Governor of Kaduna State, Uba Sani, submitted a list of 14 commissioner nominees to the state’s House of Assembly on Tuesday.
The list, however, contained 11 Muslims and only three Christians in what appears to be a continuation of covert discrimination against the sizable Christian population of the state.
Patience Fakai, Nasara Joy Bada, and Benjamin Kumai Gugong were the only Christians on the list which was on the House’s July 25 order paper, sighted by Peoples Gazette.
The lopsided appointments violated the widely-acknowledged but unwritten rule of a balanced representation of ethnic and religious groups in government appointments.
Mr Sani was asked about the reason for the uneven appointment but he did not respond to calls and messages from the Gazette on Wednesday evening.
Mr Sani’s predecessor and political godfather, Nasir El-Rufai, was repeatedly accused of actively undermining the Christian community in Kaduna, which mostly populated the southern part of the state.
Christian communities also witnessed organised and countless targeted attacks, which left many dead, leading to the description of the events as an ongoing stealth massacre. In 2020, at the peak of the crisis with very frequent attacks on the communities, Mr El-Rufai impassionately dismissed the reports as “media hype.”
Mr Sani, then a senator representing Kaduna Central senatorial district, agreed with Mr El-Rufai’s comments. “The state government is up and doing to make sure these killings stop. The governor is leaving no stone unturned, he has achieved a lot and more will be done,” he said.
