2019: el-Rufai, Shehu Sani war gets messier

THE political war between Kaduna Governor Nasir Ahmed el-Rufai and Senator Shehu Sani, assumed another dimension at the weekend with party stake- holders, loyal to the governor, accusing Sani and his group of plots to stoke the ember of religious violence in the state.
The intention of the group, Daily Sun’s investigations revealed, was to distract the governor, and render him incapable of delivering on his campaign promises to the people, as a prelude to seizing the political space in Kaduna State, ahead of 2019 elections. Both el-Rufai and Sani belong to the ruling All Progres- sives Congress, APC.

Amid the face-off, APC youths in the state, last week, joined the fray describing Sani, as a noise maker who would not get their votes in the 2019, should he decide to run for the governorship seat.

Supporters of Governor el-Rufai had alleged that Sani and his group were out to unleash religious violence on the state. Led by a senior government official (names withheld), the youths told Daily Sun at the weekend that the recent press conference addressed by the Centrum Initiative for Development and Fundamental Rights Initiative, CEDRA, was allegedly bankrolled by Sani.

At the said conference, CEDRA, led by Dr. John Danfulani, a Christian from Southern Kaduna had accused El-Rufai of marginalizing the people of Southern Kaduna in the appointment of commissioners and other aides in the state. The group, backing Sani also accused the governor of not putting into consideration, the ethno -religious balance in the state by retiring over 20 permanent secretaries in the state, recently.

According to the group, of the 13 Commissioners appointed in the State, only four were Christians, and of the 18 remaining Permanent Secretaries, only three are Christians. It added that “ among the most senior and key officers of his administration, like Chief of Staff, Principal Private Secretary and Secretary to the State Government, SSG, none is a Christian, nor from Southern Kaduna.
“This lopsidedness in appointments is brewing hatred and further polarising a very volatile State, like Kaduna that is known for ethno-religious skirmishes.
“    I hope the party leadership in Abuja, will make hay while the sun shines and arrest this drift, before the issue gets out of hand,” the official added.
But Sani’s supporters fired back.
The Senator, who spoke through his Adviser on Politics and Ideology, Suleiman Ahmed said: “What we always urge the state government to do is to divorce itself from sponsoring thugs and hooligans to issue press statement against some personalities in the State.
“Government should rather give the youths jobs to do, in- stead of using them to attack stakeholders in the state…the youths who are claiming to be defending the State governor are doing it at the detriment of them- selves and the general society.”


NAN