The presidency in press release today debunked allegations made by eminent Nigerians and politicians alike in newspapers and interview that that the President, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is playing ethnic and religious politics.
Reacting to these allegations and recently comments made by Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, and key member of the All Progressives Congress, (APC), the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Reuben Abati said these wild allegations are untrue and this can only be seen by anyone that is objective towards the Jonathan administration.
“My attention has been drawn to comments made by a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, and now chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, published in several newspapers where he made wild allegations against the person of President Goodluck Jonathan.
This most recent interview, like others he gave in the past only shows that El-Rufai is a serial liar and the facts of history bear me witness. El-Rufai accused President Goodluck Jonathan of playing ethnic and religious politics; however, any objective watcher of the President knows that this is untrue”
Abati elaborated on his point, that the president is a lover of all, regardless of where you are from or what your religion could be, citing the just concluded Ramadan fasting as an instance, that despite that the President being a non-Muslim, he joined the Muslim congregation in it, equally breaking the fast with them severally.
Going further, he highlighted that President Jonathan will be noted down in the history of Nigeria, as the first leader to have spent so much of national fund on Islamic custom education, the Almajiri education system, a thought that never crossed the mind of any leader before the President and he also has appointed Muslim individuals more into key positions in his cabinet.
“For instance, the Muslim Ummah just emerged from the Ramadan fast and the President, though a Christian joined them in fasting and severally broke the fast with Muslims at the Presidential Villa.
Also, in the history of the existence of Nigeria as a nation, no leader has spent the quantum of funds that President Jonathan has spent on education specifically tailored for Islamic itinerant scholars known as the Almajiri. In the composition of his cabinet, the President has appointed Muslims into sensitive positions and ensured a balance that has been commended by many in the Islamic fold”.
He made mention, the former Minister’s debasing comments relating to not respecting other people’s religion and making inflammatory comments that could generate religious war amongst Nigerians.
“But it is most curious that this allegation is coming from Nasir El-Rufai, a man who profaned the name of Jesus Christ on Twitter by Tweeting a joke which is too indecent to mention in the presence of civilized persons. This same El-Rufai is the same man who in June of last year claimed that Christians were behind the bombings of their own churches rather than terrorists and were doing this to further a Christian agenda”.
Seeing El-Rufai as a ‘Two-Faced Sword’, Abati hinted that the former Minister who some time ago condemned the Former Presidential candidate of the CPC, General Muhammadu Buhari as an unfit to be elected into office, while the race for the presidential seat was on in 2007, that left Goodluck Jonathan as the favourite one. And now in a dramatic U-turn, he is accusing President Goodluck Jonathan of the same thing and has gone ahead to start brown-nosing Buhari.
“It is only a measure of his inconsistency that El-Rufai is today accusing the Presidency of being afraid of General Muhammadu Buhari whom the same El-Rufai said was “perpetually unelectable”. In fact, the accusation El-Rufai is now making against the President is precisely the same accusation he made against General Muhammadu Buhari on October 4 2010 when he said Buhari’s “insensitivity to Nigeria’s diversity and his parochial focus are already well-known”. Today, El-Rufai is serving this same Buhari”.
Abati said further that El-Rufai lied to Nigerians to quench his own political thirst, a thirst that is still not quenched, going by his recent acceptance as a party chieftain in the newly registered All Progressives Congress, (APC).
“That El-Rufai is not above lying to the media to achieve his political objective was proven in Segun Adeniyi’s book, ‘Power, Politics and Death’ when El-Rufai was quoted to have confessed in the presence of multiple witnesses who are still alive today that “There was no cabal, we created the myth to neutralise Turai”. El-Rufai sold Nigerians the dummy of a Turai cabal which was a lie used to further his own political ends”.
He referred to a diplomatic document where El-Rufai’s true thought of President Jonathan back in 2007, when the now president was the Vice-President to the Late President Shehu Musa Yar’Adua was revealed.
“In any case, we have a record of what El-Rufai truly thinks of President Jonathan from the leaked secret diplomatic memo from the U.S. embassy in Abuja which revealed that just before the April 2007 Presidential election El-Rufai had told the then U.S. ambassador to Nigeria that the then Vice Presidential candidate, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, was “clean and honest”.
Referring to El-Rufai’s comments, alleging that Vice-President Namadi Sambo, who was formerly the governor of Kaduna state wrecked the finances of the state, in a the report quoting El-Rufai describing the Vice-President as a ‘Disaster’, and saying that Sambo’s successor; late governor Patrick Yakowa was drenched with a huge debt after taking over, the Special Adviser to the President denied such allegations saying there was no such time that the late Yakowa complained of having to deal with the huge debts left by Vice-President Sambo.
“For the records, when the Vice President was in charge as Governor of Kaduna state, the state never borrowed a penny from any quarters. The efforts to generate cheap funds for development, which he applied for, were just recently approved by the Islamic Development Bank for the state
It is on record also that the Vice President made judicious use of the state’s resources in reviving the already comatose railway sector, construction of a 150-million litres per day Zaria water treatment plant, the construction of a 300-bed specialist hospital and 5,000 kg grain silos for each of the three senatorial districts, the building of a games centre at the Murtala Mohammed Square and the Ahmadu Bello Stadium in Kaduna; the construction of a brand new Governor’s office at the Sir Kashim Ibrahim House; the establishment of a mobile and effective security outfit codenamed Operation Yaki and the deployment of 27% of the State’s budget to education amongst other achievements”.
Abati however sounded a warning to those of El-Rufai’s new ‘jolly friends’ and Nigerians also, to be cautious of the former Minister’s antics, as he can do anything to achieve his aims, if he can betray those who ensured he climbed up in the ladder of politics, hinting that his recent castigations are not coming across as a surprise to those who still have a good memory of his betrayal towards his former masters.
“Since El-Rufai has a history of saying the truth privately and the lie publicly it suffices to warn his current fellow co-travellers that a man who can betray those who brought him up in politics is capable of anything. Nigerians should consequently take his words with not just a pinch of salt, but a spoonful because a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.
We are not the least surprised with such vituperations from Nasir El-Rufai. His public record of treachery and slander is still very fresh in the minds of Nigerians. His verbal assault on his original benefactors for worldly gain, his record of double standards and his treatment of the late Justice Bashir Sambo speak volumes of his character”.
“The false accounts he rendered in his recent collection of half-truths and outright lies which he accidentally titled The Accidental Public Servant further define his public image as an ungrateful, self-serving and loquacious personality” he ended.