LATE BAYERO'S DAUGHTER, ZAINAB DENIES SQUANDERING KANO GOVERNOR'S MONEY

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Zainab Ado Bayero, one of the late Emir of Kano’s daughters, has disputed charges that she squandered money granted to her family by Kano State Governor Abba Yusuf.

Zainab publicly sought financial assistance in June 2024, when she, her mother, and brother were about to be evicted from their Lagos flat.

According to Zainab, her family has faced various challenges since their father’s death, including a lack of permanent housing and financial difficulties in furthering their studies.

In response to her request, Governor Yusuf stepped in to cover the family’s housing and other expenditures.

Mr. Sanusi Bature, the governor’s spokesperson, acknowledged in a statement that he paid a visit to Lagos on behalf of the governor on Tuesday, June 25, 2024.

During the visit, he met with the apartment’s general manager, Mr. Sunel Kumar, who had threatened to evict the Ado Bayero family.

Zainab expressed her gratitude to the governor, noting that his intervention came just in time since they were about to be evicted due to their inability to pay rent.

However, two months later, Zainab requested extra financial assistance, claiming that they needed more money to pay their expenses and help her brother return to school.

This second plea elicited varied reactions, with some accusing her of mismanaging governor-provided funds.

However, in an interview with the Daily Trust on Monday, Zainab denied misusing the money granted by the governor.

She stated that she was not greedy and had no intention of extorting Governor Yusuf, and that she only returned to the media because they required additional assistance in purchasing a home and returning her brother to school.

She said: “I can’t be in this situation with no home, my brother not in school and we’ll be going out from place to place. I decided to plead with him (the governor) again. I did interviews, and in those interviews, I thanked him. I’m not blackmailing him but said we need more help to get my brother back to school, to get a home, and anything he wants to help us with. I was trying to reach out to him that instead of rent, maybe he could buy us a home. I was pleading, seeking his assistance. That was why I went back to the media but he felt he had given us enough, he could have just made that clear but not making it seem like I’m greedy or I’m trying to blackmail him. I’m not greedy. I’m not trying to extort the governor if that’s what they’re trying to put out there. That’s not the case.”

She added, “I’m all over the social media being seen as someone greedy. It is easy to judge what you don’t know. My story goes a long way. This is not something that started two months ago. It has been going on for 10 years. I keep saying that it’s like people don’t understand what’s going on. Ever since my Dad died 10 years ago, his family denied us any part of his inheritance and that is why this journey has been going on this way, where we have been trying to survive.”

Zainab lamented how her siblings and people close to their father abandoned them after his death.

“Different people pleaded with my father’s sons to give us something tangible to start living – to buy us a home, to get us back to school, to give us something to do business, but they refused. That is why we are going to our father’s friends, people to help us. The same people will go back to my father’s family and inquire what is going on. Is this true? And at the same time if they inquire from them they will shut down, they won’t help us. I don’t know why, I don’t know what stories they tell them about us. So that is why this has been going on. Some people helped us along the way but it wasn’t much. They would rent a home for us for one year, then the rent would expire and we would be back to the streets with nowhere to go.

“I made it obvious that the Kano State governor paid for our hotel bill and gave us money”, Zainab explained.