Nigeria is worse off today in terms of insecurity, economy and governance than it was under previous administrations.
The immediate past governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, stated this during an interview with Deutsche Welle Hausa in Katsina. El-Rufai was in Katsina on Monday, but the video of the interview was released Tuesday.
He also said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was incompetent, nepotic and had betrayed the ideals of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
El-Rufai who recently decamped from the APC to the Social Democratic Party (SDP), said Nigeria had been retrogressing since Tinubu became president.
He made the allegation El-Rufai, once a close ally of President Tinubu and a key figure in the APC’s electoral victories in 2015, 2019 and 2023, now presents himself as one of the fiercest critics of the administration, alleging that what the APC has become is a far cry from what its founders envisioned.
He accused the Tinubu-led administration of being the most intolerant since the return to democracy in 1999 and insensitive to the plight of ordinary Nigerians.
The former governor stated that “ever since the assumption of office of Tinubu as Nigeria’s president, the country has begun to go backwards. Insecurity has increased, the economy is dwindling, affluent people are now poor, and ethnic profiling is on the rise.
“Whoever he is giving an appointment to must be someone he knows or from his tribe. They can dismiss that, but Nigerians are not stupid. There is no way your name is this, and they will say no, you are from Katsina,” he stated.
“This kind of injustice, ethnic profiling, and theft that we are seeing is not what APC was built on. What we planned when we started building APC was a platform for justice, equity, competence, and national integration. But today, we see nothing but sheer injustice, nepotism, and disregard for those ideals,” El-Rufai said.
He said he joined the SDP because of the reasons he stated above, adding that the party would “rescue the masses from injustice.”
“So, whoever his party cheated or did something he felt was not right, the only party he sees is the SDP. So, don’t be surprised by the kind of people you see in this room and others that are not here—we are working together in broad daylight and midnight doing what we should do to strategise in order to salvage our people from what this government has put us through,” he stated.
He said he would not end up with the SDP the way he did with the APC, adding that it was the APC that strayed from its founding ideals, not him.
“I did not leave APC; it’s the party that left me. We told them that what they are doing is not good, and they are always behaving like nobody can tell them anything.
“Even when they denied the allegation of nepotism, people are not blind or stupid. When they see the names, they know where they come from,” he said.
He said he had met with with Bisi Akande, Adams Oshiomhole and Abdullahi Adamu to tell them that the party had deviated from its founding vision.
“I asked them if this was what we had planned for the people when we started and registered our party. And they said it has changed.
“So, if it has changed, then should you stay in what you are not okay with? I spoke with leaders that we should come back to the radar, but they shunned us away,” he said.
According to him, the APC refusing to convene meetings for two years demonstrated the party’s leadership’s disregard for internal democracy and collective decision-making.
“That is why I said it is the party that left me, so I have to look for a party that shares similarity with the kind of ideology we had when 37 of us signed for the registration of the APC. I am among them. I am a founding father.
“But even if it is a child you gave birth to and he went wayward and you tried your best to bring him back on track and he refused, then you let him be. I have sworn off APC and left it with the world,” he said.
