Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has said that 67 per cent of
Christians in southern Kaduna will not vote for him in the governorship
election even if he picks the Pope as his running mate.
El-Rufai, said this while appearing on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily programme on Thursday,
Recall that El-Rufai had come under harsh criticisms from the
Christian Association of Nigeria and other interests groups for picking a
Muslim as running mate.
El-Rufai, who is the governorship candidate of the All Progressives
Congress, said even his outgoing deputy, Yusuf Bala Bantex, who is a
Christian, was treated like an outcast because he was in the APC.
“What if I tell you that no matter who I choose as my running mate,
even if I choose the Pope, 67 per cent of the Christians in southern
Kaduna have made up their minds that they will never vote for me.
“This is what the polls show. So, for me, that is not the issue. The
issue is this: Kaduna State is divided, it needs to be united. The way
to begin to unite it is to take religion or ethnicity off the table.
“Since 1992, every deputy governor of Kaduna has been a Christian.
What has it done for the state? Has it united the state? Has it assuaged
the feelings of the Christian minority?
“My current deputy governor is a Christian and I didn’t pick him
because he is Christian. I picked him because we were colleagues from
university and I know him to be a brilliant, focused and just man. But,
did that change anything?
“In fact, what it did was to bring disrespect to him. No one
respected him in southern Kaduna because he is in what they call an
Islamic party.
“So, there are complicated issues in Kaduna, which people sitting from a distance will not understand.”
The governor added that his choice of a female Muslim running mate would help Kaduna State to see beyond politics and religion.
El-Rufai further noted that the federal character principle in Nigeria was stifling development.