The lawmaker representing Kaduna Central, Senator Shehu Sani has urged the All Progressives Congress, APC, to penalise the Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai for allegedly leaking to reporters a memo he wrote to President Muhammadu Buhari.
Sani, who is the vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, called for the punitive measures in a statement he released in Abuja on Saturday in reaction to the purported leakage of the memo.
He stated that it was ironic that El-Rufai, who could not stand constructive criticism against his administration, has the audacity to criticise the President, although cunningly.
Recall that El-Rufai was recently reported as telling Buhari in a memo that he was losing the vision and the momentum that brought the APC to power, stressing that a cabal was working hard to alienate Buhari from those who worked hard to secure his victory in the 2015 election.
Reacting to the content of the memo, Sani said, “the governor always recommends that our party should punish me for criticising him.
“Now that he has fired a cruise missile at the President through a deliberately leaked memo, he should also be treated the same way.
“He accused me of being disloyal and disrespectful to the President and the party for speaking my mind.
“Now he has done his own cunningly by criticising the President and the party, disguised it as a memo and leaked it out to the press.
“If our able party chair would give me five strokes of the cane for speaking out, the governor (El Rufai) should be given thrice that for ‘leaking out’.
“It’s often said that look at the message and not the messenger, but there are times when you can only decipher the message by looking at the messenger.”
Admitting that El-Rufai is entitled to his opinion and perception, the senator said the contradiction and irony is that the Governor carried out an action he always stood against when criticised.
He described El-Rufai as disloyal and disrespectful, stating that: “the difference is that while mine is blunt, his is dubious.
“Secondly, for all the issues he raised against the President, his own is worst in his space of governance both in the existence of cabal or politics of exclusion, incompetence or public perception.
“The difference is that the President is tolerant of criticisms and alternative views.’’
Sani said the leakage of the memo to newsmen was proves that ‘‘logically he is leaking memo to rouse popular sympathy and create the image of ‘a competent alternative’ to ‘Baba’.
“The memo suggests he is trying to do what he recently accused me of.
“He said that I am in the habit of criticising him because I want to become Kaduna State Governor.”
The lawmaker advised Buhari to be cautious, asserting that: “he who keeps a scorpion in his pocket must always watch his groin and he who inherits a cobra should know that it’s not a pet.’’
