Human rights activist, Senator Shehu Sani, has alleged that recent Sallah visits by prominent northern politicians to former President Muhammadu Buhari at his Daura residence in Katsina State were strategic moves aimed at undermining President Bola Tinubu in the 2027 general election.
“The recent visits by some prominent Northern politicians to Daura appear to be the usual Eid homage, but looking deeper and beyond the facade, it’s surreptitiously a new attempt to build a strong northern alliance using ex-President Buhari as a rallying point to challenge and evict President Tinubu’s government in 2027,” Sani stated on his verified Facebook page.
Sani, one-time Senator, who represented Kaduna Central in the 8th Senate, described the visits as part of a broader strategy to mobilise northern political forces against Tinubu. “It’s a regrouping of Northern political forces for the next general election. A project that will eventually kiss the dust,” Sani continued. “They want to resurrect Buhari’s political charm and fanaticism and mobilise the gullible to another hollow and bewildering end.”
LEADERSHIP recalls that in recent days, several northern political figures, including former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, ex-Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto, and ex-Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State, have visited Buhari in his hometown. Sani asserted that the visits, ostensibly for Eid homage, have a deeper political significance.
The former federal lawmaker criticised the northern elite for their actions, questioning their intentions given Buhari’s perceived lack of significant impact during his recent eight-year presidency. “They had power and wasted it. What do they want to do with it again?” he queried. He argued that it is premature for the northern elite to start plotting against a southern president who has been in power for just one year.
“The south never did that to Buhari. Their intended action has the capacity of ruining the democratic process and wrecking the fragile unity of the country when the south is awakened to this reality. Their obsession with power is condemnable,” Sani added.
He emphasized that opposition to Tinubu’s policies is a democratic right but condemned the use of regional sentiments to achieve political ends. “Opposition to Tinubu from the point of policies, promises and programs of his administration is a democratic right of any Nigerian. People have the right to speak and criticize the government. But attempts to whip up Northern sentiments to achieve their political ends is a dangerous political experiment and expedition at this material time,” he said.
Sani warned that the northern politicians’ actions could lead to further division and instability in Nigeria. “No serious southerner challenged Buhari for eight years. These power-drunk Northern politicians are dragging the region to a new political journey through a land mine,” he warned.
He concluded by urging the northern populace to reject these political maneuvers. “The Daura homage of the disgruntled and the obsessed will fail. Our people in the North should reject these faces and their plots. They have nothing to offer. From the abandoned Baro Port, Ajaokuta, Lake Chad basin refiling and Mambilla hydropower, they failed.”