Parallel Govt by Terrorists Tantamount to Failure of Leadership, ECWA General Secretary Tells El-Rufai

John Shiklam in Kaduna

The General-Secretary of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA), Rev. Yunusa Nmadu, has stated that the Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai’s recent admission that terrorists were running a parallel government in the state was an “admittance of failure coming a little too late.”

Speaking in an interview with journalists in Kaduna, Nmadu said the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in Kaduna State and other individuals had been singing about the issue a long time ago, but the state government tried to counter them.

El-Rufai had in a leaked memo to President Muhammadu Buhari raised the alarm that terrorists are consolidating their grip on communities in Kaduna State with a parallel government and permanent operational base.

The ECWA General-Secretary said: “Governor El-Rufai is admitting too late in the day. It has been there, CAN has been singing it, some of us have been saying it and they tried to counter what we said.

“We have two governments in some of the northern states. Our churches are all over the country. There are places today where the bandits collect taxes. And you must give the tax if you want your wife to be protected from rape. These are reality.”

Nmadu, a former secretary of the state chapter of CAN, said in some communities people cannot go to their farms unless they pay money to the bandits to avoid attack.

He said: “We have two governments and it is an admittance of total failure on the part of the government.

“I was once the secretary of CAN in Kaduna State. We have witnessed so much violence, killings and destruction under the Buhari regime.

“In the last seven years, people are being killed and kidnapped; places of worship have been destroyed almost on a daily basis, and criminals have become emboldened under the Buhari regime.

“Over the years, there were crisis, violent attacks on churches; it graduated to looking for human beings to kill.

“As you know, we have graduated from that to terrorism which is what we are facing now.

“This is what we felt will happen as predicted because with the coming in of President Buhari, the criminals who were at the fringes, became emboldened to do more.

“You cannot divulge this from the statement that he made before he became the president-like his people were being killed when Boko Haram were being decimated by the national forces…”

Nmadu, who is also the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Christian Solidarity

Worldwide (CSW-N), also described the recent threat by the National Assembly to impeach Buhari as hypocritical.

He said the lawmakers were just waking up to the reality of things because they are now feeling the heat of insecurity.

The cleric added: “My problem with Nigerians is that we are highly hypocritical.

“Let me give you an example. If there is a dangerous pot hole on the road, it will not be fixed except when a notable person has an accident on the spot.

“Before you knew it, they will fix the pot hole. It looks like the life of the common man does not matter in Nigeria.

“The senators are just waking up to the

reality too late in the day, and I think it is because they are now feeling the heat of insecurity.

“I don’t see any seriousness in what they are saying. It has died down…I think they just woke up because it has started affecting them and their relations.

“Secondly because election is near and they want to go back to their constituencies to win election. I think they are doing this to make the people feel they are concerned about the common man.”

Also commenting on the Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the clergyman said: “Those who are planning Muslim-Muslim tickets either in Kaduna State or at the federal level have failed the examination already.

“This is not in the interest of Muslims neither of Christians. I will never support same faith ticket even if it is the Christians where both faiths have substantial population.”