2019 and the many battles of El-Rufai
WhenMalamNasirEl-Rufai was campaigning to be governor of Kaduna State in 2015, he earned an uncommon nickname, ‘Mai Rusau’ (one who demolishes) which tied back to his days as minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) when by his order, lots of structures fell to the bulldozers.
The governor was to explain more than two years after he won the election that those that gave him the name did it for political reasons, ‘it was to give a dog a bad name in order to hang it, referring to the work we did in Abuja,’ he said and promised to focus on development and building structures.
In the early hours of Tuesday, the nation awoke to the news of the demolition of a property on 11b Sambo road, Kaduna, which belonged to the senator representing Kaduna North senatorial zone, Suleiman Uthman Hunkuyi.
The building was remodeled into the parallel secretariat of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state.
Hunkuyi along with other party chieftains that included Alhaji Tijjani Ramalan and Danladi Wada opened the secretariat following what they termed the undue harassment of their members at the secretariat of the party along Ali Akilu road and because Wada as deputy chairman of the party should be acting as chairman of the party since the chairman, Yusuf Bala Bantex, had left to become the deputy governor of the state.
About two weeks after they opened the office, the house and the fence which were painted in APC colours were demolished and before noon that day, the ownership of the plot was revoked while the government donated the space that once housed the building to one of its agencies, KASUPDA, to manage as a park.
Twenty four hours later, another property belonging to Senator Hunkuyi was billed for an accumulated ground rent of 24 years and a fine of N30 million was imposed on it for defaulting in payment and sent to the owner to pay within 30 days.
A source in KADGIS, the agency which gave the directive said the ownership risks being revoked if the rent and penalties are not paid within the stipulated time.
This has brought the state governor into direct conflict with Senator Hunkuyi, who was his friend and partner in the build up to the 2015 elections, adding to the number of his clashes with individuals, associations and organizations since he assumed office as governor.
El-Rufai’s 33 months in office, has seen him clash with the high and mighty as well as the downtrodden, the urban and rural dwellers, the elites and the grassroots population, religious groups, traders, businessmen, politicians and many others.
Many of the clashes have led to various forms of legal tussles.
His political clashes both in and outside the state and which had drawn wide interests while they lingered are also more than a dozen.
Put together, this gives an average of one issue in a month since he assumed office.
Some of the known high-profile clashes he has had include the ones he had with prominent persons in the presidency, who he leaked a memo he sent to the president, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Senator Shenu Sani, Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi, leaders of the APC in the state which formed the APC Akida, Restoration Group and the APC Aspirants Forum.
Prominent individuals within these groups which have at one time or the other had direct confrontation with the governor include, Alhai Tijani Ramalan, General Sani Saleh and Alhaji Yaro Makama.
Other bodies that have engaged the governor in fights include the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, over the sacking of their members; The Nigeria Labour Congres, NLC, over the same issue; local government staff, traditional rulers, Southern Kaduna Peoples Union, street beggars, Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, PFN, Council of Ulaama and others,
Most of the issues attracted wide attention and were on the front burner of national discourse while they lasted. The political clashes Shehu Sani; The one political clash that seems to reverberate the most is the one between the governor and Shehu Sani. This is one of the early political conflicts within the APC in Kaduna State. The senator belongs to the faction known as the APC Akida but the frequency of his clashes with the governor which led to his suspension and later expulsion from the party in the state makes his case stand out.
El-Rufai and Sani were said to have enjoyed a very cordial relationship before the 2015 general elections but parted ways when El-Rufai began to form his cabinet.
Sani said as one the two senators who are members of the party in the state, he should have been consulted to make input. Things got worse as time went by as both directly and indirectly continue to send verbal jabs at each other party from time to time.
Senator Sani on one hand is said to be eying the governorship seat in 2019 while on the other hand the senator is said to be worried that the governor may do all to prevent him from securing the senate ticket of the
party and that is why he is also he is also fighting back.
The crises assumed a new dimension Friday filed a N26m defamation suit against the senator. APC Akida: The APC Akida was formed by top members of the APC in the state, who felt they worked hard enough for the success of the party in the 2015 general elections but were sidelined from the scheme of things immediately the governor assumed office.
