Kwankwaso, who spoke to State House correspondents from the Aso Rock Villa on Friday after a closed-door meeting with the President, disclosed that he and his successor, Ganduje, were both summoned to the State House by Tinubu over the ongoing demolition in Kano State.
Explaining the controversy behind the demolitions, Kwankwaso stressed that the buildings demolished were illegally acquired by the Ganduje administration.
According to him, the President was shocked when he (Kwankwaso) revealed the actual situation to him.
He said: “The President was shocked. Are you not shocked that somebody will sell university? Are you not shocked that he demolished the only university? Daula Hotel, for those of you who are in Kano, you know the old Daula, demolished to zero, and that is a faculty under the University of Science and Technology. He demolished that one. Are you not shocked?
“The President was shocked. He didn’t know. He even mentioned that he talked to somebody to go and find out for him. But when I told him, I said, “You are a Muslim; very soon you are going for Sallah. How can you go under those circumstances and pray in that place? And even the Triumph place he is talking about, you are journalists. You should be angry because that’s your constituency; he demolished it completely and put shops everywhere.”
Kwankwaso added that his party, under Governor Abba Yusuf, was merely fulfilling campaign promises to demolish such structures.
“You see, the governor is doing what we campaigned with. I wanted to be president; I campaigned also. And I went to Kano and told them that these places—schools, in fact, most of our schools in Kano— were being encroached on. And it is our policy to make sure that the encroached areas are returned to them.”