Northern Hypocrisy and The Convenient Amnesia of Banditry: Shehu Sani Said What Many are Afraid to Say, By Fattykolly Ibn Alimi

Former Senator from Kaduna Central, Shehu Sani, is not liked by many politicians. Not because he lies, but because he says the raw truth to their faces.

And this time, he has dropped another truth bomb that has scattered the social media pages of political hypocrites.

Shehu Sani said: “Northerners kept quiet under Buhari but now blame Tinubu for banditry.”

That one sentence has exposed the greatest double standard in Northern Nigerian politics today. And it is time we face it.

WHERE WERE THE VOICES WHEN THE NORTH WAS BURNING UNDER BUHARI?

Let us remember, because some people are suffering from very convenient amnesia.

Under President Muhammadu Buhari – our father, our brother, our own son – the North became a valley of blood.

Remember when bandits took over Zamfara and turned it into a caliphate where they collect tax? Where were the loud voices?

Remember when 11 girls were abducted from FGC Birnin Yauri? When 121 students were abducted from Bethel Baptist High School in Kaduna? When 300 students were abducted from Government Science School Kankara in Buhari’s own home state of Katsina?

Where were the Northern Elders Forum press conferences then? Where were the Arewa Consultative Forum communiques then? Where were the hashtags?

We buried our people in silence. Every week in Kaduna, Katsina, Sokoto, Niger, Zamfara – 20 killed here, 50 killed there, villages burnt, women raped, children kidnapped. And our elite kept quiet.

Why? Because the President was “ours”. To speak was to betray. To cry out was to give ammunition to the South. So we swallowed blood and called it loyalty. We told our weeping mothers: “Sai Hakuri” – be patient, Buhari is trying.

We watched as our people became IDPs in their own land. As farmers could not go to farm. As Birnin-Gwari to Kaduna became a road of no return. And the loudest voices in the North – the same people who are very vocal today – they were whispering, they were defending, they were saying “the security agencies are on top of the situation.”

NOW THAT TINUBU IS THERE, SUDDENLY THEY HAVE FOUND THEIR VOICE

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been in office for just over two years. And suddenly, all those who lost their voice for 8 years have found a megaphone.

Suddenly, every kidnapping is a press statement. Every bandit attack is a reason to declare that Tinubu has failed the North. Suddenly, they have remembered that the North is insecure.

Shehu Sani is right. This is hypocrisy of the highest order.

Banditry did not start under Tinubu. Tinubu did not plant bandits. He inherited a fully grown forest of criminals that were fertilized, watered and allowed to grow for eight years under our own son.

Under Buhari, bandits graduated from using AK-47 to using RPGs, to using anti-aircraft guns, to collecting taxes, to having their own governors in the bush. They were negotiating with government. They were being granted amnesty. We saw bandits in Government House. And we kept quiet.

Now Tinubu has ordered the military to move into the forest. Turji Bello is being hunted. Many bandit kingpins have been taken out. The security budget is being overhauled. NAF jets are not stopping. Is the job finished? No. Are we still bleeding? Yes. But you cannot cure in two years a cancer that you fed for eight years.

THIS IS NOT LOVE FOR THE NORTH, IT IS HATRED FOR Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu

Let us be honest. This selective outrage is not because they love the North more now. It is because they hate Tinubu.

It is political. The same people who are shouting now are already calculating 2027. They want to use the blood of our people as political campaign.

If you truly love the North, you would have shouted when the first child was kidnapped under Buhari. You would have shouted when the first village was burnt in 2016. You would not have waited until a Southerner is in power before you remember you are Northerners.

Shehu Sani has always been different. When El-Rufai was demolishing houses of the poor in Kaduna, Shehu Sani stood with the poor, even though it cost him his Senate seat. When Buhari’s government was jailing critics, Shehu Sani spoke. He is not a Tinubu praise singer. He is a truth sayer. And his truth is bitter.

MY APPEAL TO MY FELLOW NORTHERNERS

My brothers and sisters, let us not be used.

Banditry is not a Yoruba problem or a Fulani problem. It is a Nigerian problem that needs a Nigerian solution. The mother in Sokoto whose child was kidnapped yesterday does not care who is President. She just wants her child back. The farmer in Birnin-Gwari does not care about 2027. He just wants to go to farm without being killed.

We must support any President – whether Buhari or Tinubu – when he fights insecurity, and we must criticize him when he fails, consistently, not selectively.

We kept quiet under Buhari out of ethnic solidarity and we paid with blood. We cannot now shout under Tinubu out of ethnic hostility and expect to be taken seriously.

If we were silent then, let us be patient now. If we want to shout now, we must first apologize to the victims we abandoned when our own son was in power.

President Tinubu must be held accountable, yes. But not by hypocrites. Not by those who used our silence as a gift to Buhari and now want to use our noise as a weapon against Tinubu.

History is watching. And as Shehu Sani has shown us, history does not forget who kept quiet when the North was bleeding.

The North deserves better than double standards. The dead deserve better than selective tears.