Malam Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai has said that Senator Shehu Sani is an opportunist who is not working in the best interest of the Kaduna people.
The Kaduna state governor made this assertion in a discussion with Ladi Akeredolu-Ale on Channels Television’s Roadmap 2019.
He said what Shehu Sani is doing is to take “one’s advantage position to frustrate the development of a State” thus “putting politics above common sense”.
While claiming that the expectations and ambitions of the Kaduna state government have been realized to some extent, El-Rufai said the people were quite “disappointed by the attitude of the Senators representing” the state.
He claimed Shehu Sani and two other lawmakers representing Kaduna had frustrated the efforts of the state government to obtain a $350million loan which would have helped in the area of infrastructure.
Shehu Sani had in a similar interview spoken about a proposed loan of $350million which Kaduna state was to collect from the World Bank.
In the chat on that episode of Roadmap 2019, Sani said “Kaduna state wasn’t qualified for that loan because it was the second most indebted state in the country.
He said the state is indebted to “over $225million and he was asking us to approve $350million for him and then the state will be indebted to over half a billion dollars”.
The lawmaker representing Kaduna Central in the Senate went on to say that “a non-oil producing state with very low internally generated revenue” needed to be saved from the “Chains and shackles of debt” which “He (the governor)” was going to get them involved in.
Disagreeing with Senator Sani, Governor El-Rufa told Ladi Akeredolu-Ale that “Anyone WHO represents a people and does not want the benefits of those people is clearly an enemy of the people”.
The governor went to say that, Shehu Sani uses words without knowing their meaning, noting that “there is no way a state government can borrow without clearance from the debt management office of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”.
“There is no way the World bank will lend you or any other person money without doing their number,” El-Rufai said.
Questioning Senator Shehu Sani’s logic with regards to moving against the proposed World Bank loan, Governor El-Rufai asked, “Is Shehu Sani as knowledgeable or does he know enough economics or financial management to contest the judgment of these institutions?”
He concluded that all Shehu Sani has said is just to “Justify taking actions against the interest of 10 million people”.
Though agreeing that Kaduna has the second largest amount of foreign debt after Lagos, the governor, however, stressed that “what is important is not the level of debt but debt sustainability”.
The governor noted that he is working with the president and he is certain that soon enough the loan issue with the World Bank will be resolved, noting that he is confident with the resolution of some of the issues around financing, “we would be able to get to where we want to take Kaduna State in the shortest possible time”.
