Nasir el-Rufai, the Governor of Kaduna State, on Thursday, took another swipe at the people he called elements in the Presidency, whom he said were bent on inciting voters against the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
The governor said this on a TV Continental programme, Journalists’ Hangout, noting that the time frame for the cashless policy was inflicting needless pain on Nigerians.
El-Rufai said this just as the APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, at the party’s campaign rally in Osogbo, urged the electorate to troop out to vote “even if they devalued the naira drastically.”
He said, “Nothing they will say.., even if they devalue naira, where we will vote is not far from our house. We will trek down there. We will trek down to the polling booths. Where they put ballot boxes, we will get there. It is not always easy to take a palm kernel from its shell.”
El-Rufai’s assertion is coming 24 hours after he stated on Channels Television’s Sunrise programme that people whose preferred candidate lost the APC presidential ticket to the former Lagos state governor last year were working against the APC standard bearer.
The Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, had stated that the government was not “officially aware” of any entity in the Presidential Villa working against the victory of the APC standard bearer.
But the Kaduna State governor appeared to be echoing Tinubu who cited the naira redesign policy by the Central Bank of Nigeria and the lingering fuel crisis as part of plots to thwart the poll and his expected victory.
Faulting the timeline given by the CBN for the currency swap, El-Rufai said, “The question is: Is a few weeks a reasonable time in a country of one million square kilometres and over 200m people? How many bank branches are in Nigeria? How many ATMs?
“In Borno State, there are only two local governments out of 27 with a bank branch. In Yobe, only two local governments out of 17 have a bank branch.
“Even a cosmopolitan state relatively in the north like Kaduna has two local governments that have no bank branches and 10 with only one bank branch. So, everyone in that local government must come to that one bank branch? And this PoS that you are seeing in every street of Lagos; do you think you have PoS in every street of Kubau, Ikara and Makarfi which are local government headquarters in my state?’’
The governor accused the Peoples Democratic Party standard bearer, Atiku Abubakar, who previously called for extension of the CBN deadline, of attempting to gain sympathy votes.
“But this week, because of a mere extension of 10 days, he’s turning round to say don’t extend; it means there is something. He’s clearly benefiting from this pain Nigerians are going through every day till today.
“I have reports that people in Kaduna cannot buy food and they cannot sell because there are no currency notes around. But the presidential candidate of the PDP is saying don’t extend because he’s gaining from it. The incitement of people against the APC is in his view to his advantage and this incitement is stronger in northern Nigeria where Atiku is to benefit from,’’ he submitted.
El-Rufai further observed that the presidential candidates of the other parties, except the New Nigeria Peoples Party, could leverage on their close relationship and ownership of banks to get cash from the financial institutions. Punch
