El-Rufai is like a scorpion, Buhari must be careful of him or be ruined- Sani

If Senator Shehu Sani had his way, Governor el-Rufai of Kaduna State must be made to pay dearly for a leaked September 2016 dated document in which he rattled the presidency and the President.

Published Thursday on most media platforms, el-Rufai is quoted to have said, amongst other things, that President Buhari was not driving the Change Agenda of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) very well. He also alleged that some very close aides to the President such as the Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal, and Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari were “clueless” and “inexperienced”.
Senator Shehu Sani, however, on Saturday called out el-Rufai for deliberately leaking the document in which the the President, the presidency and the ruling party were ridiculed.

El-Rufai could be likened to a Scorpion or Cobra, he alleged. He warned President Buhari to be careful saying, “he who keeps a scorpion in his pocket must always watch his groin and he who inherits a cobra should know that it’s not a pet.’’

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Describing the Kaduna State governor as one intolerant of criticism, he berated him for having the audacity to find faults with President Buhari, and even himself also. “The difference,” he claimed, “is that the President is tolerant of criticisms and alternative views” while el-Rufai is “dubious.”

“The governor always recommends that our party should punish me for criticising him. Now that he has fired a cruise missile at the President through a deliberately leaked memo, he should also be treated the same way. He accused me of being disloyal and disrespectful to the President and the party for speaking my mind,” he said.
Sani who said that his opposition to el-Rufai was founded on principles, however, called for severe sanctions to be meted out to the governor, saying, “Now he has done his own cunningly by criticising the President and the party, disguised it as a memo and leaked it out to the press.

“If our able party chair would give me five strokes of the cane for speaking out, the governor (El Rufai) should be given thrice that for ‘leaking out.”

He added, “It’s often said that look at the message and not the messenger, but there are times when you can only decipher the message by looking at the messenger.”

Sani, who is the Vice-Chairman, Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, accused el-Rufai of entrenching politics of exclusion and habouring cabals.

His tough stance on the Kaduna governor has been linked to deep differences between him and el-Rufai. The governor is perceived as the unseen hand in the attempt to sideline the Senator in the party leadership or even expel him from the party in Kaduna State.

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