An Open Letter to Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, The Executive Governor of Kaduna State -By Timothy Dokpesi Adidi

Your Excellency Sir,

I am writing this letter to you in relation to my previous letters and articles; I want to be very particular about one of my letters (I do not have the luxury of time to be particular about date) a few months ago. I wrote appealing to you for immediate transmission to the Presidency seeking for a state of emergency in Kaduna State; but, it seems it is most likely you did not see the letter or article as the case may be; or it is also most likely that you saw the article (letter) and pretended not to see it; or again, it is most likely you never saw it at all. Whichever is most likely to be the case, I hope the current level of insecurity in your state should not be appealing to you.

My Distinguished Governor, I have partially come almost to a conclusion that your government and administration seems not to have any meaningful solution for securing the lives and properties of citizens living in Kaduna State. Your administration has in fact injured many, shared so much blood, buried so many by installment, and murdered innocent citizens. Your tenure in office might not be directly involved in these killings; but, that your government seems not to have nor find a meaningful and significant solution to the heightened level of insecurity in the State in which you are the Chief Security Officer.

Your Excellency, the recent Kagoro killings to my opinion and the almost non-charlant response of your administration to either prevent or take kinetic interventions and decisions shows the helplessness of your administration to do the needful. Although, there are traces of insecurity in the whole of Kaduna State and Nigeria at large, but the height to which the Southern Kaduna people experience such killings is almost becoming either a xenophobic attack by an ethnic group against another; or much more a case of mass massacre of a group of selected people. I just hope that you will recall that an attempt to be silent on matters of this nature or expressing mere moral sentiments is not enough to lay claim of justice.

Sir, each time I listen to your comments on National TV and the media, I wonder why it gives me a very strong impression that your opinions are rather much more of medicine after death; rather than prevention is better than cure. Your words seem not to align with your actions because of the incessant destruction of lives and properties constantly taking place in Kaduna State. I guess my letter is not saying what has not been happening in the past years; but my letter is stating the very obvious you are aware of; and that your state has been overtaken by terrorists, bandits, kidnappers, and criminal elements. In fact, Kaduna State has become the Capital of Insecurity in Nigeria. I hope as you are about to leave office you will be able to change the narratives so as to redeem your esteem image before the Nigerian people; most especially, as politicians are looking for where to pitch their tent as they seek new elective positions.

My Governor, the people of Kaduna State and the citizens residing thereof understands how you are overwhelmed with the current level of insecurity; as such, infrastructural development alone does not translate into transformative leadership when people sleep with their eyes close in the state you govern. Many residents in Kaduna State are fast relocating from the State; and some are even thinking of closing down their investments. Many residents in Kaduna State live in morbid fear and exaggerated anxiety due to the massacres taking place. The worst of it all is that Landlords in Kaduna are taking advantage of the situation to increase house rents in places like Barnawa, Narayi, Water Intake and the areas which are said to be secured. Insecurity in Kaduna State now thrives as a business for many to hike prices of goods and services.

At this juncture, I hope my letter to you will not be too blunt in comparism to what I have written in the past. I am blunt not because I hate your government; I am blunt not because I am not happy with your infrastructural development; I am blunt not because you do not mean well for the people of Kaduna State; I am blunt not because you are helpless in the given situation. I am blunt because human lives are destroyed, I am blunt because assets of human beings are killed almost daily, I am blunt because women are killed in their hundreds, I am blunt because children die innocently for no reason, I am blunt because government seems to only commiserate with the victims; I am blunt because injustice is everywhere; I am blunt because government is not blunt in addressing the issues of insecurity; and I am blunt because Mallam Nasir El-Rufai is the Executive Governor of Kaduna State.

ADIDI, Dokpesi Timothy
President & Founder,
Tinanjos Education Foundation