The Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir
el-Rufai, said on Wednesday there was no plot or plan to replace his
deputy, Mr Barnabas Bala-Yusuf, with a former Secretary to the State
Government and a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Alhaji
Lawal Yakawada...
The news had been circulating on the
social media that the governor chaired an ‘Emergency meeting of the
strategic committee on political developments in Kaduna State,’ where it
was decided that the deputy governor, who is from Southern Kaduna,
would be replaced.
But the governor through his Senior
Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr Samuel Aruwan, dismissed
the social media report as “hoax” aimed at causing division in the state
along ethnic and religious lines.
The statement signed by the governor’s
spokesman and made available to journalists in Kaduna, the state
capital, insisted that the report was the handiwork of mischief-makers
in the state.
The statement read, “A piece of
despicable fiction, titled ‘Emergency meeting of the strategic committee
on political developments in Kaduna State,’ is circulating on social
media.
“It purports to be the minutes of a
meeting chaired by Governor Nasir El-Rufai where some key officials of
the Kaduna State Government were present.
“The whole drift of the fabricated
minutes is to stoke division along the lines of region and religion.
This fake news is clearly the handiwork of desperados unhappy at the
successes achieved in stabilising southern Kaduna and restoring the
normalcy that ordinary citizens need to build their lives.”
The spokesman appealed to the citizens
of the state to disregard the “fake news,” noting that the sinister
motive and the agenda behind it was to create religious and ethnic
tension in Kaduna State.
The statement added, “We will not allow
these forces of darkness to achieve their goal of setting the state on
fire and dividing people.
“Governor El-Rufai will never be
distracted from implementing his development agenda across the length
and breadth of Kaduna State.
“We hereby appeal to citizens of the
state to disregard the purported minutes as the divisive hoax of people
frightened that the old order of division and spoils that sustained them
is being crushed.”
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