Tag: Shehu Sani

“Opposition can be your friend. Opposition can be the fire that tempers the better sword, as well as the ice that cools a fiery temper. Don’t ever run from it; learn from it!” – Jack R. Rose

An opposition that has convictions, that has a workable alternative policies to that of the government in power is an asset to democracy,because like the popular maxim goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely, so leaders especially those who have passionate supporters who are considered infallible,some sort of a messiah who can do no wrong need “opponents” to save them from themselves. So a Senator Shehu Sani for instance who would have kept Nasir El – Rufai the governor of Kaduna State on his toes hasn’t been able to , because in the strict sense of the word he isn’t one and can never be because his criticisms are for the fun of it, opportunistic and hardly ever point to credible alternatives.

Friday 19th April 2019 before the Easter Sunday bombing of some Catholic Churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka by some forces of darkness, some bandits had invaded the famous Kajuru Castle, a holiday resort located in kaduna State and in the process killed Faye Mooney a British aid worker and a Nigerian and took some guests hostage apparently for ransom. It must be stated from the outset that every life is important, but in terms of scale and number the two incidents are not by any standard comparable. But while the people of Sri Lanka have united in grief,even when there are concrete evidence that the government was sloppy with the credible intelligence. The opposition would at the appropriate time definitely demand for answers, but for now the urgent task is to mourn the dead and to get on top of the situation,especially as there are strong indications that some of the terrorists might still be at large.

In Nigeria everything and every issue is politicized and eventually muddled up. This is the light in which the reaction of Shehu Sani which is typical and not unexpected should be viewed. For the benefit of those who haven’t read or heard about his reaction it is hereby reproduced verbatim for their benefit:”All those una wey wan come up here do tourism, escortion or sight seeing, make una chil ,this Gunmen no dey joke,life no get double.” Shehu Sani showed no empathy expected of a leader, rather displayed an alarming irresponsibility expected from a senator who has been elected to make laws for good governance, for the security of life and property, he was rather celebratory. The main purpose of his twisted twit which has rightly drawn condemnation is obviously to de market Kaduna State as an unsafe place for business , all in a bid to get at Governor Nasir El-Rufai, who has dealt him serious political blows from which he is yet to recover.

Unfortunately for mankind the world today has become unsafe due to the activities of several militant groups and deranged individuals who want to force their narrow and misguided agenda on the world by intimidation. No country including the super powers – the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia and France has escaped the war being waged by these terrorists on all fronts. The unfortunate thing about the new war is that it has no boundary and exceedingly very difficult to foresee and stop,because the terrorists hold all the aces – the targets – which are usually human beings and the mode of attack. For instance how can anyone stop a terrorist from driving a car into a crowd , like it has happened in France and Germany? So the only reasonable option is the “minimization” of their actions.

The terrorists of Sri Lanka and the kidnappers of Kajuru Castle are two sides of same coin- the only difference being that the kidnappers are common criminals who engage in their enterprise for money,while those of Sri Lanka want to “correct” a fundamental mistake the Almighty God made by creating some people white and some black,some Christians,some Muslims,some atheists and some Buddhists. This explains their strident efforts to right the “mistake” by embarking on “religious cleansing” The question is how can anyone dialogue with such characters with their warped ideology? Sadly this is the reality of our world today.

The problem with the likes of Shehu Sani who masquerade as leaders, is the painful fact that they are nothing but charlatans. A leader like Jack Welch the former Chief Executive of General Electric argued “have the courage to make unpopular decisions and gut calls”. A point Rosalyn Carter further buttressed when she differentiated between being just a leader and a greater leader. The summary of her position being that “a great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go,but ought to.” Were Shehu Sani a leader he would have first shown empathy to the victims and condemn the bandits,rather than use the ugly incident to run down Kaduna State as unsafe. Shehu Sani is clearly dishonest,because while he has continued to lunch a stay away campaign against the people and the state, the question is if there an invitation to visit the United States which holds a record in the number of people killed in a year , would he reject it?

But it is in the nature of Shehu Sani to play dirty politics with every issue solely for his own advantage and in furtherance of his politics that benefits him and only him. It is obvious he hasn’t learnt from his short lived political career that one can’t eat his cake and have it – you can’t want to be seen as the only good guy by those opposed to your party and expect your party to reward you with a return ticket. Elected on the platform the All Progressives Congress(APC) he engaged the Ward,Local,State and National chapters of his party in a war of words. He didn’t spare Muhammadu Buhari nor Nasir El Rufai his state governor. Every policy of both the state and federal government was subjected to ridicule in the name of being the defender of the poor. Tired of his antics he was severally suspended and eventually expelled. But the so called man of “principles” was to eat his vomit when he realized that he needed the APC,more than the party needed him.

If Shehu Sani admits that the entire north is under siege and that the security agencies are in reality under the control and direction of the federal Government why single out Kaduna State Government for demonization? Is his judgement on all the issues he has opposed influenced by his disagreement with Nasir El Rufai? In the typical Shehu Sani fashion of never taking responsibility he blames northern politicians as being responsible for the problem of the North,like he blames Nasir El-Rufai for issues that he knows are clearly within the competency of the federal government? If Shehu Sani excludes himself as a northern politician,then he must be a twitter or Facebook politician!

Unknown to Shehu Sani’s is that his twits and reactions to the Kajuru crisis questions the legitimacy of Government of which he is part and parcel of as a senator. Can Shehu Sani claim not to know that the security forces as a result of the various challenges are stretched and that preparedness against attacks is not the sole responsibility of government? It’s convenient for Senator Shehu Sani to seek to hide the truth because that would deny him the oxygen that he needs to harass his opponents. To those being misled by Shehu Sani please be informed that the government would always find it difficult in the light of the nature of the new security challenges to anticipate every conceivable attack even if the security agencies are well funded and equipped.