By Nazifi Dawud

The Kano state Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development says it would collaborate with the state’s Hisbah board to fight nefarious activities at motor parks in Sabon Gari area of Kano city.

Kano Focus reports that the two government bodies were apparently responding to growing calls by members of the public to relocate the New Road bus park at Sabon Gari following the abduction of and forceful conversion to Christianity, of 10 Kano children by an Igbo kidnap network.

In a statement on Thursday, Dr Zahrau Muhammed Umar, said her ministry would collaborate with the Hisbah “to enhance sanity and promote security consciousness particularly at bus stations situated at Sabon gari area.”

The statement signed by Hadiza Mustapha Namadi, the ministry’s spokersperson, said Dr Zahrau made the remarks while receiving the Commander-General of Hisbah Board Ustaz Harun Mohammad Ibn Sina in her office.

“The commissioner added that based on the perceived public out cry on the alleged heinous activities at such motor parks, there is the urgent need of all and sundry to join hands together to sanitize the operations,” the statement read.

It added that the commissioner also lamented rampant divorce cases in the state and urged the Hisbah board “to collaborate with the ministry to come up with a robust approach for curtailing the menace.”

Sabon Gari area is a neighbourhood mainly dominated by members of the predominantly Christian Igbo ethnic group as well as other ethnic nationalities and non-natives.

There is widespread suspicion that the Sabon Gari bus station, along with other motor parks in Naibawa area of the city, is being used as channels through which abducted children are being transported to the Southern part of the country, particularly the Southeast zone.

Some Kano residents have also raised alarm that dealers of illegal drugs and narcotic substances also use the parks to smuggle drugs into the state from the Southeast zone.

A renowned legal practitioner Barrister Umar Usman Dan Baito had called on Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje to heed public advice to relocate the Sabon Gari park to areas dominated by native settlements like Dawanau area, which has a sprawling grain market.

“The relocation of the Sabon Gari motor park to an area such as the Dawanau market area would allow native residents to monitor the activities of non-natives who would have to pass through the market to reach the motor parks,” Mr Dan Baito told Dala FM on Wednesday.

“This is necessary if we want to check the abduction of young children and transportation of illegal hard drugs that destroy the lives of our youth into Kano state by unscrupulous non-natives”.