Ganduje urged to prioritise projects

A former governorship hopeful and a chieftain of the PDP in Kano State, Engineer Bashir Ishaq Bashir, has condemned some of the projects being executed by Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje as “misplacement of priorities.”

Speaking at the Kano Youth Summit on Peace Advocacy and Development organized by Hamisu Magaji Foundation, yesterday, the politician accused the Ganduje administration of prioritizing needless projects at the expense of education and health sectors.

He said education and health were the key sectors that any responsible government would focus on, because there could be no meaningful development without educated and a healthy population.

“For three years, the Kano state government earmarked 11, 12 and 13 per cent of its budget to education while the health sector got six, seven and eight per cent successively. But infrastructure took the lion share with 45 to 55 per cent of these budgets. This is wrong because education and health are critical to the development of any society followed by agriculture and commerce,” he said.

“You are building a flyover bridge at Dangi roundabout while primary school buildings are crumbling and pupils do not have uniforms and books. In the area of health, patients are dying at the state’s teaching hospital and other hospitals due to kidney failure because they cannot afford the high cost of dialysis.

Women are battling breast cancer and nothing is being done to alleviate the suffering. But you are busy building roads and bridges. This is wrong,” Bashir added.

Bashir had vied for the governorship seat of the state against Ganduje in 2015 under the platform of the then People’s Democratic Movement (PDM); and thereafter defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).