Nasir el-Rufai, governor of
Kaduna state, says some Christians will not vote for him even if he picks the
pope as running mate.
El-Rufai’s choice of Hadiza
Balarabe, a Muslim, as his running mate in the forthcoming governorship
election, had sparked a controversy.
The Christian Association of
Nigeria and some prominent individuals in the state had opposed the
Muslim-Muslim ticket.
But speaking when he featured
Channels Television on Thursday, el-Rufai said his choice of running mate was
unpopular in some quarters, he was confident of winning the polls.
He said it would also help Kaduna
to see beyond politics and religion.
“What if I tell you that no matter
who I choose as my running mate, even if I choose the Pope, 67 percent of the
Christians in southern Kaduna have made up their minds that they will never
vote for me,” he said.
“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?”
He said Bala Bantex, outgoing
deputy governor who hails from southern Kaduna, had been rejected by the people
from the region because he is a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
“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?” he asked.
“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.”
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