N150 million mini sports centre: Anger trails Senator Uba’s Zonal Intervention Projects in Kaduna [Photos]

Senator representing Kaduna Central Senatorial district, Uba Sani has come under the scrutiny of his constituents and members of the political party over the construction of mini sports and recreational centre at a whooping sum of N150 million under the zonal Intervention Projects.

The lawmaker claimed to have constructed the project as part of his 2021 zonal intervention project in his Central Senatorial district, the sum of which was not disclosed untill the whole transactions emerged on a website that officially tracked lawmakers’ intervention projects in the country.

In Nigeria, zonal intervention projects are lawmakers’ privileges through the annual budgetary provision to enable them put on place infrastructure in their Senatorial or Federal Constituencies in order of priority of their constituents.

The projects are usually domesticated and executed through a federal government agency of their choice, but which actually belong to the lawmaker and who determines how the contracts are handled.

According to www.traca.ng which first revealed the projects, the code and the amount and sighted by CAPITAL POST on Sunday, Senator Uba’s mini sport and recreational centre gulped a whooping sum of N150 million, while he also claimed to have supplied electricity transformers across his Senatorial district at a whooping sum of N40 million for the year 2021 alone.

Uba is currently serving his first term as Senator representing Kaduna Central Senatorial District on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), a district previously represented by the Civil Rights activist, Senator Shehu Sani in the 8th National Assembly.

He is currently the Senate Committee Chairman on Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions, a strategic position he holds since he was sworn-in in May, 2019.

However, the revelation of Uba’s projects is currently causing ripples in Kaduna as some constituents whose opinion were sampled on Sunday expressed disappointment at the cosmetic nature of the projects with humongous amount of money, wondering if political office holders realises that electorate could also reason on their own.

A resident of Malali, Kaduna popularly called Dan Alhaji told CAPITAL POST that they were disappointed at Senator Uba’s tenure as their representatives in the 9th National Assembly.

According to him, what they were told in 2018 wasn’t what they are seeing, lamenting that representation at the National Assembly is the challenge facing them, while he stressed further that the much celebrated All Progressives Congress is losing its grip in Kaduna.

He told CAPITAL POST saying: “Before 2019 election in Kaduna State, the three Senatorial districts were upbeat in delivering dividends of democracy to the electorate.

“The feeling and impression of representatives at the Senate and the fifteen members of the House of Representatives by the electorate called for celebration, even as the political office holders compete to outdo each other in order to satisfy those who voted them into political offices.

“Today the narrative is different. You be ‘dan jerida”, ask people in other places how Senator Uba is doing. He or she will tell you. How manage that PDP did well in the last Local Government Council election the other time?

Speaking with a staunch supporter of APC and a former House of Representatives aspirant in Kaduna, he pleaded that his name should be concealed because of his popularity and said, “APC is afflicting itself in Kaduna as far as I am concerned.

“The party is the most crisis infested. Some members will not come out to tell you that all is not well in Kaduna, but when election comes, you will see the real result. I saw the project and wondered”, he said.

Meanwhile, the lawmaker had previously been unwilling to speak with the online on several attempts to get clarification from him. He neither pick calls nor reply to text messages.