President Muhammadu Buhari’s Proposed Visit To Kaduna And The Killings In Southern Kaduna

It has come to our knowledge that President Muhammadu 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 we 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.

President Buhari’s conscious refusal to include visiting of Southern Kaduna to commiserate with the immediate family,Chiefdom, and the good people of Southern Kaduna for the brutal and gruesome murder of a 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 persona 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.

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 Media on 27th December 2016 simply said Governor Nasir El-rufai has assured them that he is in full control of the situation. And has 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 Governor of Kaduna State is an overrated person that can’t walk 5% of his elephant-sized talks. His landmark deficiency in administrative and physical security management is an open secret.

While leaving Southern Kaduna at the mercy of a certified panjandrum and self acclaimed genius called El-rufai,President Buhari treated Zamfara State diffidently.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 Governor 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 don’t permit State governments to embark on foreign policy because Foreign Policy is under exclusive list in Nigeria’s  1999 constitution(as amended).And demanded for a full blown investigation into this crystal clear  act of felony by Governor El-rufai. For reason bordering hatred for the people of Southern Kaduna, party fraternity and Mechanical solidarity President Buhari refused to act.

In President Buhari’s inaugural speech of 29th May 2015, he assured compatriots that he will be a leader for all and for nobody. Much effort  is not needed to establish an incontrovertible and impeccable fact that;Mr.President is not faithful to his pledge and has brazenly betrayed his oath of office.

We are beginning to suspect that President Buhari has lost the courage to see Governor 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.President 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.

Still,if President Buhari isn’t avoiding a head-on with the destructive element that crested  on the win of change his candidacy triggered in 2015,he would have pulled the brakes after receiving protests letters from AKIDA fraction of APC and RESTORATION group. Lodging of official protests by Kaduna State’s political juggernauts shows that the soul of his party APC  is on a cliff. But because the fair of El-rufai is the beginning of wisdom, President Buhari refused to act as prayed by these groups in their well circulated letters.

Again , if President Buhari isn’t avoiding “a rumble in the jungle-like” skirmish with Governor El-rufai he would have keep-off Kaduna because for the past 36 months,no single peoples oriented project has been commissioned.President Buhari has gone to many state and Commissioned projects but hasn’t commission a single one initiated and completed by Governor El-rufai despite much hype by his spin doctors and unproductive local and international pay-as-you-go conferences.

We condemn in strongest terms President Buhari’s insensitivity to killings in Southern Kaduna through his refusal to talk against it or visit the area while on an official engagement in the state. And lost of courage to ooze some home truth into the ears of his apocalyptic political clone and godson,Governor El-rufai.History will remember President Buhari for these inhuman disposition.

Dr. John Danfulani

Centrum Initiative For Development And Fundamental Rights Advocacy(CEDRA)

2/1/2018