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| Professor Nentawe Yilwatda |
All Progressives Congress (APC) National Chairman, Professor Nentawe Yilwatda, has hailed President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s masterplan to catapult Kano State into Northern Nigeria’s economic epicenter and West Africa’s premier commercial gateway.
Speaking in Abuja over the weekend, Yilwatda emphasized that the Federal Government’s massive infrastructure and industrial push in Kano and the Northern corridor is no fluke but a deliberate strategy to revive Kano’s legacy as the North’s commercial heartbeat and a key African trade nexus.
“President Tinubu isn’t just developing Kano; he’s reshaping Northern Nigeria’s economic destiny through it,” Yilwatda declared in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Communications Strategy, Mr. Abimbola Tooki. “Kano is the North’s natural nerve center and Nigeria’s bridge to West Africa’s hinterland.”
Under Tinubu’s vision, Kano aims to rival Lagos as Nigeria’s top business and industrial hub, while becoming the prime entry point for trade into the Sahel and Francophone West Africa, the statement notes.
Yilwatda spotlighted ongoing landmark projects poised to morph Kano into a bustling mega-commercial powerhouse.
According to him, the Federal Government is fast-tracking the completion of the Kaduna–Kano standard gauge railway, a critical project that will connect Kano directly to Abuja and Southern Nigeria through modern rail logistics, drastically reducing the cost and time of moving goods and passengers. The line is expected to be operational this year.
The Kano–Maradi rail line will connect Kano to Niger Republic and the broader Sahel trade belt, opening vast export and import corridors into Francophone West Africa. This project will significantly expand Kano’s role as Nigeria’s principal inland export gateway. The Federal Government has targeted completion by 2026/2027, the press state affirms.
It added that the recently approved Kano Metropolitan Rail Service will modernise transportation within Kano metropolis, decongest urban movement, improve logistics efficiency and support Kano’s emergence as a modern mega-city.
The AKK Gas pipeline will deliver industrial gas to Kano and the wider North, powering factories, industrial parks, fertiliser plants and gas-fired power generation, thereby reviving manufacturing and attracting new industries to Kano, it also said.
Strategic investments in power generation and transmission across the Northern industrial belt, including projects tied to the Kaduna–Kano axis, will improve electricity reliability and support industrialisation, the statement says.
It states further that ongoing rehabilitation and expansion of the key Abuja–Kaduna–Zaria–Kano road corridor will improve connectivity between Kano and the rest of the federation, boosting trade efficiency, while Sokoto–Badagry Super Highway will create a new economic corridor linking Northern agricultural belts to Southern export markets and ports, unlocking business opportunities across the entire North-West.
Professor Yilwatda explained that President Tinubu’s heavy investment in Kano is driven by strategic national economic considerationns, namely:
1. Kano Is Northern Nigeria’s Largest Commercial Ecosystem.
Kano hosts one of the biggest market and manufacturing clusters in Africa and remains the natural business capital of Northern Nigeria.
2. Kano Is Nigeria’s Gateway to the Sahel
Its geographical location makes it the ideal export and logistics hub for trade with Niger, Chad and wider Francophone West Africa.
3. Reviving Kano Means Reviving Northern Industry
Kano’s historical strength in textiles, leather, agro-processing and commerce makes it critical to the North’s industrial rebirth.
4. Kano Can Become Nigeria’s Second Mega Commercial City
President Tinubu’s administration seeks to reduce overdependence on Lagos by building Kano into a second dominant commercial powerhouse.
5. Northern Prosperity Is Critical to National Stability
Expanding commerce, industry and employment in Kano and the wider North is essential to reducing poverty, unemployment and insecurity.
Professor Yilwatda said no previous administration has assembled such a comprehensive and interconnected infrastructure strategy for Northern Nigeria.
“Who before now conceived this scale of integrated development for the North - rail lines, gas pipelines, metropolitan transit, industrial power, superhighways and regional trade corridors, all designed to work together?
“This is vision. This is strategic leadership. This is what President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is delivering.”
The APC National Chairman criticised opposition parties for what he described as their obsession with insults, propaganda and power politics rather than national development.
“While President Tinubu is building the infrastructure backbone that will transform the North for generations, the opposition is busy chasing personal ambition and power for its own sake.
They offer no ideas, no blueprint, no alternative vision. Their only manifesto is to insult the APC and attack every development initiative because they lack the capacity to think beyond politics.”
Professor Yilwatda noted that President Tinubu’s infrastructure and industrial strategy will fundamentally alter the economic destiny of Northern Nigeria and reposition Kano as the undisputed economic capital of the North.
“History will remember President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the leader who restored Kano to greatness, industrialised the North, and built the infrastructure backbone for Nigeria’s next era of prosperity,” the statement concluded.
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