The President of the Southern Kaduna People Union has accused former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai of hypocrisy over bandit compensation policies, alleging the ex-governor pioneered such payments while later criticizing similar approaches.
Engineer Samuel Tabara made the allegations during an interview with Channels TV, citing what he described as El-Rufai’s inconsistent positions on addressing insecurity through financial incentives. Tabara criticized El-Rufai’s early statements as governor regarding Southern Kaduna’s demographic and political dynamics. “Soon after he was inaugurated as Governor of Kaduna State, one of his first utterances was that Christians make up only 30% of the population. He didn’t stop there—he went on to say that the people of Southern Kaduna should ignore the issue of indigene-settler dichotomy,” he stated.
The SOKAPU leader alleged that El-Rufai framed compensation as a peace-building strategy while downplaying the nature of attacks in the region. “He framed this as a financial strategy for peace, implying that the attacks in Southern Kaduna were merely communal clashes,” Tabara claimed.
Most significantly, Tabara accused El-Rufai of admitting to compensating foreign herdsmen involved in violence. “It is the same El-Rufai who told the world that he traveled to Chad, Niger, and Mali to compensate herdsmen who were involved in killings. Now, the same man is saying it’s wrong to pay compensation to bandits,” he alleged.
The Southern Kaduna leader argued that El-Rufai established the precedent for bandit compensation in Nigeria. “In the history of banditry in this country, El-Rufai was the first to demonstrate the idea of compensating bandits. For him to now condemn it is contradictory,” he stated.
Tabara characterized El-Rufai’s governance approach as unpredictable and damaging. “His approach to governance seems to be a license to do and undo. Just days before leaving office, he deployed bulldozers to communities in Southern Kaduna and began demolishing houses,” he disclosed.
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