The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Shehu Sani

  • How to end insurgency, by Shehu Sani

    How to end insurgency, by Shehu Sani

    The President of the Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria, Comrade Shehu Sani, yesterday urged the Federal Government to consider other options to tackle the Boko Haram insurgency.

    He also urged the government to raise a Contact Committee and Islamic sects’ leaders’ dialogue committee.

    Sani, who is favoured by the sect as a mediator, made his position known in a statement last night in Abuja.

    He said the use of force might not help.

    The statement said: “Condemnation and shedding of tears is not enough. Proactive intervention and involvement is the only practical step to end the insurgency.

    “The state reserves the right to apply all its security apparatus to contain and extinguish the insurgency, but where it prolongs and becomes perilous to the lives of innocent Nigerians, other options should also be given attention.”

    Sani recommended the urgent raising of two committees, and the enlisting of Islamic scholars and organisations to persuade Boko Haram to stop fighting.

    The statement said: “The insurgency in the Northeast is a serious threat to our right to life, liberty and democracy. However, the situation is not hopeless, if the Federal Government will take the following important steps:

    “The Federal Government should set up two committees: (1) Contact Committee and (2) Islamic sects’ leaders’ dialogue committee.

    “The contact committee should comprise facilitators of the Dr. Datti Ahmed intervention and some selected members of the insurgent groups now in detention.

    “The Islamic sects committee should comprise the leaders of Darika sects, Izala sects, Shiite sects, Qadriyya sects, Tijjaniya sects, Ahmadiyya sects.

    “The first committee’s mission is to initiate a genuine contact with the leadership of the insurgents and secure an immediate and credible ceasefire.

    “The second committee’s mission is to engage the insurgents from the Islamic perspective and set an agenda for an end to all forms of violence and restoration of peace in that part of the country.”

    Sani explained why he refused to serve on the Federal Government Dialogue Committee, which was headed by the Minister of Special Duties, Alhaji Kabiru Tanimu Turaki

    He said: “My refusal to serve in the Federal Government dialogue committee is informed by the fact that the committee is lacking in contact and content and substance to achieve an end to the violence.

    “They wasted tax payers’ money by raising false hopes and broadcasting false and misleading ceasefires and contacts with the insurgents.”

  • Jonathan can’t sack Sanusi without Senate’s approval – Sani

    Civil Rights activist and President of Kaduna based Civil Rights Congress (CRC), Mallam Shehu Sani ,has said the suspension of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi ,is against the law as the President would require the approval of the Senate to do that.

    Sani, however, said that Sanusi should not have waited to be relieved of his duty at the apex bank before resigning his appointment after exposing massive corruption in the government.

    He said, “The removal of the CBN Governor goes contrary to the law that requires the consent and ascent of a two- third majority of the members of the Senate. The suspended CBN governor has done his patriotic duty by revealing the regime of theft and monumental corruption that characterized the President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration and the NNPC.

    “Without Sanusi , Nigerians could not have known the level of dubious roguery that was the NNPC. The NNPC has become a state in itself. Ironically, the same Sanusi who supported the removal of petroleum subsidy on the ground that “the money wasted in subsidy is better used for infrastructural development has found himself in the point of revealing the theft of that money.

    “We appreciate Sanusi’s courage. However, the ethical thing for Sanusi to do having made such patriotic revelations is to resign from the thieving government and not to continue to hang on until he was booted out by the government.

    “Under President Jonathan, life has become so cheap and the national treasury has become so porous. In the North east, insurgents continue to batter lives and in Abuja bureaucrats continue to batter the treasury with reckless abandon. Nigeria bleeds physically and financially. Nigeria has become a land of mass murder and monumental thievery.”

     

  • ACF, others mourn Mandela

    The northern socio-political organisation, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and Kaduna based civil rights activist, Mallam Shehu Sani has described South Africa’s first black President, Nelson Mandela, as embodiment of peace, reconciliation and forgiveness.

    Also, the National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria described the death of Mandela as the departure of a freedom fighter and global icon of forgiveness.

    In separate statements made available to The Nation in Kaduna, they said that Africa and indeed the world will miss the leadership quality of the anti-apartheid icon who spent 27 years in prison, fighting to free South African blacks from slavery.

