Shekarau’s Has Lost It – Gov Nyako

Reactions have continued to trail the comments made by the former governor of Kano State Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau to the effect that if the current spate of violence persisted up to 2015, elections should not be conducted in the three states under emergency rule. Adamawa State governor Murtala Nyako declared that the former governor had lost his mental balance by the desire to satisfy his paymasters. The governor made the reaction through his Director of Press and Public Affairs Mallam Ahmed Sajo at Government House, in Yola, yesterday. He said: “It is very clear that former governor Shekarau has lost his mental balance since he left the APC and joined the PDP,” Nyako said. “Ibrahim Shekarau is a disgrace to the north. As a matter of fact, he has lost his integrity as a northerner,” Nyako added. Shekarau had said that it was more important to secure the three states and indeed the northeast than conducting elections there in 2015. This statement infuriated many residents of the affected states including Governor Murtala Nyako who accused Shekarau as a sell-out. The governor pointed out that if INEC listens to Shekarau’s demand and refuse to conduct elections in the so-called volatile states, it will disenfranchised millions of Nigerians. “If he is insisting that elections would not hold in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe because they are volatile states, then he should note that it means elections would not hold in his state, Kano, because it is also one of the volatile states. “In fact, if Shekarau’s statement is to be taken seriously, it means there won’t be elections in Kaduna, Katsina, Plateau, Benue, Sokoto, Taraba and Nasarawa states, because all of them are volatile as it is now.” According to him, what Shekarau is suggesting is that there would be no elections in the whole of the north, saying only a mad man would prescribe the disenfranchisement of his people just to please his pay masters. “It is in the interest of the country in general for government to honestly confront the problems of insurgency and tackle it once and for all, rather than politicising it. We should remember Nigeria is a country made up of components and if one part of the country is sick, the rest cannot pretend to be well,” Nyako said. Also reacting, the north east national chairman of the APC,Dr Umar Duhu, described Shekarau’s comment as being unpatriotic. “His comment that elections cannot hold in states under state of emergency was not only intended to please some people at the highest level but also capable of sending a very wrong signal that could lead to chaos”. “It is an ill-conceived assumption or foreclosure of opinion that we in Borno and sister states of Adamawa and Yobe are not going to experience peace in the next nine months despite the efforts being made by the federal government through the security operatives,” he said. “It is wrong and unbecoming of Shekarau to say that even with the provision that ‘if peace is not attained’. For God sake, the elections we are talking about are to hold in February next year, and we are in April today,” Mr. Duhu wondered. Duhu further alleged that the former Kano state governor is being used to play politics with the issue of insurgency. “It is unfortunate for a man of shekarau’s standing to stoop so low as to politicize such a sensitive issue in order to please somebody. I hope that is not what Shekarau is doing; if that is what he is doing, we condemn it in totality as a citizens of the Northeast whom are affected by the insurgency,” he said.