One of the leaders of the Akida group, Hakeem Baba Ahmed, was the interim chairman of the APC in the state.
Other members of the group are Mataimaki Tom Maiyashi, Shehu Sani, Isa Hashiru Kudan.
They are also irked by the governor’s refusal to conduct a congress to fill vacant positions within the party.
They formed the Akida faction as a parallel leadership of the party and threatened to conduct congress to appoint leaders of the party from the ward to the state levels. The Restoration Group: One of the leaders of the Restoration Group is the proprietor of the popular Liberty Radio and TV, Alhaji Tijanni Ramalan. Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi later joined the group when the issue of electing delegates to the APC botched national convention came up and none from their camps were nominated.
They accused the state government of hijacking the process and wrote a petition to the national secretariat of the party on the matter.
The group has been writing series of public letters accusing the state governor of many missteps. APC Aspirants Forum: This was formed by the senator representing Kaduna North Senatorial Zone, Senator Suleiman Uthman Hunkuyi ahead of the party primaries to elect candidates for the forthcoming local government elections in the state.
The senator who is in the same party with the governor said as far as he is concerned, the battle-line has been drawn between him and the governor and that he will ask all his supporters not to vote for the governor as he said the governor has turned his back on those of them that worked for his victory in 2019.
Hunkuyi said he is offering to lead the forum that will challenge any candidate the governor presents for the election. The court cases Alexander Guruza Hyamu: One of the first cases against the governor was by a former local government chairman of Jaba Local Government Council, Alexander Guruza Hyamu, who dragged the state government to court, challenging the constitutionality or otherwise of having caretaker chairmen in place of elected council chairmen.
Hyamu had sued the Kaduna State Governor, the Kaduna State Attorney General, Kaduna House of Assembly Speaker and Kaduna State Independent Electoral Commission, on “whether the provision of Section 13(3) (a)(b)(c) and (d) of Kaduna State Local Government Administration (amendment law) 2016, which empowers the governor and Kaduna State House of Assembly to appoint IMC without conducting democratic election is not inconsistent with provision of Section 1(2) and Section 7(1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999….”
Justice Mairo Mohammed, who later delivered judgment, ruled that the existence of interim management committees for local governments was “unconstitutional and, as such, null and void” and ordered for fresh elections for the councils within 90 days of the judgment. IMN: Not long after that, members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, (IMN) clashed with the Nigeria Army and their leader, Sheik Ibraheem El-Zakzaky and his wife were detained.
The state government set up a judicial commission of inquiry to look into the matter. But the IMN threatened to challenge the outcome of the inquiry, saying it is a case of a judge sitting in his own case since the Kaduna State government is a party in the issue.
Counsel to the IMN, Festus Okoye, however said the group could not carry out its threat as the legal team was not allowed access to the IMN leader under whose instructions they would have gone a head with the matter. Free Feeding; Later the Kaduna state governor introduced the free feeding programme in the state, this again did not go down well some individuals in the state and a Kaduna-based lawyer, Maxwell Kyon went to court to challenge the introduction of the policy.
Kyon argued that there was no need for the state government to feed school children in the state and stressed that the free feeding programme was unconstitutional. Bill to Regulate Preaching: Not long after the executive arm of the Kaduna government caused another stir when it sponsored a bill to the state House of Assembly to regulate preaching in the state. This drew the ire of quite a number of Christian and Muslim clerics.
The Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) decided to go beyond merely criticizing the policy and instituted a legal action against the governor at a Kaduna State High Court.
The clerics joined the Kaduna State House of Assembly and the Attorney General of the state as respondents in the suit and asked the court to declare as null and void the executive bill seeking to revive a 1984 law that regulated preaching in the state.
A human right activist and legal practitioner Dr Anthony .A. Orunkoya also dragged Governor Nasir El-Rufia to court on account of that at a Federal High Court in Abuja to challenge the action of Kaduna State government to regulate religious activities by an executive bill. The human right activist is asking the court to determine whether the government of Kaduna state can validly make laws to regulate religious activities in such manner, in the face of the provision of Section 38(1) of the 1999 Constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria. Gbagyi Villa: The Gbagyi Villa Community which houses had been slated for demolition also ran to court to seek an order of injunction restraining the governor of Kaduna State & 4 others from interfering with the possession, use and occupation of their properties and from carrying out any demolition of the properties of the community.
