Shehu Sani, the senator representing Kaduna Central Senatorial District, has advised Gov. Nasir EI-Rufai, governor of the state, to go after Fulani herdsmen causing horror in the state instead of protesting teachers and civil servants in the state. Mr. Sani offered the advice in a statement issued on Thursday. The senator said he is in full support of the decision of the teachers and workers to embark on strike as well as hold peaceful rallies and processions.
Sani maintained that the state government has no constitutional right to ban peaceful protest, intimidate or blackmail workers using the police, saying it has paid its loyalists to protest on many occasions without incident.
“Sponsored pro-government protests have been organized on many occasions by the state government and its agents. Why should workers be denied the rights to protest?
El-Rufai should order the police to go after herdsmen and kidnappers that have made Kaduna State their national headquarters and not after unionists, activists, journalists and perceived critics of his administration,” the senator said.
Sani said it is condemnable and contradictory that the governor, who was elected on the platform of a presumably progressive party, is irritated by dissent and criticism.
“He has jailed journalists and is now going after workers. President Buhari's misinformed support for El-Rufai's premeditated sack of Kaduna teachers emboldened tyranny, aided fascism and abetted arbitrariness of the governor against workers in the state.
A government that promised to create jobs has only ended up killing jobs,” he stated.
He added that the only jobs El-Rufai has created in the state are for kidnappers, herdsmen and political thugs. He wondered why the governor, who repeatedly accused former presidents Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan of persecuting him have no tolerance for criticism. Sani maintained that the democratic credentials of any government are defined by its human rights record.