Kano: Tackling the chaos

Also published in Daily Trust 

With its ever-growing population, massive landmass, businesses attractiveness and centuries- old reputation as a major commercial hub in Africa, Kano is by now supposed to have developed into a modern mega city with modern and functioning infrastructure. Unfortunately however, the systematic neglect it has suffered at the hands of successive administrations over the last few decades has not only held it back but actually eroded a great deal of its fortunes and business competitiveness. Besides, the current security crisis in the region and the country at large has taken its toll on its socio-economic vibrancy.

  

Before my recent visit to Kano, I had heard and read praises in favour of the current administration’s effort to improve the state’s largely decrepit infrastructure. Admittedly, I initially never took it serious, for the simple fact that, in politics, vested interests usually override objectivity in criticizing or commending the performance of a particular administration. However, I realized that the near consensus about the administration’s good performance so far, is too credible to disregard.

Therefore, though I was on an unscheduled visit to the city following the death of my father a couple of weeks ago, I was able to assess the situation at least within the metropolis. And though quite conspicuous, I believe, the achievements of the current administration are rather exaggerated, yet relatively better than those of the previous administration of Malam Ibrahim Shekarau. Incidentally, this exaggeration is borne out of the culture of mediocrity that defines our yardsticks of assessment, as a result of which any measure of achievement is excessively appreciated and exaggerated.

Though, assessing Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso’s administration in the light of this culture would definitely highlight its relative excellence particularly as opposed to the previous administration of Malam Shekarau, it is obvious that, for Kwankwaso to deliver in the real sense of the word, he should stop benchmarking his performance against the performance of Shekarau’s administration. He should instead adopt a much more challenging benchmark to assess his performance.

This necessarily entails recognizing the fact that, the terrible human population density being experienced in the metropolis isn’t borne out of population explosion as widely alleged. Instead it was caused by the blatant culture of land and space encroachment, disregard for constructional standards and urban municipality laws, as well as disregard for traffic rules, which continuously limit people’s access to public infrastructure and amenities, and have resulted in the current disproportionate population density, and indeed turned the metropolis into a massive and messy urban slum.

The phenomenal prevalence of the culture of indiscriminate, arbitrary and illegal expansion of residential and business premises for instance, has rendered Kano’s otherwise relatively wide streets into mere alleyways. There is hardly a street in Kano that is not violated, in many cases, to the extent of annexing not only the pedestrian pavement but also more than half of the street itself for that matter.

Also though this practice is common everywhere, it is particularly worrisome in commercial districts, markets and industrial areas. Shop owners in markets recklessly encroach on public amenities to expand their shops, while street vendors clutter what remains of the streets with their wares, thereby obstructing and in many cases blocking human and vehicular traffic flow. This is why whenever there is a fire outbreak or any emergency incident, so many lives and properties are unnecessarily lost due to the inability of the rescuers to access the scene in time.

This situation is aggravated by the culture of indiscriminate parking of vehicles, which further squeezes the remaining lanes on the encroached streets. Besides, the movement of huge trucks in the metropolis, which is obviously not subject to time or location restriction, remains one of the worse contributory factors to the prevailing mess in the metropolis. A typical example of this mess is found in Kwanar Singer market in the central business district, where giant trucks park and/or recklessly move around in the already narrow streets in the area to load and/or unload huge consignments of business wares.

As a matter of fact, there is hardly a street in, particularly, the central business district that is considered out of bounds to such huge trucks, which damage the already largely substandard asphalt used to construct the streets. Meanwhile, hips of garbage and other wares indiscriminately disposed of or recklessly abandoned by the road sides further block parts of the remaining spaces on public roads.

Consequently, Kano metropolis has been reduced into a massive urban jungle, where there is no respect for municipality standards in private constructions, no respect for traffic rules and social order, which has resulted in the current messy population density, where vehicles of various sizes and purposes, humans and even roaming domestic animals jostle for the few remaining social amenities and spaces.

A street in Kano city

Therefore, in as much as there is need to provide more social amenities and develop the existing infrastructure in Kano, the need to impose social discipline and enforce municipality standards and traffic rules is equally imperative.

However, in view of the huge challenges involved, this task inevitably requires fearlessness, a very strong political will and more focused determination and indeed preparedness to step on toes in order to impose order and enforce constructional development standards, traffic rules and public hygiene in the metropolis. This is obviously too big for the largely barely literate personnel of the newly created Kano Road Traffic Agency (KAROTA) to handle. After all, for instance there are powerful business interest groups who have for decades frustrated successive governments’ attempts to regulate the movement of huge trucks within the metropolis.

I believe governor Kwankwaso with his Wuju-Wuju attitude can do it, because he can't be politically blackmailed after all since he can't constitutionally run for the same office again in 2015 when he would have exhausted his second term in office. Moreover, he owes his win in 2011 election not to the state's traditional power brokers and godfathers i.e. the then government, business elite, influential clerical and emirate establishments, but to the ordinary Kanawa, who voted him back into office.