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Sani<\/p>\n
By Publisher<\/p>\n
Kindly share:<\/p>\n
A former senator and human rights activist, Shehu Sani, has dismissed the opposition\u2019s coalition targetted at unseating President Bola Tinubu in 2027 as a futile movement.<\/p>\n
Sani, who represented Kaduna Central Senatorial District in the Eighth Senate, made the remark in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abuja.<\/p>\n
He said even though it was within the democratic rights of Nigerians to organise themselves into a coalition, the credentials of those championing the present coalition course had shown very clearly that the move would end in a total fiasco.<\/p>\n
“Yes, any country or government without opposition can easily slide into a dictatorship or one-party state.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf everyone goes into one political party and there is nobody to challenge the government or hold the government to account, our government could be run aground.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need a coalition and we need a credible opposition; a credible opposition should not be a canopy of frustrated and angry people, whose interest is not the country or the people, but their own selfish interest.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are people in this coalition whose presence will give you goose pimples. Someone like former governor of Kaduna State, Nasiru El-Rufai.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is not a clean political figure that came out of the trenches; he is not someone who has never been in government.<\/p>\n
\u201cNigeria just celebrated 26 years of democracy and El-Rufai was the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises for four years, minister for four years, governor for eight years, and so why did he not achieve all those things he is saying now while in office,\u201d he queried?<\/p>\n
Sani said that if one had been in the office for almost 20 years and the person is in his mid-60s, such a person should be thankful to God because millions of people wanted to get what such person was taking for granted.<\/p>\n
He said though former Vice-President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, one of the opposition figures, had the constitutional right to contest, he should not contest the 2027 presidential election.<\/p>\n
Sani said that Atiku should allow a southerner to contest and serve out the turn of the South, saying by doing that, he would have the moral right to seek the support of the South in 2031.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs someone who has been in the political realm more than many other politicians, he should know that there are consequences for contesting elections every other time and losing.<\/p>\n
\u201cAtiku should not allow himself to be seen as a face of failure. He should rather be a good mathematician and a good hunter who knows when it is right to contest elections.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you have someone from the North who spent eight years in office and a southerner just spent four years in office, and you are in the opposition, you have to present someone from the South as your party\u2019s candidate.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t build an opposition on the foundation of frustration and non-inclusion. All those things El-Rufai is saying about Tinubu is because he failed the ministerial test.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he was made a minister today, he would have been one of the vociferous attackers of anyone who says anything against Tinubu.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow he has reached a point whereby his utterances lack decorum, no restraint, and you can see anger, frustration and even desperation on his face.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has moved away from pinpointing areas where the government is not doing well to personal attacks on Mr President, and when one has reached such a level, it is more of exhibition of anger than playing opposition roles,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The former senator said that for Atiku venturing into contesting the 2027 presidential election, he would be greeted with a lot of controversies.<\/p>\n
\u201cAtiku has a lot of good political credentials. For instance, when, as activists, we were in prison in the 90s, he was in touch with us.<\/p>\n
\u201cI happened to share the same prison at Kirikiri, Lagos with the late Shehu Musa Yar\u2019Adua who was Atiku\u2019s mentor and Uba Sani was the contact between us and the outside world at that time,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n
According to him, the strategies being employed by the coalition cannot fetch those behind it any result.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor instance, the coalition ought to be looking at sectoral performances of the government to win support from the masses; rather, they are attacking the government aimlessly.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, El-Rufai as a governor in Kaduna left with bad records.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe treated the people from Southern Kaduna viciously, sacking thousands of teachers without paying them, sacking thousands of civil servants, disobeying court orders and arresting journalists and activists, and imprisoning them.<\/p>\n
\u201cEl-Rufai left mountain of debts and series of uncompleted projects, among other infractions and yet, coming now to preach about good governance, sanity and peace,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
On his recent endorsement for Senate in 2027 by members of All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kaduna State, he said that if local political mathematics favoured him, he would contest for the Kaduna Central senatorial district election again in 2027.<\/p>\n
\u201cContesting elections, for someone who has been there and is not a novice, you will be experienced on how to navigate the landmines there.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuch a person won\u2019t be a poster politician who is going to paste his posters everywhere and start visiting markets and be eating foods in the restaurants.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you have been there once, you will know the truth and the deception, the falsehoods, the possibilities and the risks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhoever you see emerging as a candidate of a political party is a product of a local political mathematics, influences and consultations.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo if that favours me, certainly, I can offer myself for that in 2027,\u201d Sani said. (NAN)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sani By Publisher Kindly share: A former senator and human rights activist, Shehu Sani, has dismissed the opposition\u2019s coalition targetted…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6716,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[416],"class_list":["post-6715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-shehu-sani"],"yoast_head":"\n