El-Rufai Visits Sanwo-Olu, Says He ‘Nearly Shed Tears’ Seeing Burnt Sites

• Stephen Godonu-

Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, on Thursday, visited his Lagos State counterpart, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, to sympathise with him over the recent loss of lives and properties in Nigeria’s economic capital.

Rampaging hoodlums had hijacked the #EndSARS protests against police brutality to wreak havoc in Lagos last month.

El-Rufai said Sanwo-Olu did all that needed to be done to prevent the demonstrations from degenerating to violence but those who thrive in violence infiltrated the protests to achieve their agenda.

According to a statement by Sanwo-Olu’s Chief Press Secretary, Gboyega Akosile, the Kaduna State governor said he nearly shed tears seeing photos of burnt and looted sites in Lagos.

The statement was titled, ‘El-Rufai: Youths Who Destroyed Public Assets In Lagos On Self-Destruction’.

It quoted El-Rufai as saying, “I have spent time to see some of the pictures of the destruction done on public properties in Lagos and I nearly shed tears. Anyone who cares about development and progress will cry after seeing what has been done to public facilities and people’s investment that provided jobs to youths.

“While expressing anger on police brutality may be right, but destroying public properties, which will have to be rebuilt using money that is needed to invest in other public infrastructure, under the guise of protest is nothing but self-destruction.

“The Government of Lagos and the Federal Government will have to re-invest scarce resources that could have been used for other things to rebuild the vandalised facilities.”

The Kaduna State governor also sympathised with the Nigeria Police Force and those who lost loved ones in Lagos in the wake of the violence, saying the Federal Government must not allow wanton destruction of public assets to happen again.

On his part, Sanwo-Olu thanked his colleague, saying the state had moved on but “vowed to make the state uncomfortable for those with the intention to destroy the state’s economy and heritage.”