Former Minister of Youth and Sports, Solomon Dalung, has written at considerable length in defence of former Kaduna State Governor Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai while attempting to place the burden of explanation entirely on the Minister of Defence, General Christopher Gwabin Musa.
Dalung’s intervention may appear scholarly, but beneath its historical references lies a familiar political objective: to sanitise El-Rufai’s record and disparage a government Dalung has repeatedly criticised since leaving office.
General Musa has not opened a “Pandora’s box.” He has merely spoken about wounds that the people of Southern Kaduna have carried for years.
History Does Not Excuse Leadership Failure
Dalung correctly states that Kaduna’s communal conflicts predated El-Rufai’s administration. Nobody disputes that fact. However, the existence of earlier crises does not absolve a governor whose constitutional responsibility was to protect every citizen, promote reconciliation and prevent inherited tensions from worsening.
The relevant question is not whether Kaduna experienced conflict before 2015. It is whether El-Rufai’s words, policies and leadership style reduced or deepened those divisions.
Under his administration, communities in Southern Kaduna endured repeated killings, displacement and destruction. More than 200 schools and about 150 Primary Healthcare Centres reportedly became inaccessible at the height of insecurity. Several farming communities were deserted, livelihoods were destroyed and citizens increasingly felt abandoned by the government that should have protected them.
Historical background must never become an alibi for governmental insensitivity.
THE AGWAI COMMITTEE WAS NOT A BLANK CHEQUE
Dalung repeatedly invokes the committee headed by General Martin Luther Agwai as though its establishment automatically vindicated every subsequent decision taken by El-Rufai.
It did not.
Setting up a committee is one thing; implementing its recommendations fairly and transparently is another.
General Agwai reportedly insisted that compensation should include all aggrieved parties, not only one group. That position itself raises the central question Dalung tries to avoid: was the compensation process balanced, transparent and extended equally to the affected communities, churches, families and institutions that suffered losses?
If the exercise was genuinely comprehensive, the former administration should publish the beneficiaries, amounts paid, authorising documents and evidence that every affected group received equitable treatment.
Reconciliation cannot be selective. Justice cannot compensate one group while asking another to bury its dead in silence.
EL-RUFAI’S PUBLIC ADMISSION CANNOT BE EXPLAINED AWAY
El-Rufai publicly acknowledged that his government traced certain Fulani groups beyond Nigeria’s borders and paid compensation connected to earlier losses. That admission created legitimate security, legal and moral questions.
Dalung now attempts to reduce the controversy to terminology: were they “bandits,” “transhumant Fulani” or “victims seeking compensation”?
But the more important questions remain:
Who identified the recipients?
What security checks were conducted?
Under what legal framework were public funds paid?
How much was paid?
Which countries did the beneficiaries reside in?
Were any recipients linked to armed groups or threatened reprisals?
Were the indigenous communities that lost lives, homes, farms and places of worship compensated equally?
General Musa’s remarks should encourage a proper investigation, not an elaborate effort to silence him. The Minister’s interview specifically linked his criticism to El-Rufai’s public statements about payments and to what he described as the deep divisions experienced under the former administration.
If Dalung truly desires the whole truth, he should join the demand for the complete financial and security records-not present an unverified interpretation as a final acquittal.
General Musa’s Military Service Does Not Invalidate His Testimony
Dalung asks why General Musa did not act earlier if he possessed information about the former governor’s conduct. This argument is convenient but fundamentally misleading.
A military officer operates within a defined chain of command. He cannot publicly disclose classified intelligence, initiate criminal prosecution or unilaterally investigate a sitting governor. The fact that General Musa served professionally under different administrations does not deprive him of the right, or responsibility, to speak after retirement and upon assuming political leadership.
Moreover, Dalung’s reliance on the account of Major-General Danjuma Ali-Keffi does not conclusively settle the matter. One commander’s statement that El-Rufai did not personally stop his operations does not disprove wider allegations concerning political conduct, inflammatory rhetoric, selective policies or dealings undertaken outside that commander’s operational knowledge.
