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From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Kaduna State Governor Mallam Nasir El-Rufai has alleged that some people at the Presidential Villa are working to frustrate the chances of the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, to win the coming presidential election.
El-Rufai, who was a guest on Channels Television’s morning programme, Sunrise Daily, on Wednesday, said that frustrations are coming in form of unpopular policies, particularly in the naira redesign, fuel crisis, and other programmes, introduced to anger the people, and perhaps, turn them against the ruling party, APC.
He said: “Obviously, they are working against our presidential candidate simply because things didn’t go their way during the APC primary elections that produced Tinubu. They had wanted a presidential candidate different from Tinubu who later emerged at the primary election. But that won’t stop him from victory.”
Elrufai also expressed disappointment that the President, Muhammadu Buhari, couldn’t end the era of petroleum subsidy that had consumed a huge chunk of Nigeria’s financial resources.
He explained: “I had a discussion with the President sometime in 2021, to convince him why petroleum subsidy must end. I had a conversation with the President in 2021 when the petroleum subsidy started rising. We all agreed as a government at the meeting that petroleum subsidies should be scrapped. The President was also convinced but suddenly the President had a change of mind for reasons I don’t know.
“How can you have N200bn budgeted for federal roads in Nigeria, and then spend N2trn on petroleum subsidy? This is not sustainable and all the presidential candidates in the 2023 election have promised to do away with the petroleum subsidy.
On the crisis surrounding the redesigning of the Naira, Elrufai made reference to 1983/84 when President Buhari was the Military Head of State and similar measures were taken to track people who have stashed “illicit” money in their homes.
“It’s a good policy and programme and the President has good intentions for the programmes. However, the timing doesn’t make political and economic sense. Besides, for such a programme to work, we, the governors, must be involved and carried along but that wasn’t done. The duration for the mop-up of old Naira notes is too short.
“However, Nigerians must know that these policies are not of the APC nor our presidential candidate, Tinubu. It’s obvious the policies of some fifth columnists whose intentions are to bring us and the country down. These policies were simply designed to inflict more pains and suffering on our rural people,” he maintained.
Meanwhile, the governor said he is tired and can’t wait to successfully finish the remaining 116 days of his tenure as Kaduna governor so he can go home and rest.
El-Rufai said: “I want to get out of office, I want to go and rest” as his response to a question asked him regarding his final few months in office as governor of the state.
He, however, expressed optimism in the capacity and competence of his expected successor, Senator Uba Sani, to continue the policies and programmes initiated by his government to ensure continuity.
He said: “We wanted someone, an inner member of Kaduna APC as my successor. A younger person too. Four names were presented. Samples and opinions were collected on them. Two of the names kept coming top after four different internal polls, hence we picked one of them.”
