‘Buhari’s slow action on Southern Kaduna killings unpatriotic’

Nasir El-Rufai, Kaduna state Governor

• CEDRA laments El-Rufai’s ‘deficiency’ in security management

President Muhammadu Buhari has been accused of being insensitive to the killings in Southern Kaduna by his slow action against it and not visiting the area during his planned official engagement in the state.

A group, Centrum Initiative for Development and Fundamental Rights Advocacy (CEDRA) condemned the president’s silence and failure to caution Governor Nasir El-Rufai over the incessant killings.

In a statement issued in Kaduna yesterday, Chairman of CEDRA, Dr. John Danfulani, stated: “President Buhari’s conscious refusal to include visiting Southern Kaduna to commiserate with the immediate family, chiefdom, and the good people of Southern Kaduna for the brutal and gruesome murder of the first class paramount ruler of Numana Chiefdom in Sanga Local Government and his wife by the ‘unknown known’ gunmen is a gargantuan contradiction to the recently released commentary on his human side.

“No person with modicum of humanity, let alone a democratically elected leader, will exhibit this hyperactive insensitivity on a community that has suffered protracted acts of terror that is beginning to show some features of a genocide.“It has come to our knowledge that Buhari will be in Kaduna on Thursday 4th January 2018 to commission a dry port and a few railway coaches. Aside the niceties of tape-cutting at designated sites and a few remarks, President Buhari’s itinerary is quiet on his other activities while in Kaduna.

“A similar scenario unfolded on 12th September 2017 when he visited the state for the commissioning of a feeds milling plant called OLAM along Kaduna-Abuja Road. The President left after fulfilling the righteousness of tape-cutting. We guess his Thursday 4th January 2018 visit will ply the same lane.

“This is not the first time President Buhari is showcasing a lackadaisical and I-don’t-care attitude to the barbaric annihilations of the people of Southern Kaduna. When terminations and arsons in Southern Kaduna became a national embarrassment, President Buhari via his Special Adviser on Media on 27th December 2016 simply said Governor Nasir El-rufai had assured them that he was in full control of the situation. And had been briefing his boss regularly. Every Tom, Dick and Harry knows that Governor El-Rufai isn’t in control of the situation. Foreign terrorists he compensated were the ones in full control.”
The group described the governor as “an overrated person that can’t walk 5 percent of his elephant-sized talks. His landmark deficiency in administrative and physical security management is an open secret.”

CEDRA further lamented the president’s attitude to the realities in Kaduna: “While leaving Southern Kaduna at the mercy of a certified panjandrum and self acclaimed genius called El-rufai, President Buhari treated Zamfara State differently. He physically visited Zamfara in full military regalia. Since then, the degree of insecurity has greatly scaled-down. Zamfara people are enjoying relative peace right now. It is only in President Buhari’s world that the goose and the gander don’t share the same pot of sauce.

“When El-rufai unabashedly confirmed to the whole world on the 3rd and 21st December 2016 that he has identified killers of Southern Kaduna people in Niger, Cameroon, Chad ,Mali , Senegal and Niger Republics and offered them compensations, we wrote an official letter of protest on the ground that our constitution does not permit state governments to embark on foreign policy because it is under exclusive list in the 1999 Constitution (as amended). And demanded for a full-blown investigation into this crystal clear act of felony. For reason bordering hatred for the people of Southern Kaduna, party fraternity and mechanical solidarity, President Buhari refused to act.

“We are beginning to suspect that President Buhari has lost the courage to see El-Rufai in the eye and tell him some home truth. If it were another governor that his state has become a hub of kidnappers, a human abattoir, and other high criminal activities, President Buhari would have long before now reacted.”

According to the group, Buhari must be afraid of attracting the governor’s 2010 damning comments on his person or another 30-page assessment letter of his 36 months old administration.CEDRA said: “Again , if President Buhari isn’t avoiding ‘a rumble in the jungle-like’ skirmish with Governor El-Rufai, he would have kept-off Kaduna because for the past 36 months, no single peoples oriented project has been commissioned.”