From Desmond Mgboh, Kano
Kano State government has directed tenants of properties illegally built on government lands and public spaces to quit their rented facilities or risk the consequences.
A statement signed by the Secretary to the State Government, Dr Abdullahi Baffa Bichi and written in Hausa language directed,” Those who rented shops built on government properties such as schools, cemeteries hospitals, mosques, recreational parks, around Kano walls and other government places to immediately vacate these properties”
The terse statement added that, “Failure to comply with the directive may affect their properties for which the government would not be held responsible “
The present quit notice by the new administration departs from its earlier practice, whereby its bulldozers demolish the affected properties and whatever items were found within it .
A legal practitioner who spoke to Daily Sun on the condition of anonymity believed that the state government might have realized that it acted in grave error to have embarked on the demolition exercise which negatively affected tenants, who were neither notified to quit nor were directly responsible for the alleged trespass by the property owners”.
He stressed that, “Having placed them on notice to vacate the premises, the state government has regularized its action or has at least given the exercise a human face”. End.