• ‘Grievances against ex-gov beyond Southern Kaduna’

A former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal, has accused persons whom he described as being offended by the Minister of Defence, Gen. Christopher Musa (rtd), of misinterpreting his remarks to fuel conflict in Kaduna State.

Musa had, while appearing in a Channels Television programme, alleged that the former governor Nasir el-Rufai promoted the killings in Southern Kaduna, stressing that delegates to peace meetings with the authorities became targets of attacks.

Lawal urged all those trying to push back on the truth disclosed about the security situation in Kaduna State and northern Nigeria to “focus on the millions of their out-of-school children roaming the streets with pans in their hands and who are an easy pool for recruitment into insurgency and banditry groups.”

Similarly, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Khamis Darazo, said yesterday that the grievances against the el-Rufai administration were not limited to Southern Kaduna but affected people across the entire state.

Reacting to the recent remarks by Musa over the former governor’s alleged mishandling of the security issues in the state, Darazo said: “The grievances surrounding el-Rufai’s style of governance were felt across Kaduna and not exclusively by the people of Southern Kaduna.”

He maintained that Musa did not criticiseel-Rufai on religious grounds, describing such an interpretation as misplaced.

Also, the Senior Special Adviser to the Kaduna State on Public Affairs, Victor Bobai, said it was unfair to interpret Musa’s comments as a personal or politically motivated attack on the former governor, urging those with a contrary assessment of the developments in Kaduna to respond to the issues raised with facts and evidence.

However, the former SGF swore on his Facebook page that any attempt by el-Rufai’s compatriots “to lynch one of the best of ours in the person of Gen. Musa – abrilliant patriot and highly regarded military officer who served out his tenure with distinction – willbe stoutly resisted.”

He urged the defenders to rather focus on their traditional rulers, senior clerics, federal ministers and senators, who he said “are currently mired in controversies and allegations of being collaborators of bandits and kidnappers that are ravaging the ‘Arewa’ of their dreams.”

“I have observed that most of these attacks occur on the Arewa Consultative Forum platform and similar other majorly populated by Northerners of the Arewa persuasion,” he stated.

“Their views do not alter the experiences of Southern Kaduna people in Nasiru’s hands while he was the governor of Kaduna State. To them, and by extension us (all Northern ethnic nationalities and Christians), el-Rufai was what Adolf Hitler was to the Jews; no more, no less.

“This is their reality, which, as Christopher says, is mercifully being addressed by the current governor, who himself is a Fulani/Muslim but of a merciful type; God bless his soul.”