Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai once on Thursday, lambasted the people he now refers to as elements in the Presidency, whom he said were bent on inciting voters against the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The governor, who said this on a TV Continental programme, Journalists’ Hangout which was monitored by Africa Today News, New York, stated that the time frame for the cashless policy was inflicting needless pain on Nigerians.
El-Rufai said this just as the APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, at the party’s campaign rally in Osogbo, urged the electorate to troop out to vote ‘even if they devalued the naira drastically.’
He said, ‘Nothing they will say.., even if they devalue naira, where we will vote is not far from our house. We will trek down there. We will trek down to the polling booths. Where they put ballot boxes, we will get there. It is not always easy to take a palm kernel from its shell.’
Africa Today News, New York reports that the fresh El-Rufai’s assertions is coming barely 24 hours after he stated on Channels Television’s Sunrise programme that people whose preferred candidate lost the APC presidential ticket to the former Lagos state governor last year were working against the APC standard bearer.
The Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, had stated that the government was not “officially aware” of any entity in the Presidential Villa working against the victory of the APC standard bearer.
But the Kaduna State governor appeared to be echoing Tinubu who cited the naira redesign policy by the Central Bank of Nigeria and the lingering fuel crisis as part of plots to thwart the poll and his expected victory.
On Thursday, El-Rufai vowed that those opposed to the APC presidential candidate would be defeated and also unmasked in time.
Responding to a question, Governor El-rufai said, ‘Unmasking them is not as joyful as defeating them. They will be unmasked in time. But we have defeated them when they wanted their own people in the national working committee of the party.
Read Also: Punish Divisive Politicians In 2023, El-Rufai Urges Nigerians
‘We have defeated them when they wanted their own anointed person to be the presidential candidate without due regard, due process or respect for those of us that are governors, that have slaved to put this party together, campaigned for it and delivered the election twice. We didn’t matter.’
‘Meanwhile, none of them has contested an election as a councillor, and if they did, they won’t win. I have been elected twice with over a million votes in Kaduna State. I can claim to speak for the people.
‘None of these people can. We will come to the unmasking stage, this is not the stage. The stage now is to draw the attention of Nigerians that they are elements that are doing this and they don’t mean well for our party, they want to incite voters against our party, so that we lose the elections.’
The former FCT minister explained that the APC was working hard to win the election, adding that the party would expose those behind the plot against Tinubu.
According to him, the cabal misled the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) into taking a decision that would turn Nigerians against the ruling party.
He noted, ‘Once Nigerians know that, they will know where some of these funny decisions are coming from and when the election is done and settled by the grace of God in about three weeks, and I’m confident, we are not sleeping.
‘We are going to work hard until (February) 27th when all the election results are out and by the grace of God, Asiwaju (Tinubu) is elected and other candidates of the APC; then we will unmask them.
‘This has been an ongoing issue and we just feel that some of these things that are being thought of and clothed with good intentions, and dummies being sold to the President so that the electorate will be incited; the people of Nigeria will be inflicted needless pain at the point in addition to all the other challenges that they are facing just so that they will revolt and say, look, we will vote for the other party. It is clear.’
The governor submitted that his party was not against the cashless policy, but argued for extension of time to enable the citizens to lodge their money in the banks.