Kano Demolition: Action aimed at returning land to real owners – commissioner

The Kano state commissioner for information, Halilu Baba Dantiye says the ongoing demolition exercise embarked upon by the state government was aimed to recover and return lands to owner institutions and not be allocated to individuals afterwards.

Dantiye stated this during the swearing-in ceremony of newly elected officials of the correspondents chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Kano Council.

According to him, no piece of confiscated land will be allocated to any individual or group but will be returned to the owner institutions in the state.

“Obviously there is no contradiction that these places belong to institutions, universities, mosques and so on. All the places that were demolished are going to be restored to their original owners.

“Lands owned by the polytechnic will be restored to the polytechnic to build laboratories, hostels, lecture rooms and others.

“Lands belonging to the mosques will be returned to the mosques. Nobody is going to be allocated any of such lands.

“Whosever feels dissatisfied with that can go to the Commission of Enquiry which will be established. Those with reasonable claims will be compensated by the government,” he said.

The commissioner, who was a former president of the Nigeria Guild of Editors (NGE) advised journalists to shun partisan activities and be more professional in order to protect the image of the profession

He congratulated those who emerged winners to fill in the available positions in the bye-election.

“I urge all of you to work hard and stick to ethics of the profession of journalism. Do not be partisan in your reportage. You are not expected to become more opposition than the opposition parties,” he advised.

Those elected and sworn in includes: Chairman, Aminu Garko of NAN, Vice Chairman, Abdullahi Jalaludeen of FRCN and Assistant Secretary, Bashir Bello of Vanguard newspaper respectively