The Administrator of Kaduna Capital Territory Authority (KCTA), Hafiz Bayero has warned politicians to desist from defacing walls and buildings with campaign posters and billboards or face punitive measures.
The Post no Bill order, in time past has been in existence in Kaduna State but implementation was not taken that seriously. However, as campaigns have resumes fully, the Administrator of KCTA said government would ensure compliance to prevent walls and buildings in.the state littered with posters and billboards.
“We are going to enforce it, if you’ve read our statement the first one issued sometime in June,just before the primary election period we mentioned that if you do that we would fine you,and if you persist we would go to your campaign office and close it down because you are defacing public infrastructure,” he said.
Hafiz Bayero who spoke at the weekend, explained that the El-Rufai administration has spent a considerable amount of money trying to put Kaduna back to its glory days and even beyond, to take Kaduna to where it should be; and they would not go back to the days of pasting posters on the walls.
“As you can see since that first Post no Bill order,we have seen considerable level of compliance .For the first time today you’re seeing people putting their banners at strategic corners and these banners are hung on the wall, they’re very visible. This is what we want to get , societies must continue to improve and must accept change.”
“If you go abroad you would see that they have this cardboard and they put it also on the ground. You would see it and you would know that this is the candidate and this is the party. It is even more legible. Most times these posters you can’t even read them unless you come close to the wall because they’re not even legible and they cost a lot of money;put together they cost more money than even the flex banners we have advised people to put.”
“So far the level of compliance, I would say is encouraging, but now we’re going to the election proper so this is the real test. We have issued another one and thankfully now the candidates have emerged. They are all going to have campaign offices because that time during the primary election they didn’t have campaign offices, most of them.Now they are going to have campaign offices and by the time we close first three offenders, you would see that people would begin to believe that we mean what we say, and when we say something we’re going to make sure we see it.”
“The city is for everybody, it is ours not just for the Administrator or for the Governor. We must all play our own part in preserving whatever it is that government has invested money in, for our own enjoyment and well-being. So we would continue to monitor that and we would enforce it to ensuring that we charge you hefty penalty, and if you do it again we would proceed to close your campaign office.”
“Now, of course people would do it and say it is not me; it is my supporter that did it I’m not aware of this thing. But we should all speak to our supporters to ensure people …did not print paper stickers and all these posters that we are used to.These banners are even more effective,they are even more efficient; even cost wise and there are many areas where you can hang these pro bono without having to even print these posters”.
