Why El-Rufai can’t be faulted on Southern Kaduna — Shadalafiya

Nuhu Goro Shadalafiya is the member representing Kagarko constituency in Kaduna State House of Assembly. In this interview, the lawmaker who is of the All Progressives Congress (APC), spoke on the legislature/executive relationship in the state and the $350m Kaduna loan.   You returned to the assembly through a re-run poll in January. What are […]

Nuhu Goro Shadalafiya is the member representing Kagarko constituency in Kaduna State House of Assembly. In this interview, the lawmaker who is of the All Progressives Congress (APC), spoke on the legislature/executive relationship in the state and the $350m Kaduna loan.

 

You returned to the assembly through a re-run poll in January. What are the legislations your constituents should expect?

We will give our best to every bill that comes and we will come up with private member bills. In the last dispensation, I came up with two member private bills and one was assented to by the governor. I’m happy today that any man that rapes any person will bag life imprisonment. I think that positive measure will go a long way in reducing the cases of rape in our society so I am grateful to Malam.

I’m also thinking of coming up with another bill geared towards the economy development of the state; that is improving our revenue generation and this is coming in the area of sport. I’m also working on legislation to promote ginger production.

I’m grateful that in the last dispensation, I have (attracted) projects of over N5.8bn to my local government. In the whole 16 years of PDP, we have no project worth N2bn from the state government.

We have 19km of road, we have township road that is between 11 and 12km in Jere, Kagarko and Kubacha and we have a trailer park in Tafa, well-constructed with offices and other necessary facilities that will ensure ease of doing business in that particular place and it will raise revenue generation too. We have the Science Secondary School and work is almost 80 percent completed in Jere. There is also a sport academy all in my local government and all from the state.

One good thing about Governor El-Rufai is that every work going on in the local government he puts it on the shoulders of the member representing that local government and say this is his project.

Could that be the reason Kaduna Assembly is described as rubber stamp?

Those saying we are rubber stamp legislators should look at the quality of laws passed for the state. If we had no good laws, states like Jigawa, Kano, Ekiti and Nasarawa will not want to look into some of the laws we have passed. The Tax (Codification and Consolidation) Law in Kaduna State is one of the best in the whole country.

The Kaduna Investment Promotion Agency (KADPA) law to ease business has placed us in Nigeria as one of the states with ease of doing business. We have been able to come up with laws because we have a governor who has vast experience and is action minded.

As a lawmaker from Southern Kaduna, what is your take on the allegation that the zone is being side-lined by the governor?

I will recall what the governor said when was interviewed on why he was going with a Muslim-Muslim ticket, he asked himself what the constitution says. The constitution says the deputy governor will come from a different zone with the governor. It doesn’t say a Muslim or Christian or Hindu or Jew. Now back to the legislature which is an arm where everything is done by the majority. If the majority decides to vote Nuhu today and vote Peter again, all Christian-Christian, every member of the assembly has to go along with the leadership of the house.

So it’s not the issue of someone sitting outside to conclude that Malam is religiously biased; that Malam is this or that. Let us look at what the constitution says and the practice in the legislative circle.  If you want to do things for convenience, then you go on lobbying and dialoguing.

I give you another example, when his excellency was looking for a deputy governor our people were already condemning him that he will not win and we are going to mobilise the Christians to deal with him. In the end of the day, he advised us that whether we give him votes or not by the grace of God, he will win.

Now he has sworn with the Qur’an to be equitable and fair to all. If I had come back alongside my former colleagues, I can assure you that I will have gone back as deputy speaker alongside the other former speaker that resigned.

What is your take on the $350m loan?

A lot of people don’t understand what the loan is all about. I laugh at people’s comments because they didn’t have a copy of the document explaining the purpose of the loan. Whatever El-Rufai is doing, he will organise a retreat, dialogue and argue with you and if your argument is superior, he takes it and works with it.