The Administrator of Kaduna Capital Territory Authority (KCTA), Hafiz Bayero has warned politicians to desist from defacing walls and buildings with campaign posters and billboards or face punitive measures.
The Post no Bill order, in time past has been in existence in Kaduna State but implementation was not taken that seriously. However, as campaigns have resumed fully, the Administrator of KCTA said the government would ensure compliance to prevent walls and buildings in the state littered with posters and billboards.
“We are going to enforce it, if you’ve read our statement the first one issued sometime in June, just before the primary election period we mentioned that if you do that we would fine you, and if you persist we would go to your campaign office and close it down because you are defacing public infrastructure,” he said.
Hafiz Bayero who spoke in an interview at the weekend explained that the El-Rufai administration has spent a considerable amount of money trying to put Kaduna back to its glory days and even beyond, to take Kaduna to where it should be; and they would not go back to the days of pasting posters on the walls.
“As you can see since that first Post no Bill order, we have seen a considerable level of compliance For the first time today, you’re seeing people putting their banners at strategic corners and these banners are hung on the wall, they’re very visible. This is what we want to get, societies must continue to improve and must accept change.”
“If you go abroad you would see that they have this cardboard and they put it also on the ground. You would see it and you would know that this is the candidate and this is the party. It is even more legible. Most times these posters you can’t even read these unless you come close to the wall because they’re not even legible and they cost a lot of money; put together they cost more money than even the flex banners we have advised people to put.”
“So far the level of compliance, I would say is encouraging, but now we’re going to the election proper so this is the real test. We have issued another one and thankfully now the candidates have emerged. They are all going to have campaign offices because at that time during the primary election they didn’t have campaign offices, most of them. Now they are going to have campaign offices and by the time we close the first three offenders, you would see that people would begin to believe that we mean what we say, and when we say something we’re going to make sure we see it.”
“The city is for everybody, it is ours not just for the Administrator or for the Governor. We must all play our own part in preserving whatever it is that the government has invested money in, for our own enjoyment and well-being. So we would continue to monitor that and we would enforce it to ensure that we charge you the hefty penalty, and if you do it again we would proceed to close your campaign office.”
“Now, of course, people would do it and say it is not me; it is my supporter that did it I’m not aware of this thing. But we should all speak to our supporters to ensure people …did not print paper stickers and all these posters that we are used to. These banners are even more effective, they are even more efficient; even cost-wise and there are many areas where you can hang these pro bono without having to even print these posters”.
Commenting on strategies put in place to reduce accidents in the city and also, how they tackled the issue of flooding in some communities, Bayero said since the roads were reconstructed and new roads rebuilt, they became more motorable and people were enjoying them a bit too much.
“People started driving very fast on the roads. We had traffic lights that we thought would serve as a deterrent and something to bring some order to the chaos but people don’t obey traffic lights which are very regrettable. So we’ve gone ahead to put speed bumps which have resolved the problem by 90 per cent. At the end of December alone, we had seen about 18 accidents within the metropolis with so many loss of lives and these are lives that these roads were built for. We built these roads for them but they were no longer around to enjoy them because they were driving recklessly.”
“So it is our job to not only build roads but to ensure these roads are safe not only for the drivers but for even pedestrians. We are trying to encourage walking in our city, we are trying to encourage cyclists, people to cycle to work because that way they become fitter and they reduce the congestion on the road because they’re not carrying their cars. We are trying to encourage different modes of transportation to ensure there is no congestion”.
“Because the roads were newly built, they were nice to drive on, people began to Overspeed and began to have unintended consequences, killing themselves and killing pedestrians alike. So in addition to the traffic lights, we thought to quickly, in addition to traffic lights that have been deployed at almost every junction in Kaduna, we put speed bumps at every strategic junction to reduce the speed of cars approaching a junction…..Now we’ve reduced their speed, we can begin other enforcement of your other responsibilities, some of your laws by asking them if they have the registration particulars, etc Because it’s difficult at Junctions to enforce the laws because they’re too fast for you. But those speed breakers were able to reduce their speed and ensure that they arrive at the junction at a tolerable speed.”
On the flooding issue, the Administrator explained that “last year the Infrastructure Council in Kaduna had debated the consequences of the flooding and we spent a lot of time chlorinating wells and other water sources, trying to settle people that were victims and so many other issues that came about.”
