Kaduna urban renewal: 150 trees cut down on one street

More than 150 trees have been cut down along one street in Kaduna to make way for the state government’s urban renewal project which commenced this year.

The trees were cut down along the popular Waff Road, Kaduna, which has popular spots like the Hamdala Hotel, Command Guest House and others.

The Kaduna Urban Renewal Project was launched by the state government to accelerate urbanisation of Kaduna City. which straddles four local government areas of Kaduna North, Kaduna South, Chikun and Igabi and is projected to be home to about half of the state’s population.

When our correspondent visited Waff Road in Kaduna North Local Government where work has begun to observed that, no fewer than 150 trees of different species have been put down while another 50 have been marked to be cut down.

The state governor, Malam Nasir el-Rufai, promised in his Tweeter handle, to plant more trees along the completed highways

The tweet read, “More trees will be planted on both sides and median of the dualised highways. We love trees in KDSG but the 60-year-old trees need to give way for wider roads. We explored excavation and replanting them but decided not to.”

An environmental expert, Jibril Suleiman, chairman of Metro Environmental Cleaning and Awareness Initiative, an NGO, when contacted, said tree cutting will resort to extreme weather situations like high temperature if more plants are not planted in urban areas.

“There are fewer trees in urban areas; more people in urban areas; and more pollution in urban areas; cutting down trees without immediate replacement will make the condition of the environment to be unbearable,” he said.

He said having trees everywhere is helping to stabilize the conditions of the environment, especially the protection it gives from climate change and global warming.”

“Advisably, the government should endeavour to plant more premature trees. Without trees, the condition of the environment will be worse,” he said.