    The ACF in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Anthony Sani ,said, “the departure of a freedom fighter, global icon for forgiveness and unprecedented transition from tyranny to non-racial democracy is capable of ushering a global despair, disillusionment and agony.

    “Arewa Consultative Forum mourns this fact that at last the message has come that former President Nelson Mandela passed on yesterday. Dr. Mandela was an embodiment of peaceful relative pluralism nurtured by reconciliation, forgiveness, tolerance, justice, liberty, common decency, equality and accommodation as well as dignity of man.

    “President Mandela showed that we can make the most of our God-given diversity by working hard to overcome what divide the people in favour of core value of humanity that unite us.

    “And that is why even though he is now at peace associated with death, we cannot be totally wrong to say he is still at pain with what he has left behind in some parts of the world where some people still take it out of themselves in order to address perceived grievances, as if Dr Mandela did not sacrificed his freedom and comfort for the freedom of others and for the sacred inviolability of the individual.

    The President of Civil Rights Congress, Sani said the news of Mandela’s death was a painful one, adding that Africa, the black race and all freedom loving people of the world have lost a revolutionary icon.

     

  • CSOs to Jega: Remove corrupt officials before 2015

    CSOs to Jega: Remove corrupt officials before 2015

    Some Civil Society groups in Kaduna have advised the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, to remove corrupt electoral officers at all level before the 2015 general elections.

    They said this would ensure the credibility of the elections and help to restore the confidence of Nigerians in the process.

    The groups in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday noted that the role played by some INEC officials in the inconclusive governorship election in Anambra State should not be allowed to continue.

    The Head, Policy and Coordination of Adopt A Goal for Development Initiative, Mr. Dare Atoye, said such officials would compromise whatever good plans were made by the commission, if not checked now.

    “There is nothing INEC can do to guarantee credible elections in an atmosphere of serious compromise.

    “Election conduct is a collective responsibility of all political stakeholders; we must support INEC.

    “Yes, you can’t rule out bad eggs that could be compromised like Jega observed, but no one should doubt the good intention of INEC,” Atoye told NAN.

    Also, the President of the Civil Rights Congress, Shehu Sani, advised Jega to “tidy up the mess” generated by the election in Anambra.

    “I advise Prof. Jega to tidy up the mess in Anambra and restore our hope that is now quickly eaten up by the seemingly incurable virus of ritual of election fraud.”

    According to him, only credible elections will bring about a genuine, free and democratic state, and a leadership that will help the nation to progress.

     

  • Jonathan’s confab meant to placate SNC agitators – Shehu Sani

    Kaduna based human civil rights campaigner and President of the Civil Rights Congress (CRC), Mallan Shehu Sani said on Friday that the national dialogue proposed by President Goodluck Jonathan is only aimed at placating agitators of a Sovereign National Conference and not to address the nation’s teething problems.

    Sani said in a statement in Kaduna that the proposed national dialogue is doomed to fail from the beginning as it will only provide an opportunity for northerners and southerners to engage in prolonged session of overheated sectionalist debate and give the government a respite to strategise for the 2015 elections.

    While describing the proposed dialogue as a charade, Sani said “the national conference idea of the President Jonathan’s government is nothing but a fraudulent exercise mischievously conceived to rubbish and bastardize the genuine idea of a sovereign National Conference as propagated by other progressive Nigerians over the Years.

    He said, “President Goodluck Jonathan’s conference is a journey to eldorado as it will neither take us out of the hell of our national woes nor deliver us to the paradise of our dreams. It is primarily aimed at appeasing the advocates of the conference and not achieving its ideal purpose.

    “President Goodluck Jonathan conference is a deceptive exercise aimed at diverting the attention of the nation away from the prevalent moral crisis and failure of governance, by engaging the nation in a meaningless and endless debate about a wishful future.

    “The National conference of president Jonathan will only engage northerners and southerners in a prolong session of overheated sectionalists and chauvinists debate while given the regime a respite to strategise for the 2015 elections.

    “The economy has collapsed, the universities remain shut, residents doctors are threatening to down tools, states are bankrupt, Nigerians are killed and kidnapped, oil is stolen, corruption is at its highest level, these are the issues President Jonathan’s conference is aimed at diverting.

