Shehu Sani, former Kaduna senator, has raised concerns about the hidden motives behind prominent northern politicians’ visits to former President Muhammadu Buhari in Daura, Katsina State a few days ago.
While these visits may appear as routine Eid homage, Sani suggested they serve a greater purpose: the formation of a powerful Northern alliance aimed at challenging and eventually toppling President Tinubu in the 2027 elections.
In separate visits during the just concluded Eid celebration, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, and former Kaduna Governor Nasir El-Rufai, among other top northern leaders paid homage to Buhari.
In a statement on his Facebook page on Monday, Sani argued that this regrouping of Northern political forces revolves around ex-President Buhari, who is being resurrected as a rallying point.
Sani wrote: “The recent visits by some prominent Northern politicians to Daura appear to be the Usual Eid homage, but looking deeper and beyond the facade, it’s surreptitiously a new attempt to build a strong northern alliance using ex-President Buhari as a rallying point to challenge and evict President Tinubu’s Government in 2027.
“It’s a regrouping of Northern political forces for the next general election. A project that will eventually kiss the dust.
“They want to resurrect Buhari’s political charm, and fanaticism and mobilise the gullible to another hollow and bewildering end. They want to stock up and light up the Arewa sentiment without considering the inferno it would eventually generate.
“The same Buhari that led Nigeria for eight years and left the North worse than he met it. It is too early to forget. By the time he left power, poverty and insecurity were at their peak than at any time in Nigeria’s history. They had power and wasted it; what do they want to do with it again?.”
With a southerner currently in power for just one year, Sani believed it was premature for the northern elite to plot against Tinubu.
“Southerner is in power just for one year. It’s too early for the desperate and power-hungry northern elite to start plotting. The South never did that to Buhari. Their intended action has the capacity of ruining the democratic process and wrecking the fragile unity of the country when the South is awakened to this reality,” he said.
Sani said while criticising Tinubu’s policies and programs as a democratic right, stoking Northern sentiments for political gain is perilous.
“Their obsession with power is condemnable. Opposition to Tinubu from the point of policies, promises and programs of his administration is a democratic right of any Nigerian.
“People have the right to speak and criticize the Government. But attempts to whip up Northern sentiments to achieve their political ends is a dangerous political experiment and expedition at this material time. No serious southerner challenged Buhari for eight years; these power-drunk Northern politicians are dragging the region to a new political journey through a land mine,” the statement stated.
The Buhari reign, he argued exemplified nepotism, favouring Northerners in key positions. Yet the results were disappointing: self-enrichment, economic pillaging, and a pauperized nation.
“Buhari’s reign ensured nepotistical placement, installation and dominance of Northerners at strategic positions of authority and power for eight years. Results had shown that they only enriched themselves, pillaged the economy of the country and pauperised our country,” Sani said.
He called on the Northern Talakawa—the common people—to reject their empty promises.
“The Daura homage of the disgruntled and the obsessed will fail. Our people in the North should reject these faces and their plots. They have nothing to offer.
“From the abandoned Baro Port, Ajaokuta, Lake Chad basin refiling and Mambilla hydropower, they failed. They came to power when the North was in the hands of terrorists and left it in the joint hands of terrorists and Bandits. The Northern Talakawa should reject their antics,” he concluded.
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