Gov. Kwankwaso
Exercising powers that are exclusively reserved for the Federal Government of Nigeria in the conduct of international relations, Kano State Governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso whose state does not boast of the best of education funding and standards, has confirmed channeling more than N1 billion (about $6.5 million) of the state’s fund into building a tertiary school in a neighbouring Niger Republic.
According to Kwankwaso, the huge sum of money was spent building students’ hostel, multipurpose hall, kitchen, staff quarters, clinic and the fencing of the Kano/Niger Republic Bilingual College, Niamey, Niger Republic.
Speaking during a farewell ceremony for the first batch of 101 secondary school students to Niger Republic, Kwankwaso said that the money was the counterpart fund of the Kano State Government for the joint project.
A statement by the governor’s media aide, Mallam Halilu Dantiye, noted that the Kano State Government provided a bus, a pick up van, two sets of uniforms for each of the pioneer 200 students and English teachers.
“The Nigerien authorities provided land for the project, in addition to running the school. The idea for the establishment of the college, according to Governor Kwankwaso, was to consolidate bilateral relations between the state and the Niger Republic, expose Kano children to French language as well as create unlimited opportunities for them in French and English speaking countries,”
The governor was quoted as contending that: “with an annual increment of 200 students, 100 from Niger and 100 from Kano, it is our vision that in six years when the college will graduate these very students, they will have a population of 1,400 students.”
The governments of Kano and Niger Republic, he added, would take full responsibility for the scholarship of the students.
In his own remarks, President Muhammadou Yousoufou of Niger Republic, represented by the country’s Minister of Education, Madam Maryam Alhadji Ibrahim, said the partnership will bring about greater unity and reinforce the existing relationship between his country and Nigeria.
Kwankwaso’s apparent abuse of powers came at a time that Nigeria’s public universities have remained shut for close to two months over the indefinite strike action embarked upon by Nigeria’s Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in an effort to force the country’s leaders to fund the country’s cash-strapped universities adequately.
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