Debts under El-Rufai: ‘The hour of reckoning has come’, Shehu Sani tells Kaduna residents

Senator who represented Kaduna Central in the 8th assembly, Shehu Sani, has lamented the debt burden on Kaduna State.

In an interview with Aminiya, Media Trust’s Hausa publication, Sani said he was insulted for rejecting the $350 million World Bank loan request by the then governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai.

Incumbent Governor Uba Sani had recently raised the alarm that the state was heavily indebted and unable to pay salaries.

Sani disclosed that his administration inherited a debt to the tune of $587 million, N85 billion, and 115 billion Contractual Liabilities from the previous administration.

Commenting on the development, Sani said “the hour of reckoning has come for every citizen of the state.”

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He added that if his advice was heeded, the state would not have found itself in the present predicament.

He said, “The hour of reckoning has come for every citizen of the state. I was insulted for saying no to that loan. The hour of reckoning is here to every person in Kaduna state.

“Just like the way Lot (in the Bible) warned people, prophets of the past warned people, but they refused to hear and then you see perdition and affliction.

“In the same way, I warned the people of this state, but they were told that the money will bring paradise — land of milk and honey. Today, you can see the problems at hand as far as that loan was concerned.

“If you look at what I said about this state, there has never been any of my predictions that has not come to pass.

“Today the state is strangulated because of that money which we couldn’t pay. We borrowed $350 million when the naira was N400 to the dollar and we are going to pay when the naira is what it is today.”

In 2018, Sani and two other senators from Kaduna state — Suleiman Hunkuyi, a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) representing Kaduna north senatorial zone; and Danjuma Laah of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Kaduna south-central senatorial zone — rejected moves by El-Rufai to take a $350 million World Bank loan.

Sani and Hunkuyi eventually lost their bids for re-election and were replaced by Uba Sani and Suleiman Kwari who lobbied for the approval of the loan