Kaduna Governorship Race: Saying I’m Not From Kaduna Is Comical- El Rufai

If you still don’t like political stories, then I don’t know
what your new found interest is lol. When Mallam El-Rufai was the Minister of
FCT back then, nobody said he was not from Kaduna, they embraced him, called
him their own. Now that the former minister is contesting to be the next
governor of the state, PDP led government are now alleging he is not a Kaduna
boy, but comes from Kastina…..lol. I think politics is the new Gossip and we
are loving every bit of it. We just gonna seat here with our bottle of coke and
popcorn from now till May, 2015 and keep reporting how events unfold. We no get
work than to blog now, lol. Find the full report from Premium Times below…

A governorship aspirant on the platform of the All
Progressives Congress, APC, in Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, has deplored moves
by the state government to create doubts about his citizenship of the state.

In a statement on Wednesday, the El-Rufai Campaign
Organisation, said rather than face serious issues of governance confronting
it, the Peoples Democratic Party-led government and its rulers had desperately
gone comical by focusing on his roots.

The organisation, in the statement by its Director of Media,
Mohammed Soba, said it recalled that the government spent last weekend accusing
Mr. El-Rufai, a former Minister of Federal Capital Territory, FCT, of funding
one of the PDP governorship aspirants in the state and now followed it up by
assuming the temerity and authority to decide his identity for him.

It said, “Having been stung by his critique of their poor
performance in Kaduna State, they decided on a ridiculous way to stem the
negative assessments: simply declare El-Rufai a non-indigene of Kaduna State in
the vain hope to thereby nullify the criticism. And pronto, the PDP simply
decreed that El-Rufai is from Katsina State.”

Stating though that it would “not dignify their backwardness
save to set the record straight,” the organisation, however, explained that Mr.
El-Rufai was born in the ancient city of Zaria and therefore an indigene of the
state.

It said, “Malam Nasir El-Rufai was born to Malam Ahmad
Rufai, from Zaria. His oldest brother, Air Vice Marshall Ali Rufai (rtd),
enlisted in the Nigerian armed forces as an indigene of Zaria. Another older
brother, Bashir El-Rufai, had a long career in the federal public service as an
indigene of Kaduna State.

“All three El-Rufai brothers are listed in the Who is Who of
Zazzau Emirate, a compendium of renowned sons and daughters of Zaria. Alhaji
Nuhu Bamalli, the first Zaria indigene to be appointed a federal minister, was
an uncle to El-Rufai’s father, and was a well-respected Magajin Garin Zazzau.”

The organisation also noted that when Mr. El-Rufai served as
the Director General of the BPE and as Minister of the FCT, there was no
question of his status as a Kaduna man.

“They are exposing themselves badly enough as masters of
division, pettiness and falsehood,” the campaign organisation said.

“They are well-known as specialists in separating people
along faultlines, be they ethnic, religious and regional, and they are
unrelenting in setting so-called settlers against indigenes.

“A spectre is obviously haunting them, and they are running
from pillar to post. But their daydream will deliver nothing, for comedy never
trumps reality.”

The organisation also said Mr. El-Rufai would be offering a
positive alternative to the people of Kaduna State and that the people found
him credible because he is a man that has made a success of every public office
he has held.