Absence of a direct order to one military commander is not proof that every decision of the administration was proper.
THE MUSLIM-MUSLIM COMPARISON IS A DIVERSION
Dalung’s attempt to compare Kaduna’s 2019 Muslim-Muslim ticket with the Tinubu-Shettima presidential ticket is another distraction.
The issue is not simply the religious identities of candidates. Political tickets must be judged within their particular environments, the process that produced them and the leadership conduct accompanying them.
Nigeria’s federal arrangement cannot be mechanically equated with Kaduna’s deeply sensitive political history. More importantly, General Musa’s central criticism concerned governance, exclusion, division and insecurity, not merely the religious composition of a ticket.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Vice-President Kashim Shettima have consistently emphasised national inclusion. Governor Uba Sani has similarly demonstrated that leadership is about reaching across religious, ethnic and political boundaries.
EL-RUFAI RULED KADUNA WITH AN IRON FIST
Dalung admits that El-Rufai’s style was combative, his demolitions controversial and his administration marked by devastating violence. Yet he treats these matters almost as footnotes while demanding courtroom-level proof from General Musa.
For eight years, Kaduna witnessed an administration widely criticised for intolerance of dissent, confrontational rhetoric, controversial demolitions and strained relationships with important communities and institutions.
The people who lived through that period do not require a lecture about their own suffering.
General Musa is a son of Southern Kaduna. His remarks reflect experiences and grievances shared by many citizens who felt marginalised, wounded and unheard. His words are serious and may warrant formal investigation, but Dalung cannot dismiss them simply because they are politically inconvenient to El-Rufai.
UBA SANI HAS PROVIDED THE CLEAREST VERDICT
The strongest response to Dalung’s revisionism is the visible change under Governor Uba Sani.
Governor Uba Sani inherited a divided and deeply wounded state. Instead of trading accusations, he chose reconciliation, justice and inclusive governance. He restored engagement with excluded communities, strengthened collaboration with security agencies and traditional institutions, reopened access to communities and public facilities, and deliberately rebuilt trust across religious and ethnic boundaries.
That is why General Musa described the present administration as a “breath of fresh air.” Other accounts of the interview also reported his acknowledgement of Governor Uba Sani’s deliberate efforts to reunite Kaduna and restore citizens’ freedom of movement.
The contrast is unmistakable: where Kaduna once experienced confrontation, it now witnesses consultation; where communities once felt excluded, they are now engaged; and where division once dominated political discourse, Governor Uba Sani is rebuilding a common Kaduna identity.
DALUNG SHOULD REMOVE POLITICS FROM THE PAIN OF KADUNA
Solomon Dalung served as Minister of Youth and Sports during President Muhammadu Buhari’s first term but did not return for the second. Since leaving office, his public commentary has increasingly taken an adversarial political tone. That history entitles Nigerians to question whether this intervention is genuinely about truth or another opportunity to attack the present government while defending one of its most vocal opponents.
Rather than questioning General Musa alone, Dalung should demand that all relevant records be opened:
the identities and locations of those paid;
the amounts and sources of the funds;
the security assessments preceding the payments;
the implementation records of the Agwai Committee;
the compensation given to affected Southern Kaduna communities, and all available intelligence concerning attacks and reprisals during the period.
Let every relevant file be opened, not selectively, but completely.
No amount of intellectual gymnastics can erase the grief of widows, orphans, displaced families and communities that buried their loved ones during those difficult years.
General Musa has spoken. El-Rufai has the right to respond. The appropriate institutions may investigate. However, Solomon Dalung cannot rewrite Kaduna’s painful history merely to protect a former governor who ruled the state with an iron fist.
Kaduna remembers.
And under Governor Uba Sani, Kaduna is healing.
Ben S. D. Kure
Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer
Kaduna State Media Corporation (KSMC)
