From: Sola Ojo, Kaduna
Sothern Kaduna People’s Union (SOKAPU), on Thursday, cried out alleging that Governor Nasir el-Rufai was working hard to cripple the economy of people of troubled southern part of the state.
The group alleged that the governor deliberately imposed punitive curfews on some of its local councils since December, last year.
The Union, in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Yakubu Kuzamani, and confirmed by National President, Dr. Solomon Musa, said the Kafanchan Campus of Kaduna State University (KASU), for example, was closed on the 19th of December, 2016, and had since remained closed while students of that campus remained left to idle.
The statement read in part: “the Governor, while not only satisfied with looking the other way while Southern Kaduna people are being killed, strangulating our economic development through a punitive curfew that has been on since December 2016, has now shown clearly that he is also working so hard to cripple us educationally that no one is in doubt of his real intention.
“On the other hand, if there is no deliberate agenda to cripple Southern Kaduna on all fronts, then the Kafanchan campus of KASU should be opened without delay and the students given the opportunity to go back to their classes. This is our minimum demand.
While they are made redundant, their colleagues in the Kaduna Campus of the same institution have been hitherto attending their classes and by implication attaining a comparative advantage.
“SOKAPU has consistently called for the reopening of the Kafanchan campus but Governor Nasir El-rufai has deliberately refused to heed to our call or those of other well-meaning Nigerians. The shallow and worn-out excuse being used is still ‘insecurity’ even though abuse of executive powers now weighs in stronger, and it’s glaring that keeping the campus closed confers a fake aura of persistent insecurity in Southern Kaduna and justifies Gov El-rufai’s pastime of labelling the Southern Kaduna victims as the aggressors.
“In pursuit of that, not minding the collateral damage, which in this case is clearly intended, the Governor has ensured that young and impressionable Nigerian students studying on the Kafanchan campus of KASU waste away. This is surprising because with Nigeria’s literacy rate hovering at just above 59.6 percent according to UNESCO’s 2015 estimates, the governor doesn’t need anybody to remind him of the clear and present danger of such excercise.
“However, in an ironic twist, the Governor, in search of more education himself, has now enrolled at the University – Merit in the Netherlands as a part-time PhD student. Impressive by any standards! The fact that the Governor is still pursuing more educational laurels despite his age coupled with those he has, and deliberately denying young Nigerians their inalienable rights of pursuing their academic improvement perfectly evokes the Orwellian impression of inequality in an animal farm.
“Why then should the Kafanchan Campus of KASU be still under lock and key under the excuse of insecurity when other Schools in Kafanchan are all opened? the College of Nursing is open, the Kafanchan campus of the College of Education Gidan Waya is in session, all primary and secondary schools are open and in session. Even the Kafanchan zonal office of the Ministry of Education is open and running normal hours. All markets in Kafanchan, including local markets in the suburb, now function regularly.
“Then what exactly is the real reason behind the continued closure of the campus? We ask this with all seriousness because even the College of Education Gidan Waya that is still closed was deliberately not secured at the peak of all the killings at that axis which led to students exiting the school”, the union queried.