EDITORIAL
The extent to which everyone does anything with impunity in this nation is mind-boggling. Sometimes it makes one wonder if we have leaders who have a mind and any scruples at all. One does not need to look too far away to find an example of disgraceful leadership than what has become the lot of Kawu Motor Park, Kaduna, Kaduna State.
This park was a large expanse of land that should be a thing of beauty in itself and an area of attraction in Kaduna Metropolis, if it was maintained as it was originally conceived. But like any other good idea in this nation, past leaders in Kaduna state messed it up. A motor park is a motor park. It ordinarily has spaces designated for diverse matters such as an admin block, a convenience etc. It is also meant to have appropriate places designated and neatly organised for the use of road transport workers and travellers. When this is properly done, a neat, serene, beautiful atmosphere is what greets travellers. But did Kawu Motor Park resemble any of that in recent years? Far from it. Only a mediocre person, a mediocre leader would see what Kawu Motor Park (located as it is in such a strategic area where all motorists turn towards their different routes in other parts of the north) has become and not feel concerned. In fact that past leaders in the state were not concerned was clear in how the condition of this motor park was left to deteriorate.
This is a motor park where anything goes. Everyone displays wares wherever they wish, even up to the mouth of Kawu Bridge. In the event, the two storey building with shops that was illegally constructed blocked the view into the park. The presence of the shop here became a problem to free flow of traffic – humans and vehicles – in this general axis. This was more so as the space in front of these shops had other occupiers (legal and illegal from NURTW’s point of view) and these ones displayed their wares such that motorists had to share the road with them. In fact, quarrel with motorists for blocking views to the wares of these roadside landlords was a regular occurrence. Motorists park their vehicles in the small space left on the road and call passengers, impeding the free flow of vehicles coming from the Lagos and Abuja bye pass.
If the outside of the motor park was unsightly, an embarrassment to a city like Kaduna, the inside of it was worse. But what happened on the outside was definitely a determinant what happened within. Chaos. Dirtiness. This is why the current effort made to bring sanity to the outside of the park is important, even though efforts are going on within the park too in order to tidy up the mess that it has become.
But then the question needs to be asked? How did Kawu Motor Park become the eyesore it became before the ongoing intervention of the Kaduna State Government? The operators of the park and the NURTW officials working there cannot be exonerated. But the past governments who looked on as illegality festered at the park have to be held responsible. Wherever illegality occurs, the space left unfilled by the government comes into focus.
It is well known that it is the duty of the government to formulate policies, draw up a plan and ensure it is complied with in the larger society. In the view of past administration in Kaduna State, did what Kawu Motor Park become match their own idea of a good policy and plan for Kaduna State? At El-Rufai News Magazine (ENM), we think it should be a matter of great embarrassment for any past government that had a vision and a plan to have Kawu Park and the eyesore it represented in that very visible location in Kaduna State.
This motor park in its location practically introduces tourists and other persons coming in to the Kaduna Metropolis. Kawu Motor Park and its location are the first feel anyone has of the state capital. But it had become an embarrassing introduction going by what many great cities boast of, and it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. But then this is what we get in a nation where the quality of leadership is so poor that one can only wonder how we got here. How did that two storey building consisting of shops get approval to be constructed? Was it that those who approved it in government offices didn’t have an idea what an aseptically beautiful Kawu area and Kawu Motor Park would mean as an introduction into this city for tourists?
There is no doubt that past leadership in the state and its officials who approved and looked on as Kawu Motor Park was desecrated had no idea what it meant to have a city that would be a source of pride for Kaduna residents and people of the north in general. If they did, they would have ensured that Kawu area, not just the motor park was the most beautify part of the city, a place passers-by to other parts of the north would see and nod, thinking, yes, this is Kaduna State indeed. But that was not the case. At ENM, we find this concerning for the anomaly here speaks to the quality of leadership Kaduna State had been having in the past, and what obtained in so many other states in Nigeria where the Kawu Motor Park metaphor equally obtains.
It is gratifying though that the current administration under the leadership of Governor Nasir El-Rufai is taking the bull by the horn. His government has chosen to make that part of the Kaduna metropolis an areas that Kaduna State would be proud of. The illegal two storey building and its shops have come down, allowing for a fine open view into the motor park both from the top of the new Kawu bridge and its seven wide underpasses. Other parts of Kawu area are receiving attention from the government too, as new roads are opened up, illegal roadside users and their structures are cleared, and rules for motorists are strictly enforced.
This is important as this is the part every traveller going up north or coming down would see. Even if they don’t enter the city, they would see the new Kawu and feel proud of this city that was once the capital of the north, and which to a large extent symbolically remains the capital of the north. Efforts being made by the current government to rejuvenate Kawu Motor Park and the urban renewal programme being carried out in this axis would further reinforce this. At ENM, we think this is commendable and the efforts should be supported by every well-meaning resident of Kaduna State.
