”Illegal Structures”: Kano govt commences demolition of residential buildings

By Muhammed Yakubu On Jun 17, 2023

Demolition, Kano, KNUPDA, Salanta, Aliyu Maikusa, — Aliyu Maikusa in white cloth on Saturday showing journalists one of his neighbor's house where the building approved plan was pasted on the gate.

Kano State Government on Friday night commenced demolition of residential buildings marked as ‘’illegal structures’’.

SOLACEBASE had reported that Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf of Kano State began demolition of ”illegal buildings” two days after his swearing with a three storey building that has 90 shops, on race course road in the GRA.

Yusuf, popularly called Abba Gida Gida since then continued with demolition of Daula Hotel, Hajj camp and shops around Eid-ground by Kofar Mata among others.

However, on Friday night the demolition team berth at Salanta of Gwale local government area behind Kano Polytechnic where they began demolition with fences of most of the buildings marked two days earlier.

Although the lands initially was part of the Kano Polytechnic premises before the immediate past administration of Abdullahi Ganduje allotted them.

One of those affected with the demolition , Malam Aliyu Maikusa told SOLACEBASE , on Saturday in an emotion laden voice that he built his house with over N120m with issuance of Certificate of Occupancy from the government and building approval.

‘’Look my brother, we are not illiterates, the lands were not allocated to us by government , i am a businessman not a government official, but rather we bought them from third parties and we checked at the land Bureau if there was any issue with the lands before payment but the government issued us C of O and Kano Urban Planning and Development Authority (KNUPDA) approved our building plans, ‘’Madigawa said.

“As at the time we acquired our lands this place was so deserted to the extent that people were being killed and dumped inside uncompleted buildings here. We remained here and until this place became open to social visibility, the government asked us to leave and marked our houses for demolition. This is not fair”, he lamented.

‘’Apart from that we have spent more than N80m to provide infrastructure like road and drainage here by ourselves. Honestly this is clear injustice and God would not allow our efforts go in vain.

‘’They marked our properties on June 14^th by KNUPDA and they came just late yesterday night to demolish. Immediately, our buildings were marked with the inscription, ‘’Remove by KNUPDA’’, we went to their office to find out the situation from the Managing Director, Arc Ibrahim Yakubu who refused to see us.’’

‘’Later some of the staff who spoke to us said the issue is beyond them as it was instruction from above.’’

‘’We showed our approvals to them but they were helpless.’’

‘’The sad situation is after marking our buildings for demolition, like yesterday in the night when they came, for the demolition, Civil Defence personnel were with them and thugs who they allowed to be removing our properties at will.’’

‘’Look at my gate, the windows and doors among other things were looted by thugs while the Civil Defence and the demolition team were not bothered.’’

IMG 20230617 115912 608 — **One of the building already marked for demolition at Salanta, Gwale local government area, Kano**

When SOLACEBASE contacted KNUPDA Managing Director, Arc Ibrahim Yakubu over the issue , he said as far as he is concerned, they are illegal structures.

When told that the affected persons have C of O and building approvals from the government and issued by his organisation, he said due process was followed in the demolition as they were given two days’ notice before the exercise.