Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai has alleged a plot by non-state actors closer to President Muhammadu Buhari to install an interim government to thwart the general elections.
El-Rufai, in an interview with Premium Times, hinged the plot of the cabal on their unsuccessful attempt to get the APC’s presidential ticket for either of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Governor, Godwin Emefiele, and Senate President Ahmad Lawan.
The former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) said he no longer has confidence in the quality of leadership around President Muhammadu Buhari.
Shedding more light on the people and forces he characterised as elements whose patterns and conduct are consistent with plans to subvert or topple a civilian-to-civilian transition after the next presidential election, he said: “It turned out that some of the wildest stories of conspiracy to derail the transition at best for APC to lose, preferably for the whole system to result in no election, leading to an interim arrangement began to rear their heads.”
He refused to name these “elements” because they are not worth the conventional Nigerian appellation of a political cabal.
The notion of a powerful cabal, according to him, admits a level of sophistication and discipline, which the group around President Buhari lacks.
“I have no problem naming them. I’m not afraid of anybody. But for me, naming them is giving them traction. They are nothing. They are not capable of winning elections. They have no idea of electoral or political legitimacy. They can only hide behind the likes of President Buhari to achieve their objectives,” he said.
On contentious issues around President Buhari and Tinubu, and the perceived mixed signals from the president’s lukewarm attitude to Tinubu’s campaigns, he insisted there are no mixed signals.
“President Buhari considers the APC like a child he conceived and held in pregnancy for 18 months and gave birth to. He will never, I am ready to stake my neck and my life, President Buhari will never work against the APC. He will never work against the candidate of the APC even if the candidate is the devil himself,” El-Rufai said.
The governor insisted that the president is “a party man and an establishment person whose support for Asiwaju Tinubu is sure.”
Painting a picture and illustrating the operational mode of some disgruntled power-hungry cliques within the party that he admitted is hurting the APC, he said: “What is happening is that there are people around the president that had their presidential candidates.
“They had two candidates that they preferred to succeed Buhari – Godwin Emefiele from the South and Ahmad Lawan from the North – and they got neither.”
Some farmers reportedly purchased the APC presidential nomination form for Emefiele but the central banker did not contest the primaries.
On his part, Senate President Lawan contested and came fourth behind Tinubu, former Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. APC National Chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, told a meeting of the party’s National Executive Committee, a few hours before the primaries that Lawan was the consensus candidate with Buhari’s backing. The Presidency denied the move and said it was not backing any candidate.
