In the 8th Senate, Senator Shehu Sani represented Kaduna Central Senatorial District in the Red chamber. He served as Chairman Local and Foreign debts committee, which rejected a $350 million loan for Kaduna State, something that landed him in trouble with the former governor. In this interview with TAIWO ADISA, he speaks of his experience in the Senate, his brush with El-Rufai and declares that the former Kaduna State governor had lost his political relevance while still serving in the state, adding that his decision to join the SDP would land the party in crises. Excerpt:
Sir, you were chairman Foreign and Local Debts in the 8th Senate. I know that your views got you into trouble with the then Governor Nasir El-Rufai, but you were concerned about the growing national debts back then. Now that the national debts have more than doubled what it used to be under your supervision, are you worried about Nigeria’s sustainability in respect of these debts?
As someone who was the chairman of the Senate Committee on the Foreign and Local Debt, I am worried on the frequency of the request for loan and approval that is going currently. Though the debt service ratio of the Buhari regime is worse, and now there is some level of stability in the economy, I think we still must be very careful so that we don’t get into a fold that we will not be able to come out of. One politics of global debt is that the IMF and World Bank will discourage you from getting loans from China, so that you can get loans from them. And those loans come with a lot of conditions. And why most African countries prefer to borrow from China is that there are no conditions attached to those loans and at times, those loans are tied to projects. And these are some of the issues. And African nations must be very careful, including Nigeria. There are things we don’t need to borrow to do, but we still borrow so much. For example, we don’t need to borrow money to construct a dam. We can have local investors who can invest in such a dam. But we have reached a point where we don’t borrow money to construct a railway in our airports. So, we borrow money to construct roads. We borrow money to do so many things to the point that we ignore the fact that these are things we can do ourselves.
Now, that the nation’s debts are skyrocketing, what ways out will you be mentioning to the government?
Well, the way out of it is, first, to reduce our dependence on debt, to execute projects and service our projects. And secondly, we prioritize areas where we must borrow. If we prioritize it, then it’s going to be specific. And priority should go to investment in areas that can generate money to service the debt. If we borrow money for agriculture, we know that we’re going to recover the money. If we borrow money for manufacturing and technology, you know that we’ll recover the money. But when we keep borrowing and then enslaving this and future generation of Nigerians, I don’t think we are going to get out of it.
I recall that the issue of debt was the source of your problem with then-Governor Nasir El-Rufai. You blocked a particular loan that the state was going to take. At the state level too are you monitoring what’s going on?
Well, when Nasir requested for $315 million, I must raise a number of questions, which tallied with the Debt Management Act. I asked how much did he want to borrow? It was $315 million. Then what was the debt stock of Kaduna State at the time? It was $250 million. So, when we put them together, it’s about $600 million, which now will take us to the second position after Lagos, on the list of most indebted states, while we don’t have the resources to pay back. So how will the money be paid? And what is the transparency with the money. All the questions could not be answered by Nasir and his gang in Kaduna. So, I have to turn it down. And when I turned it down, he was against me. And many people in the city were also against me. They thought I had become an obstacle to the progress of the state. Now, when he left and the new governor, Uba Sani, took over, we now found that he has been handed over a poison with the state finances. All the projects that he said he left with a litany of uncompleted projects and litigations in court by contractors. And apart from that, some of the judgments the contractors secured has to do with garnishing the account of the state. If you borrow an amount of money, you could have completed all these projects. But we have a deficit, we have a project to complete, and we have contractors to pay. And we have court issues before us. These are all issues that we have. Some of the issues which I have raised in the National Assembly became the problem and the crisis with the economy of the Kaduna State in the last the two years.
Was it just coincidental that as your friend and former governor of Kaduna State is leaving the APC, you are returning to that party? How do you describe that coincidence?
Well, good luck to him, but to us, it’s a good riddance to bad rubbish in Kaduna State. And people from outside can see him for his own value. But as far as we are concerned, he has no political relevance. Yes, he was governor for eight years. There are people who are governors for eight years and they could not win even a senatorial seat. All the examples are bound, isn’t it? So, what was the state of APC by the time El-Rufai left? That’s the question people need to ask ourselves. Nasir was a governor for eight years, and he could not deliver Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Kaduna State. Asiwaju lost Kaduna. Atiku won 500,000 votes, while Asiwaju won 399,000 votes. So, APC was beaten at the presidential level. Out of the three senatorial seats, the PDP got all under Nasir as a governor. Out of our 14 House of Representatives seats, the PDP got nine, and Labour Party got two, and APC got three. So, I want you to see that by the time he left, people in Kaduna State were fed up with the APC because of his style of governor. My friend and brother, Uba Sani, the incumbent governor of Kaduna state won by the whiskers, and this was what happened. So, that is why when he (El-Rufai) moves around saying he delivered Tinubu, I will ask him a question, where did you deliver? When you couldn’t even deliver your state? Because your relevance as governor and supporter of Tinubu is to deliver in your state. But where the opposition won your state, so what else do you have to do? And this is the same person who believes that the Southerners should be in power for eight years. The main ground of Nasr El-Rufai is that he thought that Asiwaju is like Buhari, that he can do whatever. But these two people are different personalities. He wanted to be minister, and then he submitted himself for screening. And when he failed screening, he came out and said he didn’t want to be minister. That is the same person who is now attacking the government, if Asiwaju had appointed him minister, nobody in the north would be able to drink water when it comes to the issue of defending Asiwaju. So, he is an element, and he is finding abode in a new party. And please you mark my word, his presence there will bring a lot of internal crises in the party and the party will likely go the way of PDP. They have been living in peace. The party has been living in peace, and they have been winning elections. But his (El-Rufai’s) coming will be trouble for them and I hope one day someone will refer to this interview and say I told him so.
So, you think he is not relevant going into 2027 politics and that his movements cannot hurt Asiwaju if he wants to contest the election in 2027?
What was the situation he left Kaduna State?
He seemed to have a larger-than-life image outside of Kaduna…
How can you be a state governor and then you want to have a larger-than-life image outside of your state? If you have a larger-than-life image, your image should start from your home. Kaduna State is divided into Northern and Southern Kaduna. Southern Kaduna is a no-go zone for you. And the Northern Kaduna was owned by Atiku. So where are you at? If you are going to be of relevance to me, if I’m contesting for the president, it’s for you to deliver your polling booth, deliver your local government, and deliver your state. You can’t say I couldn’t deliver your State, but you delivered other states. Now Zamfara voted for Asiwaju. Niger State voted for Asiwaju. So will Nasir tell you now that ‘I could not get Kaduna for him while I got him Zamfara and Niger. Please, how comical is that?’
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