Residents of the town of Gwarzo in the Kano North Senate District are protesting the “planned demolition” of a bridge built by an opposition lawmaker.
The bridge located on the bypass of the city of Gwarzo was washed away three weeks ago after torrential rain.
Residents of the area later asked Senate Vice President Barau Jibrin, the area’s representative in the Senate, to help repair the damaged bridge.
Jibrin is a member of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state.
They said Jibrin responded quickly and repair work on the bridge was completed on Friday.
A driver, Sule Wanzam, who witnessed the protest, said residents started protesting on Friday after learning that the Kano state government was reportedly planning to demolish the bridge in order to build a better one. The protest continued on Saturday morning.
The bridge is strategic because it is along the road leading to the residence of the deputy governor who is from the city of Gwarzo, Wanzam said.
“The bridge connects to the residence of the deputy governor of the state, Aminu Abdulsalam, which caused some of the government officials and members of his party (New Nigeria People’s Party) in the city to feel offended by the rapid construction of the bridge, by the Mr. Jibrin., who is a member of the Congress of all progressives (APC).”
Residents called the “planned demolition” of the bridge political.
The incident raised tensions in the area on Friday and Saturday as supporters of the two main parties, the APC and the NNPP, accused each other.
APC members in the city vowed not to allow the demolition of the bridge.
When contacted for comment, the state’s Commissioner of Works, Marwan Ahmad, said the state had yet to decide the fate of the bridge.
He explained that Jibrin did not get approval before repairing the bridge, which is on a state government highway.
“It is the job of the state government but they went ahead to do it. Even so, they should have sought our (state government) approval before embarking on the state government project,” Ahmad said.
“It is not a matter of the state government’s delay in fixing the bridge, the (state) government has a bureaucracy, we have completed all the processes and we were about to start the work when they went and started.
“The problem arose from a reluctance to seek approval before undertaking the work. If they had asked for our approval, we would have informed them of our level of commitment to the repair of the bridge.
“I can’t say if the building will be demolished or not until the government decides the next steps,” Ahmad said.
But one of the Senate vice president’s advisers, Muktar Gora, said the local government council approved the lawmaker’s request to undertake the projects.
“The local government council approved our request. It is an emergency work that affects the lives of the locals, and we cannot sit idly by seeing our people suffer. We decided to carry out the emergency work following the request of the locals and El work was done with the consent of the local government council,” said Gora.