PRESS STATEMENT ISSUED BY NORTHERN RESISTANCE FRONT (NRF) AND KADUNA DISCUSSION CIRCLE (KDC)
It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies” – Noam Chomsky, Philosopher, social critic, and political activist.
Our attention has been drawn to a news interview granted by Channels Television, in which Nasir El-Rufai, former Governor of Kaduna State, presently a member of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), made unsubstantiated claims and false allegations, which contain a coterie of lies, mischievous fallacies, and disinformation. Our groups usually would ignore such satanic verses, as we find them completely laughable, baseless, and lacking any substance in their entirety. While not holding brief for Senator Uba, however, in order to set the record straight and to align with the popular mandate given to the indefatigable Governor of Kaduna, a doyen of civil society activism over the years and human rights community who has redefined and rebranded his office through the dividends of democracy to the good people of Kaduna State since assuming the mantle of leadership, we find it necessary to state as follows:
1. El-Rufai’s apparent scathing criticism of Sen. Sani Uba is a rehearsed brain wave calculated towards stirring a crisis of confidence and disharmony among the people of Kaduna State for his own selfish agenda, self-serving, and inordinate ambition. The scrawny politician has suffered a heavy defeat in the hands of Governor Sani during the just-concluded Chikun, Kajuru, Zaria, and Basawa Constituencies bye-elections, which can be understood due to his bias. The loss was a big blow to the egocentric accidental Governor, not only in the state but the entire North West Zone, which he has boasted about before now that he is the gadfly.
2. The posturing of the bitter and scrawny politician did not come to many as a surprise. When it came, it was widely regarded by many as a shameless face-saving stunt by a maniac. His gambit of not responding with facts and figures but playing the ostrich is an admission of culpability in terms of racketeering, profiteering, and rent-seeking dominant features witnessed under his maladministration.
3. One of the best things that have happened and indeed has happened to Nigeria is the exclusion of El-Rufai from all positions at the federal and state government levels due to his bigotry and tribal wars and feudalism. He is the nation’s most dangerous source of destabilization, disunity, impunity, lawlessness, and disequilibrium. It amounts to saying the obvious that this man, who voluntarily admitted giving money to foreign herdsmen and was suspected of nocturnal meetings in a state neighboring Niger Republic, must be a person of interest to Nigerian citizens and relevant security agencies. In the last two years, he has been holding clandestine engagements with people of questionable identity within and outside the country, including Lebanon and Marrakesh, among others, trying to undermine whosoever.
4. “His sad commentary on the recent outbreak of crisis recorded during the African Democratic Congress (ADC) meeting can best be described as puerile politics at its worst, bizarre, and reckless.” The political skirmishes emanated as a result of intractable leadership within the party arising from an attempt by El-Rufai to illegally hijack from the original members what he did not work for. The founding members of the party resisted the unsavory plot, knowing exactly what transpired during a similar unholy gesture by the same El-Rufai in the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
5. As El-Rufai recognizes his declining political significance daily after his failed governmental era in the state, he is creating importance by flirting with all sorts of contraptions and minions, giving the impression of eminence in the sight of gullible people craving for cheap publicity embedded with narrow-minded agendas.
6. We have total disregard for self-professed qualities, negative temperament, misplaced energy, and inconsistency associated with people like him. Our reason is due to our allergy and disdain for characters who are not integral enough to be consistent about issues or what they believe in and who regularly trail vicious threads of regret behind them in every togetherness.
7. El-Rufai has been an egotist and traveler from one party to another looking for a mesh of porridge, even with all his acquisition in Abuja then and Kaduna just yesterday; he looks insatiable, hoping against hope “On his threshold of life that he is feeling chaotic, it is when he has crossed the red line that he discovers inherent limitation of his political prowess which looked simple and are infinitely tortuous, complex and unrealistic. That there is no consistency in any inconsistency”. From PDP to CPC to APC to SDP to ADC and likely to another contraption soonest all in a bid to fleeces the masses.
8. El-Rufai’s vilification of Uba Sani is a product of envy, bitterness, anger frustration and therefore unacceptable. He has blamed President Tinubu, Sen Uba and others for the political misfortune that befell him since his failure to secure ministerial slot in the federal cabinet. He is shamelessly demanding for things that he rarely extend to others, in fact, he denied victims of his misrule affordable school fees, shelter over their heads, gainful employment, living wage, and disobeyed court orders and trampled on their rights with impunity, lawlessness and reckless abandon but today all are vanity!
9. El-Rufai have no conscience left when he criticized Uba Sani in such manner. We can testify that His Excellency stood by El-Rufai during his Mubadala ordeal in the telecom mega deal. He fought for him tooth and nail during the travails under the David Mark led Senate. His Excellency supported him when he ran away on self-imposed exile during late President Yar’Adua of blessed memories and mobilized campaign funds for him in excess throughout his 2015 Governorship ambition among others. “El-Rufai penchant for bitterness and arrogance has crossed the line of decency. Dishing out cocktails of falsehood and rhetorics cannot save him at this critical period. The people have resolved to bring an end to your Reign of political hegemony and reign of terror in Kaduna State and nothing can be done about it.”
