Speaking to State House correspondents, on Friday, after observing the Juma’at prayer at the Villa Mosque with President Buhari, el-Rufai said this was Buhari’s tim and affirmed that no All Progressives Congress (APC) governor would defect from the party on account of Atiku’s resignation from the APC.
He pointed out that the governor of Atiku’s home state of Adamawa, Jubrila Bindow, had already endorsed Buhari for 2019.
The governor revealed that the former vice president was expected to leave the APC in December but had apparently decided to move earlier, saying, “the earlier the better.”
El-Rufai said he was not surprised that Atiku left the APC since he could not realise his ambition to secure the presidential ticket of the party.
“I have heard about what the former vice president said about leaving the APC. We knew he was going to leave in December but he has left in November which is good because the earlier he leaves for where he belongs the better.
“He has changed political parties a few times, there is nothing surprising. Before the 2019 elections, if situation changes and he thinks he can get the ticket in 2019, he will come back. That is what he has done a few times,” the governor stated.
He denied that the former nation’s number two citizen was driven out of APC.
On threat that some party members loyal to Atiku may now leave the APC, el-Rufai said: “I don’t know about the loyalists in the APC that will go with him but I want to assure you that there is no one governor in the APC that is going to go with former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
Asked whether Abubakar will not be a threat to Buhari’s re-election, the Kaduna State governor declared: “He has never been and will never be a threat to President Buhari. I have said this to the former vice president in 2014 in Dubai when we met because before joining the APC he sent for me. He told me of his intentions and I welcomed it because politics is a game of addition, not subtraction. So, the more you have the merrier.”
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