Politics

Gov El-Rufai threatens to kill Foreign Obdervers during 2019 election

Published

5 years ago

February 6, 2019

The immediate past Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, has reportedly withdrawn his interest in being part of President Bola Tinubu’s cabinet. According to report, presidency sources said Mr El-Rufai told President Tinubu at a meeting on Tuesday that he was no longer interested in becoming a minister but would continue to contribute his quota to the development of Nigeria as a private citizen. “He also told the president that he needed time to focus on his doctorate programme at a university in The Netherlands,” a source said. Another insider also said that the former governor suggested a new ministerial nominee — Jafaru Ibrahim Sani — for Kaduna State, saying the President would find him very useful and resourceful. Mr Sani served as commissioner in three ministries in Kaduna State (Local Government Education and Environment) while Mr El-Rufai was governor.

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Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State, on Tuesday threatened that any foreign observer who interferes with Nigeria’s elections will be killed. According to the governor, those who intervene in the forthcoming general elections will “go back in body bags.”

The All Progressives Congress (APC) governor featuring on NTA’s Tuesday Live programme anchored by Cyril Stober, declared: “Those that are calling for anyone to come and intervene in Nigeria, we are waiting for the person that would come and intervene, they would go back in body bags.”

The Kaduna governor said that Nigeria had intervened militarily in Sierra Leone and Liberia in the 1990s on the resolution of international community and as a gesture of “neighbourliness”.

He warned: “We are trying to run our country as decently as possible.”

However, the international community Governor El-Rufai threatened with death are the same political forces APC relied on in 2015 to oust the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from power.

However, on the Tuesday Live programme which Cyril Stober turned to APC campaign platform last Tuesday, professor Bola Akinteriwa, former DG of NIIA, Victoria Island, also complained that President Muhammadu Buhari is not being supported by Nigerians, saying that the president needs to be assisted.

Curiously, virtually all the guests standing in for APC appeared to be re0writing the theories of international relations; perhaps, advocating that Nigeria can now exist in autarchy, and should be disconnected from the international community. None seemed to consider the fact that the 2019 general elections should be transparent and credible which is the concern of the international community.

El-Rufai’s statement came after the United States, United Kingdom and the European Union warned the Nigerian government of interfering in the elections.

Their reaction followed the suspension of Chief Justice Walter Onnoghen by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Last week, the Buhari led government cautioned representatives of foreign countries and organisations resident in the country against interfering in Nigeria’s internal affairs.