Kaduna state Governor Mallam Nasir el-Rufai yesterday in Ilorin, Kwara state, said the All Progressives Congress (APC) will soon wipe out ‘rascals’ within its fold just as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been totally annihilated as a brand.
el-Rufai while delivering a public lecture delivered at Al-Hikmah University hinted that the reconciliation assignment given National Leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, was to find an appropriate solution to appropriate categories of dissent within the ruling party.
On PDP, the Kaduna governor whose lecture was titled, ‘Governing justly: Perspective from far and
near with lessons for Nigeria’ said more revelations concerning the PDP’s 15 years reign would come to the fore before the 2019 general elections.
While expressing confidence that the reconciliation assignment given Tinubu, el-Rufai lamented that APC’s opposition is within the party as he described APC as a miracle.
His words: “we are a party that is just five years old. We are a miracle. We are truly a 21-century miracle. A party that was formed a year to the election and it ejected a party that had ruled for 16 years, is a miracle. We will solve our problems and we will win the next elections even in more states. Because we are capable of solving our problem and the other party is so disorganized, misinformed.”
“If you look at the Nigerian political environment, the APc has no opposition, PDP is totally destroyed as a brand. We have no effective opposition. The opposition with APC is within APC.
“We have had people that are unhappy, there are many unhappy people, some of them legitimately, there are some disgruntled people that are unhappy without basis, and we also have rascals and troublemakers who think politics is rascality and to each one there is a different solution.
“The president has established a committee under Asiwaju to reconcile. The president recognizes that there are people that have worked for the success of the party and they have not been adequately recognized.
“There is the need to recognize those people, apologise and do something and he said Asiwaju go and do it. There are people who are disgruntled because they are used to the PDP thing of distribution, every month bring money give them. There are people like that. Those ones there is no solution. They will remain in opposition until you find a way to annihilate them politically. There are rascals.
“They do rebel so that you will negotiate with them. Well, you can keep negotiating depending on the level of rascality. You can choose your rascality and i will say I am wiping you out of the political map.”
On the state of the nation, el-Rufai said all hope is not lost for Nigeria, saying that “the reasons why Nigerians voted out the PDP in 2015 was because they were tired, everyone could see that the country was heading towards collapse, so many people voted not really just APC but against PDP.
“And since then the various federal and state governments, both APC and PDP have got the message and are trying to govern justly but they can not overturn the baneful legacy of gone governments overnight.
“It took us many decades to get where we are and to get into the hole that we are and we will not be able to get out of the hole overnight in spite of the best efforts. There is the need to articulate a proper national consensus on what are goals are as a country and what standards, the majority of the citizens will subscribe to rank out Nigeria as a justly govern polity.
“There must be a consistent, unwavering focus on delivery security, peaceful coexistence and human development goals that will deliver justice to the vast majority of our people.”
He also noted that the indivisibility and indissolubility of Nigeria is sacrosanct.
“Nigeria is here to stay. We will negotiate to solve our problem and I am of the view that if our report on true federalism is adopted, and even tacitly implemented by our party and the government, Nigeria will be a better place for everyone,” he said.
