The Governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari to Sanusi: Practise what you preach, you ride in Rolls Royce while your people languish in abject poverty

The Governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari, has lambasted the Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II, for claiming that the governor failed his people by not curbing the outbreak of meningitis in the state.

The meningitis outbreak has affected at least 19 states in the country, of which Zamfara is the worst hit, with over 269 deaths and about 2,600 cases.

Yari had said the outbreak was God’s punishment for the sins of Nigerians.

The governor, responding on Saturday with fury, advised the monarch to “practise what he preaches” or “keep his peace”.

Yari, in a statement by the governor’s special adviser on public enlightenment and communication, Ibrahim Dosara, said, “For those who consider the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, to be anything but a first-class intellectual, a consummate banker and a bona fide member of Nigeria’s royalty, the last couple of weeks were a dizzying spectacle of mixed messages on integrity, royalty and wisdom.

“Within a perimeter of weeks, Muhammadu Sanusi II, whose royal tentacles and social networks traverse the length and breadth of this country, lambasted the nation’s economic framework, the northern elite, sub-national leadership, especially the governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari Abubakar and the traditional institution of marriage.

“With due respect to our highly revered traditional institutions and royal fathers, as a blue-blooded family member himself, Abdulaziz Yari Abubakar holds the emir in very high esteem.

“He (Yari) believes that the emir, as a brother and co-occupant of elite positions in Nigeria, could advise governors and those in positions of authority via several chains of communication that are richly available to him. But he preferred the public platform for reasons best known to him.”

Yari insisted that the nation’s leaders who consult pastors and imams for solutions to every social misfortune, should be wary of the wrath of God in the event of an epidemic of unquantifiable proportions such as Type C meningitis.

He said, “As a country that succumbs to the supremacy of Allah, we must continue to link Him with all things, fair or foul.

“Those who want to equate science with God, like Muhammad Sanusi II, can denounce Yari’s statement from the rooftops, but that will not change Yari’s beliefs in the omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence of Allah.”

Meanwhile, the Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria has called on the Federal Government to pay more attention to production of local vaccines.

They lamented the lack of local vaccines to tackle the outbreak of the Cerebrospinal Meningitis currently ravaging five northern states in country.

The National President, AMLSN, Toyosi Raheem, who spoke in Abuja, bemoaned the collapse of the local vaccines production centre in Yaba, Lagos State, and stressed the need for government to pay serious attention to emerging and reemerging diseases.