Gumel Horse Racing Club Abandoned By Jigawa State Government As Club Looses N6.7million By Umar Faruq Usman ,Dutse
Jigawa government has abandoned the Gumel horse racing club, as gathered the abandoning of the place by the Jigawa state government has also contributed to the low revenue generation to the state and the Gumel Local Government.
Investigation carried out by our reporter shows that the project which gulped millions of naira before it was erected is now virtually neglected, for instance this reporter discovered that the racing ground and the overhead tank is completely left unattended , as well as the trees and grass which are not watered.
Residence living within the area also confirmed that in the last three years everything has stop and no government official from the state or local government has even visited the place.
A Professional Horse Racer, Malam Iliya who lives close to the racing ground told our reporter that the property damaged is worth over N6.7million naira, as he also appealed to Jigawa state government to provide facilities that are damaged in the horse racing ground, he also urged the state to construct standard rail and paddock in the racing ground in order to have a beautiful racing ground that will attract participants from outside the country , he also urged the state government to provide water and electricity with construction of VIP toilet as it was promised by the state government last year but yet nothing has been done on the ground for the past three years after opening the racing club.
Investigation conducted by our reporter shows that if club is fully functional it will help the state and Gumel Local Government to generate more revenue and it will project the image of Jigawa state and Nigeria among African countries in the area of Horse Racing.
According to findings by our reporter, he discovered that Gumel local government has started carving out land from the site of the racing club which they now allocate to local government staff, the whole scenario has caused the authority concern to write a petition the state government informing them of what is happening and urged them to tell the council chairman to selling the land which does not belong to the Local Government.
All effort to speak with local government official to confirm the incident proved abortive.
