Punish el-Rufai for firing missile at Buhari, Shehu Sani tells APC

Shehu Sani, senator representing Kaduna central, says the All Progressives Congress (APC) should punish Nasir el-Rufai, Kaduna governor, for leaking a letter he wrote to President Muhammadu Buhari.

In the letter which criticised the Buhari administration, el-Rufai alleged that some of the people around the president lack experience.

El-Rufai said Buhari was losing the vision and the momentum with which APC started the change campaign.

“In very blunt terms, Mr President, our APC administration has not only failed to manage expectations of a populace that expected overnight ‘change’ but has failed to deliver even mundane matters of governance outside of our successes in fighting BH insurgency and corruption,” el-Rufai had said in the memo.

But in a statement on Saturday, Sani said the governor who could not stand criticism was doing same to Buhari.

“The governor always recommends that our party should punish me for criticising him. Now that he has fired a cruise missile at the President through a deliberately leaked memo, he should also be treated the same way,” the statement by Sani read.

“He accused me of being disloyal and disrespectful to the President and the party for speaking my mind. Now he has done his own cunningly by criticising the President and the party, disguised it as a memo and leaked it out to the press.

“If our able party chair would give me five strokes of the cane for speaking out, the governor should be given thrice that for ‘leaking out’.

“It’s often said that look at the message and not the messenger, but there are times when you can only decipher the message by looking at the messenger.”

He further said that by leaking the letter to journalists, el-Rufai wants to gain sympathy and create the image of “a competent alternative” to Buhari.

“He who keeps a scorpion in his pocket must always watch his groin and he who inherits a cobra should know that it’s not a pet,” the lawmaker advised the president,” he said.