El-Rufai downplays defections to APC, says it’s overhyped

Nasiru El-Rufai, the immediate past governor of Kaduna State, has played down the significance of recent defections of prominent politicians to the All Progressives Congress (APC), stating that it will not derail his efforts to find lasting solutions to Nigeria’s issues.

Addressing journalists in Kano on Monday, El-Rufai argued that the defections had been overhyped and would not distract from his political goals.

He further emphasized that he was the first to leave the APC, moving to the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in his quest to address Nigeria’s challenges and eliminate the influence of godfatherism in politics.

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“The SDP is concerned with finding solutions to Nigeria’s problems and giving opportunity to those that the godfather-type of party politics has totally sidelined and excluded.

“What we want to do is to give all Nigerians interested in leadership and politics equal opportunity to show that he can do better than what we have. Because clearly what we have is not good enough.

“Every Nigerian agrees that what we have now is not good enough and there are many talented Nigerians out there that don’t even want to think about going into politics or public service because they think you need to have a godfather, or you need to have tons of money. We want to remove all these things and unleash the competitive energy of Nigerians, to being their best to the politics and public service.

“This is our goal. As far as I am concerned, the defection of high-profile politicians is not the issue. The issue is who can solve the problem of Nigerians and communicate it to them such that on Election Day they will be motivated to come out and vote for that person.

“These high-level defections are widely exaggerated. Is good for headlines, it’s good to sell your media, but on the ground,politically, if you don’t have the people, you can have as high a profile as possible, you are nothing,” he stated.

El-Rufai stated that he was in Kano for two reasons – to apologise to Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II in advance for his inability to attend an upcoming Emirate event, and to also meet with the SDP members in Kano State.