Southern Kaduna killings: Buhari must listen directly to affected people not by proxy – Shehu Sani

From Sola Ojo, Kaduna

To Sani, the idea of listen to the people of Southern Kaduna through political pipes is not good enough for a President who had lived most part of his years in Kaduna State saying, to find solutions to the continuous bloodshed in the Southern part of Kaduna, need a genuine leadership approach which Buhari must personally lead and not by proxy as being the case since he became president six years ago.

Sani, who made the call when a southern kaduna youth movement visited him in Kaduna said, there was no genuine reason for President Muhammadu not to have visited Kafanchan on a solutions finding meeting with the people in the area.

“I could not see any reason that President Buhari who is on his sixth year could not spare one day to go to Kafanchan and sit down with the people and listen to their problems and collectively come up with solutions.

“President Buhari has lived in Kaduna for more than 4-decades more than he has lived in his home State, Katsina.

“It is impossible for President Buhari to hear the truth and the reality in Southern Kaduna if such message has to pass through political pipe before it get to him”, he noted.

He further noted that, “the Southern Kaduna region has been considered different by the rest part of the State because of their political choices, religious identity and by their ethnic affiliations.

“So, if the President is a father for all, he must listen directly to the plight of the Southern Kaduna People; from their traditional rulers, political leaders, from their youths and women representatives in order to get the best ideas on how to end the systematic killings in region.

“I am one of those who passionately believed that, Southern Kaduna was underdeveloped part of Kaduna State and this is as a result of years of political, economic and social exclusion and what I described as apartheid to the people of Southern Kaduna.

“Providence has brought us together as indigenes and citizens of this State. It was important we unite as a people and respect the religion and dignity of one another in order to build the State.

“We in the Kaduna Central and those in the Northern parts are not fairing better; kidnapping was worst in the central and the North more than any parts of the State while killings is worst in the Southern part of the State.

“The only part of Kaduna State that you cannot appreciably locate killings and kidnapping is Kaduna South and Kaduna North but the rest of the 21 States are all in grave danger,” he said.