Stop El-Rufai from Causing Religious War, MiddleBelt Leaders Tell DSS

Sunday Aborisade in Abuja

The Middle Belt Forum (MBF), has urged the Department of State Service (DSS), to place former Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai, on its radar in order to prevent him from causing a religious war in Nigeria.

The MBF, which made the appeal in a statement yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Dr. Isuwa Dogo, said the ex-governor’s recent statement was capable of setting adherents of both religions on war path.

The statement read: “The MBF calls on the Nigerian security agencies not only to place the former governor under its radar, but he should be invited by the secret police for a chat. Considering the comments he made before the clerics, the man who suffers from an inferiority complex must be considered a dangerous politician riding on the wings of religion for relevance.

“We hereby denounce el-Rufai’s comments before the clerics as a shameless act of national hypocrisy steeped in the premeditated plot to set adherents of both religions on war path.”

The former governor while addressing a select group of Islamic clerics after the conclusion of the presidential and governorship polls, hinted that he plotted the same-faith ticket in the state and replicated it at the federal level.

The former governor recalled that he, with others, were determined to ensure the Muslim-Muslim ticket was sustained for another 20 years to ensure Christians come to terms with the indispensability of the same-faith ticket as a panacea for peace in both the state and the federal level.

The MBF, however, said, “What he never told his selected preachers was that the state he ruled and ruined for eight years was turned into Nigeria’s headquarters of kidnappings and human barbarities that led to the murder of tens of thousands of people and decimation of over 100 communities under his watch.

“The MBF, as the socio-cultural organisation for ethnic nationalities that are mostly Christians of the Middle Belt Region, is outraged by the deceitful attempts by el-Rufai and his nebulous co-travellers to push our nation down the slippery slope of religious tension and bigotry.  

“The outrage over the el-Rufai video clip demonstrates the level of disappointment by Nigerians over the former governor’s outburst that was aimed at inflaming religious conflagration in order to destabilise the Nigerian State.

“The unfortunate comments by this bigot, who is erroneously thought of as a nationalist and public intellectual, portray him as a divisive leader, who not only thrives in creating chaos, but also reveal him as an irredeemable religious extremist, whose antecedents as governor showcase him as a treacherous enemy of Nigeria that must be barred from the corridor of power.”