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By Nasir Kura
Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state said Monday that he owes nobody apology over his comments on how to end godfatherism in the politics of Lagos state.
The governor said this while fielding questions from State House correspondents after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in his office in Abuja.
“There is no dispute between me and anyone in the APC, the APC is one family, I don’t dispute with my own party. They may dispute with me but I don’t. I made comments in Lagos about how to retire god-fathers, it’s a template that we have used in Kaduna and it has worked. If anybody thinks he is a god-father, the template may apply to him but I am not in dispute with anyone.
“I expressed my views firmly and very clearly, there is no human being that I am afraid to express my views on, and when I am ready to express my views specifically on a particular name then I will do so but i haven’t. I made a general statement but people have gone in to overdrive, creating fake news, abusing me and so on. I am thick-skin, I can take the abuse and I will wait for my time when I want to,” he said.
Asked if he was on good term with national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, the governor said, “We are in the same party, we get along very well as I know.”
El-Rufai also responded to question on whether he wants Tinubu retired from politics, saying “I don’t know if he is the god-father of Lagos, it’s up to him to say that. What I know for sure is that we have retired god-fathers in Kaduna and I have told those that asked me the question that ‘there are six million registered voters in Lagos but only one million voted,’ in the last election.
“So, there are five million people that you can bring into the electoral play ground and you can defeat anyone if you work hard. It’s hard work, it’s four years. That is what I said and if anyone feels offended by that, that is his business or her business.”