10. Once again, for the purpose of clarity and setting the records straight, El-Rufai who was constantly in touch with Uba Sani doesn’t have the moral rights to call him any other name except his bosom friend. He helped El-Rufai when he needed him most beyond disclosure. A part from frustrations, blackmail, mischievous intent, hallucinations, desperate media visibility and attempt to salvage dwindling image, we find no concrete reasons for such lies, fabrications and innuendos from El-Rufai towards His Excellency.
11. “For eight years, the people of Kaduna State suffered your tyrannical rule, false leadership, insecurity, debt burden. We later realized that at a great cost to us that it was unhealthy for the common good for you to remain around power circle for too long”. El-Rufai frustrations are increasingly becoming painful because he is no longer in charge of our destiny which translates to him begging because of this political wilderness and loneliness”.
12. Let us state without blinking an eye lid to state, this declaration that El-Rufai has been accused of personalization of public till so brazenly to the detriment of the society. A peep to the financial records of the institutions he superintended, Bureau for Public Enterprises ( BPE), FCTA Ministry and Kaduna State presents a gory scenario. The situation could evoke tears sorrow and blood. What is more, while the conditions of the people got depressed, the (accidental public servant of fortunes) became increased to a larger than life size. Suspected of owning hundreds of houses and choice lands in the country and abroad. He is reputed to have acquired unfathomable wealth, plundered Nigerian citizens are not going to allow him to escape further scrutiny from the law enforcement agents and judicial scrutiny.
13. His belated attempt to cover up the misdemeanours, the disinformation without stating the issues truthfully itself is another fiasco and a bigger disaster for someone like El-Rufai. Over the years, he is known for flagrant disrespect to court orders and notoriety in overwhelming disregard to the rights of the poor. And above all, his penchant for rascality is second to none in history.
14. It is unfortunate that since the people of Kaduna State demanded for accountability over his stewardship as Governor of the state, he tends to look for excuses, scapegoats, exiguous defenses and blaming everyone and everything instead of looking at himself in the mirror. We therefore, we have no choice than to excoriate his record of bad governance and thousands of death witnessed under his watch. “Let no one doubt our resolve to expose”.
15. While not holding brief for anybody in the government of Kaduna State or its agents, it is gratifying to state that we the citizens have verified every piece of evidence in the public domain against El-Rufai and came to the logical conclusion that his record in public service is a historic tragedy and monumental catastrophe for our country. We therefore, come to the logical conclusion of commending every Nigerian citizen that refused to be compromised, intimidated, cajoled, blackmailed and stampeded in the cover up gambit of the accidental governor or his agents.
16. It is very glaring that El-Rufai wanted to use Governor Uba Sani as a stooge to cover up the misdemeanor of his immediate past Government of the state. Undoubtedly, the intellectual midget is very jittery, knowing that people are beginning to ask what El-Rufai and his court jesters have done with the billions of naira that accrued to the state as internally generated revenue, allocation from the federation account, millions of naira domestic and foreign dollars collected as loans.
17. “At this juncture, we must state that, the embarrassing malfeasance the federal government of Nigeria, the National Assembly and anti-corruption agencies must revisit is the fraudulent and disdainful privatization of Nitel and outsourcing of its management superintended by El-Rufai during his infamous tenure as head of the Bureau for Public Enterprises. Prior to the involvement of PENTASCOPE in the Nitel deal in the vampire feasting of our national patrimony. Every step taken by El-Rufai, the undertaker was designed to fail. And indeed, the audacious dinosaur deal failed, culminating in the lost millions of dollars and billions of naira. The unspoken truth is that Nitel had N15 billion in its coffers as treasury bills, N6 billion naira in its foreign accounts, 15 million US Dollars in its foreign accounts and 24 million US dollars of sold NITEL shares in INTELSAT. By the time Nigerian government realized the level of fraud that transpired and revoked the PENTASCOPE fraud, less than three years later, NITEL without adding a single block or a cable had to borrow to pay salaries in its 40 years of existence then. The most questionable startling matter was against all wise counseling and legal advice, rejection and criticism, El-Rufai imposed PENTASCOPE an unregistered entity on Nigeria”.
18. As things stand, El-Rufai seems to be living in denial, whatever illusionary agenda he is plotting. The people are conscious of everything and are ready to openly show him the exit door from the political scene even before the 2027 general elections. Political deviant and vassal of catastrophic agenda running amok is merely a postponement of reality that cannot endure the test of time. The patriotic citizens, lovers of democracy, and indeed Nigerians are sincerely waiting for the response of relevant national institutions on this matter. Because no amount of shameless grandstanding and shadow chasing of a drowning man who can stop the investigations, prosecution of the mastermind of the demise of Nitel and other national assets sold out to cronies and ten percenters. We are ready to use the immunity of an open court to ensure that justice is done to the people of Kaduna State and the hapless people of Nigeria on a grand scale. “If we neglect this golden opportunity to ensure recovery of looted monies and assets from the real bandit of treasury and other matters, in future our children are going to suffer from enjoying the long denied benefits of good governance by the accidental minister and irritant ex-governor named El-Rufai.
Thankfully yours,
Signed
Comrade Salisu IsaNorthern Resistance Front
Comrade Danjuma Thomas BahagoKaduna Discussion Circle Chairman”
