Former Kaduna Central Senator, Shehu Sani, has accused political leaders and other stakeholders in Northern Nigeria of refusing to accept responsibility for the region’s long-running insecurity, saying they have repeatedly blamed outsiders while shielding leaders from the North.
Sani made the remarks in a Facebook post following reactions to comments by former Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, about the security situation in Southern Kaduna during the tenure of former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai.
The former lawmaker criticised what he described as selective outrage among Northerners, arguing that they blamed former President Goodluck Jonathan for insecurity, spared former President Muhammadu Buhari from similar scrutiny and are now blaming President Bola Tinubu.
“If Christopher Musa had blamed GEJ and BAT for the killings, he would have been applauded,” Sani said, adding that those regarded by some as opposition champions had also occupied positions of authority in the past.
Sani maintained that banditry originated in Northern Nigeria through criminal gangs before spreading to other parts of the country.
He also said Boko Haram insurgency began in the North and later spread to other parts of Nigeria and neighbouring countries.
According to him, bandits and terrorists have caused enormous suffering through killings, abductions, rape, ransom-taking, destruction of communities and mass displacement.
“The orphans and widows generated by banditry and terrorism are now IDPs in our cities and refugees in our neighbouring countries,” he said.
Sani further noted that Chad, Cameroon and Niger continue to contend with security challenges that, according to him, have links to the crisis that emerged from Northern Nigeria.
He accused Northerners of blaming Jonathan, “skipping and pampering Buhari,” and now blaming Tinubu for security problems that previous leaders from the region failed to resolve.
“We are asking for a miracle and magic we failed to perform,” he said.
Sani recalled that there was a period when virtually all the country’s defence and security chiefs came from the North, yet the region’s security challenges persisted and worsened.
He said the security chiefs “met us with bandits and left us with more bandits.”
The former senator argued that anger over insecurity was often directed at political scapegoats instead of bandits, terrorists and leaders who failed to tackle the crisis.
He said communities had endured violence for nearly two decades, while there remained reluctance to hold leaders from the region accountable for their handling of the situation.
Sani also criticised those who defend political leaders despite the suffering caused by insecurity, saying victims and their families deserved greater attention than the reputations of political figures.
“We are patients who want our diseases to be treated and cured, but we don’t want to accept and read the lab results; we want to write our own lab reports,” Sani said.
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