari and presented the prototype of a three-level road interchange along Kano-Maiduguri road which will be named after the president.

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The development had elicited criticism from a former governor of the state, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, who faulted the rationale behind the construction of the flyover.

Kwankwaso had said in an interview with BBC Hausa Service on Friday, that “even though we need flyovers in Kano but what people need the most in the state is education.

“They need to focus more on our children to be educated and get entrepreneurial skills to depend on themselves.

“Instead of Ganduje to go and see the president and ask him to do the bridge, because it is the responsibility of the Federal Government to do the flyovers connecting Kano city to Wudil, the governor went ahead and presented a photo that was badly designed which even the president did not understand and have something better in his office,” Kwankwaso added.

However, the state’s Commissioner for Information, Malam Muhammad Garba, in a release Tuesday, said “being an emerging mega city and important commercial centre in the country, Kano has been recording significant increase in the influx of commercial traffic and therefore need to redesign and improve existing road networks to support additional volumes of generated traffic in order to allow for safer and more efficient vehicular movements.”

He said the approval for the release of N8,980,303,460.63 was part of the outcome of the weekly council meeting where other approvals were made.

He said the project was part of the present administration’s commitment to construct road networks to address increasing traffic congestion in line with its policy of transforming Kano into a Mega City as well as boost commercial activities.