New Telegraph

Kaduna killings: Name those who demanded envelopes, Laah dares El-Rufai

Senator representing Kaduna South in the National Assembly, Senator Danjuma Laah, has dared Governor Nasir El-Rufai to mention the names of those who demanded ‘brown envelopes’ (euphemism for bribe) from him.

 

Laah was reacting, in a telephone interview with Sunday Telegraph, to an allegation that the elders of Southern Kaduna were the ones stoking the fire of the communal killings and up in arms against the governor because he refused to accede to their demands for money.

 

“El-Rufai does not know what he is saying. Let him name those he gave envelopes to in the past or those demanding brown envelopes from him,” Laah said in an interview with one of our correspondents.

 

It will be recalled that Governor El – Rufai recently, in an interview on a national television, accused the Southern Kaduna elders of wanting him to ‘appease’ them. Also, he accused them of stoking violence in order to enable them get money from the international community.

 

He said: “I have no time for nonsense. I will not appease criminals. “I will not appease idle people who have nothing to do but to raise a spectre of genocide. They do that to get money into their bank accounts and get donations from abroad instead of standing up.

 

“Anyone that is moderate, anyone that is promoting peaceful co-existence between various ethnic groups is considered a sell-out. “And a governor like me, who does not appease them because they are used to being appeased, they cause troubles.

 

They organise these killings and then, their leaders are invited by the governor, they wine and dine and they are given brown envelopes. That’s what they have been doing for 20 years.

 

 

“And we came into office and we said no more, nobody who does not encourage peaceful co-existence will have access to the governor or the Government House. I have no time for them.

 

“I am using the security agents to carefully mark them and when we accumulate enough evidence, we will get them and put them before a judge.”

 

There have been almost non-stop killings and banditry in Southern Kaduna for quite some time with claims and counter claims over those behind the bloodletting.

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