El-Rufai Insists Forces in Villa Working against APC, Tinubu’s Poll Victory

*Says naira redesign deliberate obstacle to hinder chances of ex-Lagos gov

Kingsley Nwezeh, Nume Ekeghe and Adedayo Akinwale

Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, yesterday, insisted that some elements in the presidential villa were undermining chances of the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu.
According to him, the conduct of the federal government depicted “a government disowning its own party.”
Tinubu had also alleged that the currency redesign policy and the persistent fuel scarcity were targeted at his candidacy.
Speaking on a programme monitored on Arise News Channel, El-Rufai said the elements were creating stumbling blocks to make it difficult for Tinubu and the party to win the February 25 poll.
He also stated that the Progressive Governors were united in the call for an extension of the February 10, 2023 deadline for the cash swap following the redesign of N200, N500 and N1000.

The Kaduna governor said the policy was poorly formulated, adding that it failed to take into account, constraints presently being faced by the masses and failure to involve the Ministers of Digital Economy, that of Finance and the Nigerian Communications Commission.
Denying that some APC governors had meetings with the main opposition, the PDP, he said the elements in reference belonged to the camp of those, who lost out at the primaries, who sought the emergence of a single candidate other than a product of a competitive one.
El-Rufai explained that, the “influential” elements in the villa sold the idea of the naira redesign project to the president to achieve a particular objective without giving a thought to the implications.

“They are creating stumbling blocks to make it more difficult for us.
These elements did not get what they wanted. Their candidate did not win and the governors were united and insisted that there will be no single candidate announcement, that there will be a competitive primary election and Asiwaju won.
“These elements are not even APC members. They are parasites, they parasite on Buhari and his success but they are influential, because they are around him all the time. I’m also influential, I am a governor and I am not going to be in the villa from morning to night,” he said.

The Kaduna State Chief executive affirmed that the APC governors were united in their determination to deliver Tinubu.
“The APC governors are United. We have never been more united. Our governors are on one page. And we are working very hard to ensure that we deliver Asiwaju as the president. By the grace of God, He will win in spite of their machinations,” he said.

On the naira redesign policy, he said  the elements sold the idea to the president and a clear case of shortage had manifested.
His words: “The elements in the villa sold him this idea and they know that he will quickly subscribe to the idea, because he had done it in 1984. Those elements will not tell him that there are constraints, network constraints, bank branch distribution constraints. It sounds like a good policy  and that’s it.
“You cannot travel 200 kilometers and you don’t know where to deposit the cash. The problem is that we have deposited all the money in the banks but we are not getting new notes. We have a shortage problem.

“The governor of Lagos State says we have deposited all the cash and we are not getting new ones. The governor of Yobe State says we have all the money but we don’t know where to deposit them.
“Borno State is three to four times the size of the entire South-east zone; Kaduna State is two and half times the size of the South-east. These are the kind of geographical diversities we are talking about. You cannot sit down in Abuja and take such decisions. The National Assembly said this process should be extended up till June.

“They have passed a resolution and we support it but what we are saying as progressive governors is look at the timing of the period allotted, the extension is pathetic, it’s nothing. Let us do a logistics analysis, state by state. The problems of Lagos differs from that of Niger State.
“Where are the banks and where are they located, where are the network problems? If you have tried to transfer money in the last two days you will see a clear problem. The network is congested in Abuja and Lagos and this has not been taken into account in formulating the policy.
“This is what you have when you have a whole of government approach. The Minister for Digital Economy should be on the table, the NCC, the minister of finance should be on the table on this but they are not.

“There are already pockets of protests in Lagos. If people cannot buy groceries and  the one they have bought finishes. To be clear, this is not an APC policy. This is not in our manifesto. We never promised that we are going to resign the currency. People should understand that this is a knee-jerk policy, an ad hoc policy designed to solve a particular problem
“We support Mr President but all we are saying is, give more time so that people will add value to their hard earned money not every Nigerian has money stashed or is a criminal. The government with all the agencies that they have knows more than we do all the criminals.”

On whether the president had ensured a level playing field for the coming elections, he said,”He (Buhari) has always done that but a level playing ground does not mean hurting one of the parties, because it has the misfortune of being in power. Where in the world will a sitting government try to disown its own party?”