    “Those who think that the oppressed can be free through a dialogue process organized by the oppressor and on its own terms, lives in a fool’s paradise; Nowhere in history and nowhere in the world has the oppressors willingly sits down with the oppressed, on same table and surrender their class privileges and structures of power and plunder without a bitter revolutionary struggle.”

  • Why North is against state police, by Shehu Sani

    Why North is against state police, by Shehu Sani

    Human rights activist Shehu Sani gives insight into why the North is opposed to state police. He spoke with LEKE SALAUDEEN. Excerpts:

     

    Why are the northern states opposed to the creation of state police?

    A lot of factors are responsible. During the colonial time, the local police were directly under the emirate system referred to as Native Authority. At that time, they were brutally used against members of the opposition. They arrested people like late Hajiya Gambo Sawaba, then woman leader of late Aminu Kano’s party Northern Element Progressive Union (NEPU) for no other reason than being a member of the opposition. The experience is fresh in the memory. If you look at what the Sharia police (Hisba) are doing today in Kano and Zamfara, it is similar to what the Native Police did in the First Republic. Even though the Hisbah set up by the state governments claim to be enforcing Sharia law, they are used against people who criticise governors and their policies. Governments also use Hisbah to rig local government elections.

    In a region like ours where everything is seen from religious perspective (Muslim or Christian dichotomy), there is the likelihood of state police being used against a section of the populace that profess a religious identity different to that of people in government.

    Another reason is the very fact that the lean purse of the northern states will make it difficult for them to fund such a structure without additional funds coming from anywhere.

    The North’s opposition to state police has to do with the event that led to the build up to the civil war. There is very strong fear that if the state police is allowed, some states secessionist ambition could arm the state police through the back door with weapons, which could lead to the breakup of the country.

    Also it has to do with the very fact that states all over the country have not demonstrated the spirit of fairness, equity and justice in terms of running other institutions that are directly under them. They have bastardised the local government system, pocketed the states legislature and consistently manipulate local government elections to their favour and at the same time looting the state treasury. If they have proved incapable, dubious and dishonest in handling those institutions, it is self destruction for anyone to think that they can perform magic with state police.

    Given the state of insecurity and the failure of the police to guarantee safety of life and property, especially in the North, don’t you think state police will help?

    The socio-economic and political upheaval we were facing as a nation today is a direct product of decades of injustice, inequity and neglect. The solution to the problem is not about creating layers of security and multiplicity of state apparatus but ensuring that social justice and economic opportunities are abound for all Nigerians.

    State governors are chief security officers in their respective states but they lack police of their own. Police commissioners don’t take directives from governors but from Abuja. In emergency situations, governors are helpless. Is this normal in a federal set up?

    What you have said is true. If it is about control, all that we need to do is to loosen the Federal Government’s grip and make it possible for the state executive to use federal police in their states for maintenance of law and order. The problem of state police is that we can’t trust the governors that they would not misuse it. There is no state structure that has succeeded under them in terms of equity and justice. If they have been able to prove that they are capable of handling state police fairly and justly nobody would stand on their way. How they have treated opposition is creating fear in the minds of the people. State police is necessary. But the advocates should come out with measures that will make it impossible for state authorities to manipulate.

    Can we absolve Federal Government of police abuse?

    No. The Federal Government is also guilty. Despite that, the central government has an edge over the states when you consider the fact that elections conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is relatively credible than elections by states electoral bodies. Remember that much of the state police would be populated party thugs and miscreants loyal to the governors. They will unleash them on the opposition and critics of government.

    In future, when our democracy matures and laws are made to make it impossible for anybody to manipulate the police, we can give state police a thought but not now.

    State governments provide logistics and financial support for police commands in their jurisdiction which makes one to think that state police would not constitute burden for them. What do you think?

    Are you saying the civil servants in the states are better paid? The mere fact that they are providing support for the federal police does not mean that they can shoulder state police when established. State police can work in Lagos it may not work in Plateau state where issues are considered from religious point of view. Kano state government can use state police against Igbos living in the state. Zamfara State can use state police against Christians there while the Labour Party in Ondo State can intimidate ACN supporters. Advocates of state police need to do a lot and provide ideas and suggestions that will allay the fears of the antagonists.