The deposed Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II on Sunday faulted the decision of the leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to withdraw an invitation to the Governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir El-Rufai to speak at its 2020 Annual General Conference.
The invitation to El-Rufai to speak at the lawyers’ 60th annual General Conference scheduled to hold virtually from August 26-29, had attracted a lot of criticisms from Nigerians, with many lawyers withdrawing their participation from the Conference.
The strident criticisms led the association’s leadership to withdraw the invitation.
Speaking on Sunday, the former Emir, who was visiting Gov. El-Rufai, having arrived Kaduna for the first time since he was deposed earlier in the year, lamented that El-Rufai was not given the right to fair hearing by the NBA.
Sanusi stressed that the invitation granted Gov. El-Rufai would have presented the NBA a golden opportunity to quiz the Governor.
READ ALSO: El-Rufai Reacts As NBA Drops Him From List Of Conference Speakers
According to him, El-Rufai always has opinions, and people will either like him for it or hate him for it.
He said: “You know if you have an opinion, people will either agree with you or disagree with you but a man who has an opinion that can be agreed with or disagreed with is always better than a man who has no opinion at all.
“Nasir always has opinions. He knows what his positions are on things. He says that position very clearly. People will like it, some people will not like it and that is what some people call controversial and being controversial is actually having an opinion. To be honest I do not want to join issues because we have already heard the views of Nigerians and the response.
“Everybody has a right to a fair hearing, and most importantly for me, if you feel that the Governor of Kaduna State is not doing right you should invite him to your covers and ask him to explain what he is doing. Tell him what you think he is doing wrong and you will learn something from him and he will learn something from you.
“That is the best way to handle issues like this. But again, I have seen the response from different branches of NBA and I hope this matter will not be turned to ethnicity and religious matter. It should be a matter of principle.”