The injunction sought to stop “the state Government, the Attorney General of the state, Kaduna State Urban Planning and Development Authority (KASUPDA), respectively as respondents, either by themselves or through their employees, staff, servants, agents, proxies or whosoever, from demolishing or destroying the applicants’ buildings.”
In March, the court stopped el-Rufai from demolishing the over 4,000 houses in the Gbagyi Villa.
Some other persons who felt threatened by the governor’s comments and actions had also taken legal steps to stop the governor from taking such measures. Ballason; A Civil Rights activist, Gloria Mabiam Ballason in similar circumstance, sued the Kaduna State governor for the enforcement of her fundamental rights in response to an alleged announcement by the governor that he will ‘arrest and prosecute’ Ballason for the ‘dossier of her work which the government is compiling including her article in the Blueprint Newspaper of 28th November,2016.’ Traditional rulers: Last year, the Kaduna State government also announced the sack of 4,776 traditional rulers in the state.
This prompted another court action against the state governor and others as a group of persons, Alhaji Lawal Iro (Magajin Mallam Zazzau Hakimin Samaru), Alhaji Falalu Umaru (Maharin Zazzau, Hakimin Dutsen Abba and Alhaji Isah Suleiman (Danmalikin Zazzau Hakimin Nassarawan Doya) sued for themselves and on behalf of the duly appointed district heads, seeking for an order of interim injunction restraining the state government either by themselves or via their agents from taking any step whatsoever to fill the offices of district and village heads within their domains. Inuwa Abdulkadir: In May 2017, the North West Zonal Vice Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Inuwa Abdulkadir, also instituted a N500 million suit against the Kaduna State Government claiming damages for his property demolished by the state government.
The state property and development agency had demolished a structure which the APC chieftain said belonged to him.
El-Rufai and Abdulkadir are not in the same camp politically. Kasuwan Barci:
The issue of demolition also affected traders at the Kasuwan Barci market in Kaduna as the state government threatened to pull down the market and reconstruct it into a modern edifice.
Owners of shops and traders at the market located at Tudun-wada in Kaduna then dragged Elrufai to a Kaduna High Court. The court presided over by Justice Mohammed Bello had issued a restraining order on El-Rufai not to demolish the market until the determination of the case before the court. Millennium City: A similar case is the issue of residents of Danhono II near the Millennium City who also dragged El-Rufai to court over what they described as taking over of their lands and demolition for those who have structures on their land. Rugby Club: The management of the Rugby club in Kaduna also had cause to take El-Rufai to court over demolition of the club. Counsel to the Rugby Club, Barrister John Balami, said that the State government wants to take over the club to build a shopping mall. The building, according to him, houses the Rugby Club, Crocodile Club and the Civil Service Club. Datti Baba Ahmed: The governor sued the ex-APC chieftain for defamation after Baba Ahmed wrote an article in a newspaper criticizing his comments on the late Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sardaunan Sokoto and Zik and alleged that the governor was ‘looting’ Kaduna dry. Others: There are others like the case with Luka Binniyat, a former correspondent of the Vanguard Newspapers in the state, Gabriel Idibia of the Union Newspapers, and John Danfulani, a former lecturer at the state university.
The fights are definitely going to have an effect on the chances of the party in 2019 as many fear that many of the leaders might leave the party.
Murtala Mohammed, the publicity secretary of the APC Akida, said the rifts are capable of distracting the party’s attention in winning elections and should be resolved as quickly as possible.
A former member of the APC Presidential Action Committee said El-Rufai as a leader should be just and fair to all.
He said being a governor is different from being a minister, saying the party needs every stakeholder as one vote can make a difference in an election.
“This 2018 should be a year uniting, reconciling members of the party and for the party to correct its past mistakes. The leadership style in Kaduna must change to reflect that,” he said.
Efforts to get Uba Sani, the political adviser to the Kaduna governor proved abortive as he was not picking his calls while the line of the acting secretary of the party, Yahaya Baba Pate ,was not going.