Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has revealed why some governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC) took the federal government to court over the naira redesign policy.
Recall that some APC governors, Including El-Rufai, dragged Federal Government before the Supreme Court over the policy.
The action generated criticism as some persons accused the governors of pursuing their personal interest.
Defending their action in an interview with Radio France International (RFI), Hausa, El-Rufai said the governors filed a suit to challenge the Federal Government naira redesign policy when their advice was ignored.
The governor said those criticising them were ignorant of the roles of a governor and his responsibilities.
He said, “How many times did I comment on security, for three years I have been advising them not to reconcile with these bandits, let’s kill them, so now people have forgotten what I said and start saying I didn’t comment until this policy?”
“Secondly, on ASUU, people have forgotten that federal universities are different from state owned, go and check Kaduna State University, they didn’t go on strike because we told them that the disagreement was between federal government and its universities. We had done our part, it was federal government that didn’t fulfill its promises but we didn’t have problem with state universities, that” why they didn’t go on strike.
“People want us to interfere on everything but according to the constitution federal and state governments have their peculiar responsibilities and we do our own at state level. For Security issues, they (federal government) are with military and police, we know the security problems better than them because we are close to it, we told them what to do, they did so and he some and leave the rest.
“For example, in Kaduna State, months before the Abuja-Kaduna train was attacked, we sent letters advising to stop night travel but they ignored us. So, those saying we didn’t act don’t know who a governor is and his responsibilities; they don’t know what we do behind the scene.
“Even on this naira redesign policy, we sat several times with the president and the CBN governor, all our requests and advice to no avail, we didn’t have any other options than to go to court.
“This is what people don’t know, it is not everything you discuss with the president or federal government you will tell the public. So anyone who says governors didn’t show concern on people’s sufferings until this policy is not fair to us.”
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