A
former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai,
yesterday accused President Goodluck Jonathan of playing ethnic and religious
politics as a way of diverting Nigerians’ attention from alleged bad governance
going on in the country.
El-Rufai,
who is now Deputy National Secretary of the All Progressive Congress (APC),
also accused the President of lacking the capacity to call to order all those
beating the war drum across the country.
He
spoke on the Kaduna-based Liberty Radio. The former minister warned that the
country having fought a civil war would find it difficult surviving another
war.
He said
that the ruling PDP is afraid of former military ruler, General Mohammadu
Buhari and therefore will do everything possible to destroy him and brand him
an ethnic and religious bigot.
He
said: “There are many agents confronting the Nigerian nation. What is very
worrying is the kind of rhetoric going on in this country, a lot of which are
being sanctioned by the government. For example, whenever Asari Dokubo speaks,
just know that a week earlier, he had been called to the Villa and whenever E.K
Clark speaks, you know it is arranged.
“How
can one ethnic group, the Ijaw, threaten the rest of us? We have 170 million
people, I don’t know how many of that population make up the Ijaw nation, but I
don’t think they are more than five million.
“How
can five million people threaten us saying unless their son becomes President,
there will be no Nigeria? Who are they to do that? The government keeps quiet
when somebody says that. Of course, the expected reaction is that you have
people from the North also threatening similar thing.
“What
type of country do we have where there is no one to call people to order? It is
sad. Again, it is this political strategy of Jonathan to always use ethnicity and
religion whenever there is a problem.
“Whenever
there is a big issue about Excess Crude account or subsidy issue, they bring
this issue of ethnicity and religion. But I have not lost hope because I know
that Nigerians can see through their pranks and their game and will vote them
out in the next election. The challenge for the next President is to build
trust among the various ethnic groups so that Nigeria can walk towards one
direction.
“This
country has gone through one civil war. I don’t know of any country that can
survive two civil wars and those that are stealing crude oil; buying and
stockpiling arms should know it is not the amount of arms you have that decides
who wins a war. Otherwise, the USA would have won in Iraq, but they couldn’t
and at the end they had to leave the Iraqi to solve their problems.
“So,
they should think very deeply about what they are doing and learn from history.
I know that Nigeria will survive these bad and incompetent leaders who steal
during the day and drink and womanise at night instead of working for the
Nigerian people”.
The
former Minister described the PDP as a toxic party which must be destroyed. His
words: “a party that has earned the highest oil revenue in Nigeria`s history,
but has converted this oil revenue to personal wealth when our schools have
remained closed and our educational system collapsing, our hospitals not
functioning and fly abroad for medical treatment and send their children to
school abroad, is a danger to the Nigerian nation.
“PDP
has become a virus that is infesting and destroying the country and because
they are not doing anything productive, they have changed our politics to that
of ethnicity and religion to divert attention from their incompetence, lack of
capacity and their looting of the treasury. So, PDP has become a clear and
perfect danger to the existence of Nigeria as a nation and the prosperity of
its people. So, it is toxic party and should be destroyed.
“The
PDP has evolved from a party that was trying to be democratic in its practices
and to have decency in its governance to one that has become a danger to the
people of Nigeria and the only person they are afraid of, who is their
nightmare, is Gen. Buhari.
“So,
anytime Buhari makes a statement or does anything, the PDP machine will be at
work to twist whatever he says in order to destroy his character and give the
impression that he is a religious and ethnic zealot.
“There
is nothing by way of fact that shows that Gen. Buhari is that kind of person.
Buhari has been in public life for so long that if he was a religious bigot, or
ethnic surrogate, it would have been clear. There is no way a man will rise to
the position of a Major General in the Army and people will not know that he is
preference for his ethnicity or religion or attained the position he has
attained in life without people knowing he has all these qualities.”
He
accused the PDP of trying to paint Buhari in bad light, adding, “They have
tried everything possible to paint the man black and they are not even afraid
that one day, they will stand before God and defend their action. That is why I
say they are afraid of him more than God…”
He
expressed concern about the future of the country, saying, “Nigeria has a
population of about 170 million and every year, about six million babies are
born. What this means as far as policy making is concerned is that within the
next 20 years, those babies will need at least three million jobs because from
the six million, one million will die from avoidable illnesses.
“Any responsible
government should be thinking of these challenges. My concern is that not much
is being done and the environment is not conducive at all. Electricity supply
is going down and industries are dying while competition from China is killing
the little industrial base that we have and our leaders are not making the
environment attractive for investors.”
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