The Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, has on Wednesday 6th February, 2019 approved the Sani Abacha Stadium for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rally. As a result he has ordered the contractor handling the renovation of the stadium to temporarily suspend work to allow the campaign rally of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar who is the presidential candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to hold in the stadium.
Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje who is the governor of Kano State under the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) granted this approval in a statement signed by the Commissioner for Information, Muhammad Garba, on Wednesday. He however stated that this directive does not affect the ongoing overhaul of the indoor sports complex currently ongoing in the stadium.
The contractor has in this approval been informed to remove all its equipment from the stadium until the end of the PDP rally. The state-owned football team, Kano Pillars has also been notified to relocate to the Pillars Stadium, Sabo Gari for their training session for the meantime until the end of the PDP rally in the stadium.
Prior to this approval, the acting chairman of the PDP in Kano, Rabiu Bichi, had earlier on Wednesday accused the state government of embarking on the renovation to deny PDP access to the stadium. The stadium had earlier been used for the President Muhammadu Buhari’s presidential rally in the state.
The government of the state has stated that the renovation of the stadium was aimed at giving the stadium a face-lift. It included the installation of the new scoreboard, running track and provision of sources for steady water supply.
The governor made clarifications that the PDP had slated February 2 for the rally, which informed government’s decision delay to mobilisation of the contractor only for the party to fix another date for the campaign rally when the contractor had already moved to site.
The governor stated that as a true democrat who believes in freedom of association, he did not order the closure of the stadium to frustrate the campaign rally of the PDP. The stadium only closed for the intended renovation works and wished the PDP a successful outing.
The governor also urged the leadership of the party to ensure orderliness during the event in order to avert the destruction of facilities at the stadium in order not to further deteriorate the facilities in the stadium.
