Nothing wrong with Muslim/Muslim Ticket, says El-Rufai

Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai has hinted that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) might pick a Muslim to run with its Presidential Candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. The issue of the desirability of the same faith presidential ticket has continued to generate intense heat in the polity with many observers and commentators warning against such owing to the sharp division in the country along ethnic and religious lines. But in a televised interview on Channels TV monitored on Friday, the governor maintained when asked that “There is nothing wrong if our party’s candidate picks a Muslim as his running mate, so far the person is capable.

I think what we should be looking at now is whether the person is capable or not.” The position of the governor is coming just as he also maintained that there was indeed an agreement among stakeholders in 2015 that the Presidency should go to the South.

“I know that the issue of rotation is not in our party’s constitution but I know that there was an understanding that the Presidency of the country should go to the South in 2023. It is a matter of honour and a fair thing to do. Our grandfathers were men of honour, our fathers were also men of honour and we will not do anything less.” According to the governor, many of the governors in the North had kept to the understanding by refusing to join the race but that some of them that showed interest were never prevented from exercising their rights.

He added that he and his colleagues became worried when they noticed that some of them namely Abubakar Badaru (Jigawa), Yahaya Bello (Kogi) began to show serious interest to insist on implementing the agreement. “We (APC governors in the North) had an understanding to zone the Presidency to the South and many of us kept to that understanding. We realize that some of us decided to contest but we decided not to stop them believing that something like that has occurred in the past when the Presidency was zoned to the South West with late Abubakar Rimi contesting against Olusegun Obasanjo for the PDP ticket.” He said. According to him, 12 Northern governors moved when it became noticeable that some elements within the party were deviating from the agreement. (Saturday Telegraph)