Since January, when the Kaduna State governor, Mallam Nasir El Rufai went on international television, Al Jazeera, and openly threatened (in a manner reminiscent of a secondary school head boy suddenly aware of his powers, and fully intent on using it to bully others) to clampdown on those posting “false” information about the Southern Kaduna massacre, microscopic eyes have turned on him. It was a case of a governor, in a democratic nation, openly boasting that he will clampdown on freedom of speech!

Granted that in talking about the massacre in the Kaduna, many had blown the narrative out of proportion, yet it was not enough for a leader to decide on his own to shutdown the people’s expression of their feelings, because for him, such expressions are “inflammatory”. Truth is, what is “inflammatory” to him, in his cosy government house apartment, could be a downright emotional expression of the direct pains being felt by the people.

And in expressing their feelings, the people are bound to often times sensationalise them. El Rufai should know this, and of course, he had himself done something similar a few years ago.

In 2009, the now governor of Kaduna state, who is now arresting people for “spreading fake news”, generated a highly spread fake news about Turai Yar’adua running a cabal at Aso Rock. The story was meant to get citizens to mount pressure on the government and get Jonathan to become president. But that story was a lie and could have led to a breach of peace in the country, yet El Rufai planted that fake news with the intention of rescuing the country from the captivity that Yar’adua’s continued absence was causing. His intentions were perhaps noble ,but it does not detract from the fact that he created a lie, to achieve it. In fact he agreed to doing that! Read;

On the way, Balat, himself a former minister in Obasanjo’s government, asked, ‘Segun, this cabal thing, were you really a member?’

Before I could respond, former Federal Capital Territory minister, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, who played a prominent role in the campaign that eventually brought Jonathan to power, interjected, ‘There was no cabal, WE CREATED THE MYTH IN THE MEDIA TO NEUTRALIZE TURAI'” (Adeniyi, Segun. Power Politics And Death. pg. 272. Our emphasis)

What it means then is that Mr. El Rufai accepted at that time that one can create a fake scenario, in order to achieve a greater good. But about eight years later, now in power as part of the executive, the once proponent of propaganda to achieve a greater good arrested Audu Makori for being a good student of his! Why is that so? Because he wants the good of the ordinary people? Or is he protecting a certain class? The class he said whoever kills owes a death of blood to? The ones he paid for “killing” while he arrested the killed who spoke up?

El Rufai must be an enigma!

It is really difficult to know if he is pro-terrorism or anti-terrorism. The arrest of Audu Makori, the expected arrest of Ndi Kato, El Rufai’s threat on international TV all show a determination to clampdown on the anti-terrorism (herdsmen) group!

Why is it that when it comes to the issue of the herdsmen’s killing, Mr. El-Rufai is more defensive of the herdsmen? On international TV, he claimed that the herdsmen were coming from outside Nigeria (to show how incredulous that claim was, the presenters put up a map of Nigeria, and pointed at Kaduna which was at a central place, and asked if the governor meant that the herdsmen had to go through at least two Nigerian states to come to Southern Kaduna to kill? All for what?). Then with the next breath, he pointed out that the crises are decades old and have been intermittent between the two factions. So in one breath, they came from outside Nigeria, and in the next one, they have been living among the people and have been having clashes with them! The lack of consistence reeks of an attempt at covering up something!

But if Mallam El-Rufai has been inconsistent in his narrative of who and where the herdmen come from, and how exactly to deal with them (at one point he paid them! Perhaps as payment for killing?), he has been extremely consistent in one aspect; identifying those speaking out against the killings, and “dealing” with them! Which raises the question; “who is the governor for?”

The Southern Kaduna situation has gotten the attention of the international community through the campaigns and sharing of information by people like Audu Makori. Granted that some of the images and information are false, but like El-Rufai and the cabal story in 2009, they achieved their set purpose–to force the...

Credit: http://ikengachronicles.com/el-rufais-hypocrisy-and-tacit-support-of-terrorism/

Why el rufai