“We had the cholera outbreak. I was not then, the Administrator but I had made a silent promise to myself in my mind that wherever I find myself, then I was the MD of Kaduna Markets Company, I said I would do my best to ensure that we put a strong committee that would look at this flooding and look at ways to ensure that it doesn’t happen this year.Or if it happens it is at a level that is acceptable. Because water and fire, sometimes you cannot control them whenever they go off.”
“So, coincidentally I was appointed the Administrator just a month after I had this thought. So drains and waterways within Kaduna city, are now the function of this office. So we are now in charge of ensuring that drains and waterways are free of any debris that would stop them from flowing. So of course in June we’ve commenced the desilting of major drainages in Kaduna in anticipation, at the beginning of June. At the end of June we had now deployed this company to come and dredge the river; the tributaries. About 21 tributaries of the river which are the areas that we now find this flooding.”
“You mentioned Kigo Road which sticks out like a sore thumb, you’ve behind Al-Mannar that is Link Road, you’ve part of Kabala; Costain, Kabala Shooting Range, you’ve part of Ramat Road by Unguwan Rimi,you now go further to Millennium City; Malali behind Isa Kaita Road,and by the Millennium City bridge you go further to Unguwan Dosa, and then Rafin Guza and if you come back on this side, Bachama Road, Hayin Malam Bello and the Rigasa areas have been victims of these flooding”.
“So we commenced the dredging of the tributaries in all these areas and it was not a one-off exercise,it was almost an everyday exercise because by dredging you’re opening up the areas where the water can access and be able to occupy the space that was hitherto not there, before or people had turned into farmlands. We had to destroy a few farmlands of people who were farming there but it was in the interest of the general public.”
“We would continue to promote activity that would ensure the safety of the generality of the people that live within our territory even at the expense of some of these things. Because anyway you don’t have permission to even farm there. Nobody gives you farmland there. These areas are flood plains but unfortunately, over time people had encroached and started building in these locations.”
“We have been very successful and we thank God and we thank our team and the contractor for doing a fantastic job this year, In spite of the fact that the rains is more than the rains for the past 15 years, we are still waiting for the final figures from the Nigerian Metrological Agency, but from what we’ve seen at the end of September, the rains have been very very substantial……yet this is the only time that we’ve recorded some mild flooding in two locations only…we haven’t had many problems and we thank God about it …..officially we lost 2 lives from. what we know ….in total 20 households were involved which is significantly less than what we’ve seen before.”
“We would continue to do more, the goal at the end is to take advantage of the river and even build a waterfront economy. Build embankments and begin by having nice set-out cafes, high rise buildings. This is what we foresee in the future because these are things that you’re to take advantage. They are blessing not a curse We want to look at what we can do at the river to be of benefit to the people and not be a problem like flooding.”
On plans to sustain the improved security currently enjoyed in Kaduna, Hafiz Bayero said that the Governor has been talking and briefing the state and the nation every quarter on security.
“We have this quarterly security report where the Governor briefs the public, and then the Commissioner of Internal Security speaks more detail on the numbers.
It is very true that security has improved, not just in bandits-prone areas but even in the metropolis . We’ve seen a significant reduction in crime rate, even in the reporting of crime rate. The Local Government chairmen are the Chief Security officers, for example, if in this territory they have their security meeting every month which our own Monitoring and Enforcement team goes to that meeting, our head of the team is a member of that committee, and we take a sum total of what these 4 Local Governments are doing, and begin to address them, one after the other”
“But generally the banditry, the reduction in issues concerning banditry and terrorist activities is a direct consequence of the Governor’s close working relationship with the government in the last few months that we were able to establish this relationship to take the fight to the bandits in their ènclave. We thought that the only way we can achieve this victory was to go to where they are and meet them fire for fire. We know the capabilities and capacities of the Nigerian Armed Forces if they are ready.”
“The President has invested heavily in military hardware, they’ve now been cleared and they are all in use. This is what my boss the Governor had always advocated for; that we take the fight this is what the Federal Government through the Armed Forces is doing and we are very happy with the result. We hope that they would sustain this, if we are able to sustain this for another 6 months this banditry would be a thing of the past and then we begin to look at how we can rehabilitate and reconstruct those areas that the bandits have decimated and the people that have been affected by this banditry., to also rehabilitate them to be functional members of the society,” he said.
