A Northern-based socio-cultural group, the Northern Patriots Forum (NPF), has slammed former Governor of Kaduna State and chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, for criticizing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his administration.
In a statement made available to newsmen in Abuja, the forum’s coordinator, Capt. Monday Ishakwu, stated that El-Rufai lacked the moral right to attack President Tinubu in such a manner, having failed woefully during his eight-year tenure as Kaduna governor.
According to the statement, the forum acknowledged that President Tinubu’s performance in less than two years had recorded more achievements than El-Rufai’s eight years of misrule as governor.
While cautioning El-Rufai to be mindful of his utterances, the forum opined that his conduct as Kaduna State governor had made him politically unpopular in the North and discredited him both nationally and internationally, including his failed ministerial ambition.
According to the group:
“President Tinubu actually wanted him to join his cabinet. He nominated him and sincerely reserved a lucrative portfolio for him, had he passed the Senate screening.
ALSO READ: My abductors seized, wore my NYSC kit — Freed corps member narrates ordeal
“But multiple security reports from security agencies indicted him and suggested that he would be a ‘diplomatic liability’ if he were to become a cabinet member of President Tinubu.
“The agencies cited his controversial past statements and actions. One such incident was his 2019 threat to European Union election observers, where he warned, ‘We are waiting for the person who will come and intervene. They will go back in body bags.’
“I’m sure the President, too, would have regretted it if El-Rufai had eventually made the list because, shortly after that, his own State House of Assembly indicted him for mismanaging a whopping N423 billion over eight years. Harboring such a person in the cabinet would have dented the integrity of Mr. President and raised questions about his anti-corruption stance.
“Now, he is driven by envy and jealousy over the Tinubu administration’s laudable reforms. He is pained that such great achievements have been recorded in less than two years without him as a minister.
“He blames everyone for the consequences of his words and actions. He either blames the Kaduna governor, Ribadu, Senator Shehu Sani, or even President Tinubu. What an obsession!
“He has forgotten all his atrocious actions as Kaduna governor, unaware that they would come back to haunt him after his tenure. While he may have enjoyed constitutional immunity, he cannot erase the bad impressions left on Nigerians and the international community.
“El-Rufai’s alleged role in the 2015 Zaria Shiite Massacre, where 438 civilians were killed, as well as accusations of funding violent herdsmen responsible for attacks in Southern Kaduna, were also part of the security reports that blocked his ministerial ambition.
“Nigerians will not forget in a hurry his derogatory remarks about Jesus Christ and his 2019 assertion that even if he brought the Pope, Christians would never vote for him. His religious intolerance remains one of his major obstacles, as people perceive him as a fanatic and extremist.”
El-Rufai, during his interview on Arise Television on Monday, accused President Tinubu and National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, of orchestrating his failed ministerial nomination.
The embattled former governor specifically claimed that it was President Tinubu who did not want him in his cabinet, and not any security report, while also accusing the NSA of opposing him due to Ribadu’s alleged presidential ambition in 2031.
and then