Former Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has reacted to withdrawal of the Nigeria Bar Association’s invitation to Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna following a petition against him by some lawyers.
Speaking during a meeting with the Kaduna state Governor on Sunday August 23, Sanusi stated that El-Rufai is a nationalist and has never associated himself with religious bigotry.
He insisted that the dis-invitation of the Kaduna state Governor does not portray members of the association as people who want progress for Nigeria. Sanusi added that the NBA lost an opportunity to interrogate El-Rufai at the conference.
He said;
”I am aware that the vast majority of NBA members do not agree with those things. You know if you have an opinion, people will either agree with you or disagree with you. But a man who has an opinion that can be agreed with or disagreed with is always better than a man who has no opinion at all.
“Nasir always has opinions, he knows what his position is on things. He says that position very clearly, people will like it, some people will not like it and that is what some people call controversial and being controversial is actually having an opinion.
“If you don’t want to be controversial, you just be flexible, just flow with the wind and nobody knows where you stand. Then you will not have any friends or enemies, as the case may be.”
Mr Sanusi said he spoke to the chairman of the NBA technical committee who confirmed that he was the one that invited Mr El-Rufai.
“He (Mr El-Rufai) didn’t ask to come and speak and the technical committee didn’t support the call to dis-invite him.
“You know, If you are going to take action on people based on allegations, the president of the NBA himself has allegations against him that have not been proven. Nobody said anything about him because this is a matter that is before the court of law and people will wait for the court to decide.
“Everybody has a right to fair hearing and most important for me, if you feel that the governor of Kaduna State is not doing right, you should invite him to your conference and ask him to explain what he is doing.
Tell him what you think he is doing wrong and you will learn something from him and he will learn something from you.
“I have seen the responses from different branches of NBA and I hope this matter will not be turned to ethnicity and religious matter, it should be a matter of principle.
“Anybody who knows him, knows he has never ever associated with any ethnic or religious bigotry. All our friends and people never know us as northerners because we are just Nigerians.”
Responding to Sanusi’s comment, El-Rufai noted that the former emir was in the state not only to visit him but also as the vice-chairman of the state’s investment promotion agency. According to him, Sanusi will be spending a week in the state during which he would be briefed on the activities of the agency and interact with others in the state.
El-Rufai said;
“As you know, His Highness is the vice-chairman of Kaduna Investment Promotion Agency chaired by the deputy governor.
“We hope by this visit he will be briefed on the activities of the investment agency and also interact with all the agencies that are working to attract investment in Kaduna.
“Kaduna State is lucky to have him as the vice-chairman of the state investment promotion agency because of his wide global network.”