April 23, 2018

Dr Muhammad Sani-Bello, a leading member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kaduna State, says Gov. Nasiru El-Rufai’s blunders is making it easier for the PDP to return to power 2019.

Sani-Bello said in an interview with the News Agency Nigeria (NAN) in Kaduna that the APC-administration in the state had sidelined the people and failed in giving them hope.

“Before 2015, nobody envisaged that over 40, 000 civil servants will be relieved of their jobs; we never knew that 350 district heads will lose their jobs or that chiefdoms will be cancelled.

“From history, the governor is not a pro-people and people agent, because he is elite by all standards.

“When he had the opportunity to serve as Director- General Bureau of Public Enterprises, common assets belonging to people were sold to individuals.

 “When SIECOM was demonstrating the new acquired machine meant for LG election across the 255 wards of the state, our party, the PDP had the highest vote during the demonstration exercise.

“That is to tell you that if there is going to be free and fair election today, the PDP will emerge victorious.”

The PDP governorship aspirant claimed that the state government had also failed in its core responsibility of providing security to the people.

“The state now lack the peaceful and harmonious coexistence that it used to enjoy, we didn’t have the state of kidnapping that we are witnessing today in Kaduna.

“It is common for people to be escorted to their homes and then kidnapped without any hindrance and they have to pay ransom and nobody has been apprehended so far.

“We know that some people will still want to be criminals and commit crime, but government will definitely have to do the needful and intervene to get the culprits and prosecute them,” he said.

Sani-Bello, who holds the traditional title of Mainan Zazzau, also faulted the manner in which the government sacked about 22,000 primary school teachers, insisting that the law governing their appointments was not followed.

According to him, there is a subsisting injunction secured by the teachers union from the Industrial Arbitration Court asking government not to go ahead with the exercise.

“Because of the government’s non adherence to the rule of law, it told the world that the court and the union were late and went ahead to sack the teachers.

“The remaining ones are all living in fear, they don’t know whether they would be sacked today or tomorrow,” Sani-Bello said.

He stressed that the 11, 000 teachers recruited by the government to replace the sacked ones lack experience in the teaching profession to make meaningful impact.

“For these reasons, we concluded that we need to buckle up, revive the PDP and serve the people again.’’

San-Bello, a former commissioner in the state said no administration would succeed if it failed to ensure fair representation of all segments of the society and run its affairs in a transparent manner.

“For any government to be successful, it has to be fully representative in nature, such that, every community irrespective of its religious affiliations is carried along and represented in governance.

“For example, the district heads in this government have been sacked, so that is the issue of representation, if you are following the trend many communities believe that they are not represented.

“Previously every LGA was represented in the executive council of the state but it is not so today.’’

He assure that the next PDP administration in the state would do things “differently.’’

“We will entrench good governance and operate within the ambit of the rule of law,’’ he added.