Governors lack moral right to accuse Buhari of non-performance, says Sen. Sani

Sen. Shehu Sani (APC-Kaduna Central), on Tuesday said state governors lacked the moral right to criticise President Muhammadu Buhari for non-perfomance.

Sani, who is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Foreign and Domestic Debts, made the remark in a chat with newsmen after a meeting with community leaders in Chikun Local Government Area of the state.

“I will say it well; no governor in Nigeria has any moral right to call President Muhammadu Buhari a failure.

“You collect Federal allocation and local government allocation every month, so you cannot call President Buhari a failure.

“You collect Ecology fund, Paris Club fund and Bail-Out fund so you cannot call Mr President a failure,“ Sani said.

According to him, Buhari has achieved a lot in government better than most state governors.

“If you don’t want Buhari to have a cabal, you should dissolve the cabal in your own houses; and if you want Buhari to have listening ears of Nigerians, you must perform.

“I want to call on the President, as we gear up towards 2019, he should never recommend anybody for election again to the public; he should allow people to decide who they want to vote-in and who they want to vote-out.

“President Buhari should forget the culture of raising the hands of people; we are supporting him to contest 2019, but he should stop the culture of raising Mr A or Mr B’s hand; most of the time he is raising the hands of people who betrayed him and Nigeria.’’

Earlier during the meeting, the Senator said he was in the area to aggregate the opinion of the statekeholders on the Kaduna Eastern by-pass proad project.

He criticised recent hike in the cost of the contract to N42 billion without consulting the stakeholders.

“I am here to listen to your request over the Eastern by-pass contract, which the Federal Government has now jacked up to over N40 billion.

“I must be very clear to you that none of the federal legislators, especially those from Kaduna Central, was consulted when the issue was to be discussed.

“I knew very well that in 2016-2017 budget, I insisted that Kaduna Eastern by-pass must be included in the budget, but I read in the pages of newspapers like any one of you that the contract was jacked up to N42 billion.

“I don’t know how the Federal Ministry of Works arrived at such amount of money, but I believe for a project like this, there could have been the need to consult the communities where this road passed through and also the elected representatives of the people,’’ he said.

Newsverge recalls that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) recently approved the resuscitation and completion of the 50 kilometre dual carriage highway.

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, had said that the road has nine bridges over rivers and rail crossings.

It was first awarded in 2002 at the cost of N12 billion, to be completed within three years.

The minister explained that already the government had paid N11 billion to the contractor since the project was initiated, adding that N32 billion was approved to complete the road.

However, Sani said he would present a request on behalf of the community and the people of his senatorial zone to the Senate Committee Chairman on Works, Sen. Kabiru Gaya, for details of the contract review.

“I am going to demand from the minister of works to brief the senate on how such a project arrived at over N40 billion, in this era of anti corruption and transparency, since it is the tax payers money that is involved.”

The senator, however, commended the government for the efforts to complete the road.