Governor Nasir El-rufai of Kaduna State claims elements at the Aso Rock Villa are aversed to the presidential ambition of Bola Tinubu, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in this year’s general elections.
Mr El-rufai made this known on Wednesday while appearing on Channel Television’s Sunrise Daily.
Mr Tinubu emerged the standard bearer of the ruling party despite fruitless efforts by some members of his party to get their preferred candidate clinch the ticket of the APC.
While some of the politicians that lost the ticket to him have visibly joined his campaign, others are leaving no stone unturned to ensure he fails in his bid to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari.
Speaking during the programme, the governor explained that the elements were hiding behind Mr Buhari’s resolve to ensure a free, fair and credible elections to sabotage the ambition of the former Lagos governor.
“I believe there are elements in the Villa that want us to lose the election because they didn’t get their way; they had their candidate,” Mr El-rufai opined. “Their candidate did not win the primaries.
“They are trying to get us to lose the election, and they are hiding behind the president’s desire to do what he thinks is right. I will give two examples: this petroleum subsidy, which is costing the country trillions of Naira, was something that we all agreed would be removed. In fact, I had a discussion with the president and showed him why it had to go. Because how can you have a capital budget of N200b for federal roads and then spend N2 Trillion on petroleum subsidy? This was a conversation I had with the president in 2021 when the subsidy thing started rising. He was convinced. We left. It changed. Everyone in the government agreed, and it changed.
“The second example I will give is this currency redesign. You have to understand the president. People are blaming the Governor of the Central Bank for the currency redesign, but No. You have to go back and look at the first outing of Buhari as president. He did this; the Buhari, Idiagbon regime changed our currency and did it in secrecy with a view to catching those that are stashing away illicit funds. It is a very good intention. The president has his right. But doing it at this time within the allotted time does not make any political or economic sense.”
