The National Council of Elders has called on security agencies to closely watch the lawmaker for Kaduna Central Senatorial District, Senator Shehu Sani, who it described as having graduated from being a comical rabble rouser into a chronic inciter of violence.
President of the council, Elder Anthony Danjuma, who stated this while speaking in Kaduna on Monday, expressed concern that Shehu Sani is being encouraged by the failure of the country to hold him accountable for the scores of deaths from the crises he recently instigated in Kaduna state.
Danjuma warned that a failure to place Shehu Sani on a watch list means trouble for the country since there is now sufficient proof from his social media accounts that he is working hard to truncate the democratic process in Nigeria.
The elder statesman expressed consternation that the Kaduna Central Senator is abusing the privileges of being a federal lawmaker to promote hate speech on a scale that would have landed any other ordinary citizen in jail.
According to Danjuma, “Senator Shehu Sani went on his Twitter handle to cast aspersion and doubts on an election that has not even been conducted knowing that the free and fair conduct of the polls is critical to the peace of the country. A situation where someone of the stature of a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria can send such message to his followers to doubt the current administration’s commitment to free and transparent elections is a pure case of call to insurrection.
“This call to violence and disruption of the electoral process is particularly irresponsible when weighed against the background that Shehu Sani is profoundly aware that his Tweets are largely responsible for the crises that rocked Kaduna state this year leading to dozens of deaths.
“Whatever grouse he has with his state governor does not justify trying to set Nigeria ablaze after almost destroying his own state. Except he wants to tell us that his new pastime is sucking human blood, there is no justification for priming citizens to reject a elections that are yet to hold,” Elder Danjuma charged.
The President of the National Council of Elders insisted that security agencies must watch Shehu Sani closely to ensure he does not truncate Nigeria’s democracy, since the collapse of previous republics in the country is usually triggered from one state.
Danjuma lamented that “We do not know why security agencies have to wait for elders to make interventions like we are doing now before they will realize they have to go after persons that openly incite other Nigerians to violence while making it appear as I he genuinely loves the country. Had he not been found wanting and pushed from grace in his former political party, we wonder if he would be running around as he is currently doing.
“Our expectation is that security agencies will invite Shehu Sani to explain how he arrived at the conclusion that the elections will not be free and fair since there is nothing on ground to justify the spurious allegations he is making with all the assertion of the electoral body.
“Authorities must also note that they cannot run the affairs of the country with two sets of rules, one for Shehu Sani with other trouble makers that are never held to account for their utterances and one for other Nigerians that are made to answer for their words each time they step out of line,” Danjuma stressed.
