Until he had the misfortune of elevation to the corridors of power as a Senator, most Nigerians mistook Senator Shehu Sani for a populist and human rights activist. Operating from his Kaduna base, the perceived home of the once powerful Northern mafia, Sani easily courted undeserved attention as a critic, polemicist and populist.
Loading ...This has benefited him immensely, as it would later serve as his springboard to plucking the senate seeds of APC for Kaduna Central Senatorial District. But the harm, this exposure has caused Sani is equally unfathomable. While in the senate, Sani has regrettably exposed himself more as an irritant and a mere loquacious freak.
It’s doubtful whether Senator Sani has inspired anybody or is prepared to accomplish anything in Red chamber for Nigeria and his state. He is rather, demonstrating the new belief that he lived in borrowed robes and the virtues hitherto associated with his personality were indeed erroneous.
His critics vouch assuredly that trailing Sani’s public comments for a month on same issues, leaves one with the impression of his deep contradictory personality. Yet, he shamefully thinks the panacea to this self-inflicted wound is embalming himself with a pseudo pro-masses posture, through baseless attacks on top government personalities.
Those on his favorite menu of despicable and baseless criticisms are President Muhammadu Buhari and the Kaduna state governor, Mallam Nasiru El-Rufai. To really appreciate the depth of his dilemma, Sani passes as someone not gifted with inward assessment of himself. The glaring public contention that he has lost steam is not known to the Senator yet. So, he insists on speaking, even when the countenance of his audience indicate disinterest.
For instance, Sani’s singsong is the expression angst at the poverty and sufferings of Nigerians under the administration of President Buhari. But he was one of the Senators who reclined into their shells, when parliamentarians kicked against Buhari’s inclusion of N500 billion poverty alleviation package for the poor. His voice was suddenly muffled, when it mattered most, in the defence of the poor Nigerians he poignantly invokes the conscience of leaders he has dubbed as failing the people.
To further expose his hypocrisy, Senator Sani and his soulmates have consigned the executive bill on the establishment of the National Commission on Poverty Eradication to their customary antics of procrastination. This is in spite of the urgency of the matter.
Now he has sharpened his arsenals against Governor El Rufai. He savours deflating all the actions or policies of the governor. What remains baffling is that while he condemns, he provides no alternatives. Thus, one perceives his recent claims that El Rufai was part of the PDP’s 16 years of ruination of the country and cannot absolve himself of blame is most laughable.
Unknowingly as expected, Senator Sani has bruised a festering sore. Perhaps, the Senator needs fresh briefs on the person and character of governor El Rufai. But even if he is unprepared to listen, it should not escape his mind that El Rufai is a seasoned administrator, famed internationally for his uncompromising posture for public good. If the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo can boast of any achievement in its eight years on the saddle, the mastery of El Rufai as FCT minister spiced it.
The FCT job caused him sleepless nights, much as it courted for him deadly enemies, yet he remained committed, even at the detriment of his life. Today, Senator Sani and his cohorts in Abuja are prime beneficiaries of the environmental sanity El Rufai imposed on the nation’s capital city.
It is this unbeatable record of service that railroaded his ascension to power in Kaduna state as governor in 2015. He mercilessly crushed his rival and the then incumbent governor with millions of votes. His administrative acumen has now berthed in Kaduna state and despite its delicate and volatile nature, the state has been calm.
This has become possible because El Rufai has applied uncommon wisdom in his leadership of the state. He is widely admired by his subjects for his bluntness and the inclusivity of all segments of the state in its governance. They are harnessing the benefits of change on all fronts.
Therefore, when Senator Sani accuses the governor of imposing hardship on the people, he is scorned in open places. Others even restrain themselves from mistaking him for a demented person.
Sani has exposed his innermost thoughts of perfidy. It is difficult to understand why a man who claims to be cloned in progressive virtues and garments is inclined to see party politics as investments, which should possibly yield profits.
He says, “There are people who have invested heavily in the party. They are marginalized, not carried along.”
Unmistakably therefore, the statement makes a claim that Governor El Rufai openness in the governance of the state offends Senator Sani, who probably prefers backdoor patronage for his “ party investment.”
Miffed by this development, the Senator applies desperate antics to discredit El Rufai. If he is not casting aspersions on the policies of the government like the Bill to regulate religious preachments in the state, he is making inflammatory comments that would fan the embers of discord. “You don’t have the right to regulate, issue licence to preachers,” Senator Sani thundered. But he failed expectedly to name who has such rights. This is one of his many advertisements of emptiness.
At another instance, Senator Sani craftily attempts to destroy the harmony between El Rufai and President Buhari, by insinuating that the former is interested in ousting the President in 2019.
He says, “It would be counter-productive for the Governor to start thinking of evicting Buhari in 2019 to be the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. El-Rufai should do his job and stop putting his eyes on the Presidency.”
Senator Sani pleasures in speculating, but cannot display any modicum of evidence to substantiate such spurious claims.
Therefore, when the Kaduna state chapter of the APC suspended Senator Shehu Sani, part of the anger against him was his misuse of valuable time, which ought to be devoted to the legislation of the country to vile criticisms of real or imagined enemies. Others say, assuming the Senator had a flair for initiating Bills in National Assembly, like the penchant he has developed for mouthing meaningless things, Nigeria would have been better.
Aliyu is a community leader and contributed this piece from Zaria.
