Governor Nasiru el-Rufai of Kaduna State has said that his government will, on Saturday, during the Presidential election, deploy more military personnel to Birnin-Gwari/Giwa, Angchukwu and other areas where there has been a history of either electoral violence or ethno-religious intolerance in the State.
The governor, who spoke to news men shortly after a security meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa in Abuja today, Tuesday, said that his government had already mapped out local arrangements with the garrison commander and the commissioner of police for the elections.
“We have made adequate arrangements to ensure that every citizen of Kaduna State will be free to vote in an atmosphere of peace and security.
“We got assurances from Mr. President that whatever security assets we need in addition to what is already on ground to ensure peaceful and hitch-free elections on Saturday, those assets will be provided. All we need to do is ask.”
On the allegation against him that there was no killing in Kajuru, , governor el-Rufai said: “I think that anybody that is still questioning whether these attacks took place or not is being grossly irresponsible.
“I think as the governor of the state, and everyone knows me and my records of public service. I would not be irresponsible enough to stand before the media and say something has happened that has not happened. I don’t work based on telephone calls for rumours.
As governor of the state, the first thing I receive every morning is a security briefing on what happens in the last 24 hours.
That is the first thing I read and I ask questions and I work on the basis of security briefings from the experts, the Garrison Commander, the commissioner of police, the head of the air force. We have every security agency in Kaduna state and they send me briefings including the DSS. I work only on that basis. “Anybody that wants to contradict what I said should have superior information and it is impossible for you other than the president of the country to have superior information that I have about my state. So, people are being grossly irresponsible, I don’t know what their agenda is.
But I know there is a prevailing narrative in the Nigerian media that only certain lives are more important than others. We see that clearly in the slant of reporting and the denial. The fact that you are still asking me these questions two days after we have proved all doubts that all those people claiming that this didn’t happen, they first said I lied; that it didn’t happen, then they started saying, no, the numbers are not what they are.
“And now, what we are hearing, the last report we got is that, over 130 people were killed not even 66. “And the Fulani leaders are providing the names of all these people. We have the list and we will release it to the press. And I don’t want to be groused but we can release pictures of the people killed and how the army had to be there to help bury them, two days after they were killed because the bodies were decomposing.
“Some people are being irresponsible; they are pretending this has not happened because it does not fit their ethnic or partisan narrative. It is totally irresponsible because this can happen to anyone of us. And the day we stop sanctifying human lives, the day we begin to think that one life is more important for headlines than another.
“This country is finished, because, every human being has equal capacity for good and evil. And part of the reasons why I went out and was appealing for calm is because I know that those that lost their relations can take the law into their own hands. Unless they see that the government is doing something.”
