Former Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister and Kaduna State All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, has said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will not get up to 25 per cent of the votes cast in next year’s general elections.
El-Rufai addressed reporters yesterday at the APC National Secretariat in Abuja.
The former minister said Kaduna residents should not expect magic from him when elected governor because of the huge debt profile the state had piled up.
He explained that apart from the 1999 elections, the PDP had never won any other election in the state.
El-Rufai said: “As far as I am concerned, the PDP has never won any governorship election in Kaduna State other than 1999. They stole the elections in 2003, 2007 and lost to the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in 2011. You can’t even popularly say you are in the PDP. All the PDP leaders are leaders in secret. Kaduna is an opposition state and it has always been.
“What has been happening was that the opposition parties were too weak to protect their votes, but we thank God that the merger of the three main opposition parties in the states and other groups has created a very strong APC.
“We have no doubt that in 2015 p, with a decent, near free and near credible election, (they don’t have to be perfectly free, they just have to be near free and near credible), l doubt if PDP will get up to 25% of the total vote cast in the state. We are confident of that and we are set for the election”.
On what the people of the state should expect from him as governor when elected in view of his antecedent, he said “That worries me a little because this antecedent has both negative and positive connotations. There are people that expect magic in Kaduna. They expect Kaduna to be transformed the way people claimed Abuja was transformed during my tenure without regard to the differences and circumstances of the state of financial volubility of the country and Kaduna’s own peculiar physical situation.
“When l ran the FCT, l had the full support and backings of the President of Nigeria and had significant budgetary support. You can’t build roads, bridges and schools without money. You can’t build them by wishing them. It is hard work. We did our best with the resources available.
“Kaduna State is the 2nd most indebted state in Nigeria. So we are going to be inheriting a very bad situation and the economic situation as a whole is extremely precarious.
“The last time Nigeria economic situation resembles what we are going through was 1983 when the Shagari government has to be over thrown and Gen. Buhari’s government tried to impose austerity, discipline and all that. We are coming back to that almost.
“The dollars exchange for N199 this morning. This is going to get worst. The Federal Government has been taken money from the Excess Crude Account to argument the collapse of oil revenue.
“As we speak today, there is only 2.2 billion dollars in the Excess Crude Account. They took a billion last month to argument Federation Account Allocation. They are planning to take a billion dollars in December to pay salaries and another one billion in January just before the election so that they manage to pay salaries in January.
“In February, those that work with federal government would not have their salary. The month of election, there would be no salary if they continue the way they are going because they are relying not on the oil that they sale, because they don’t sale a lot of oil, a lot of it is stolen and we know who is doing the stealing and the price has come down to 60 to 70 dollars per barrel.
“More than 10 dollars below the budgeted price of 78 dollars. So, we are getting to a point very soon where the federal government would not be able to pay salary and the state governments are going to be affected by this problem. So, the states are already distressed because of the philandering and plundering of the treasury, stealing and corruption and mismanagement of funds.
“They are bringing the country to its kneels economically and they are just trying to managing the exchange rate so that it doesn’t go to N200; they are trying to manage the payment of salary until February.
“After the elections, if everything collapses … And l think it is important for every Nigerian to understand that we have only 2.2 billion dollars in the Excess Crude Account and they are taken a billion every month to argument Federation Account Allocation so that the can just merely pay salaries.
“So, anybody that expects magic in Kaduna should bear this in his mind as well. Kaduna has huge debt. Second only to Lagos and Lagos has the capacity to bear the debts and pay and the internally generated revenue to pay back because Fashola collects N20 billion a month as internally generated revenue.
“Kaduna collects N1 billion a month. So you see the huge difference, but we will do our best. We will apply all the knowledge, experience and network that we have to ensure that we deliver services to the people, but it would not be easy. I just want to make that very clear.
“I don’t know how to do anything else, whatever assignment l set to do, l give it my all and we will assemble a team that would ensure that the people of Kaduna State see a difference however small.
Speaking on the party’s presidential primaries and the chances of General Buhari, he said it was not a do or die affair for the retired General, stressing that for Buhari, it is the party and country first.
He said “I think the party has already done a lot to try to get the aspirants to be committed to support whoever wins. That is important as undertaken has been taken from all aspirants. I think base on my closeness with Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, I know that he is talking to all other aspirants without exception.
“The whole idea is the party and the country are more important than our individual aspirations. For Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, who has been head of State, being President is nothing. He has done it before. So, it is not a matter of do-or-die.
“Having said that, we are confident that the convention will go well and one of the aspirants would emerge as the winner and l believe is going to be Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, he is the strongest candidate.
“Every prediction by every medium has projected that he is going to get the ticket. So, the convention is a formality really. I believe that all the other aspirants respect him to such a degree that they would all work hard with the party to defeat the PDP. So. I am not worried as some people are about the convention. I think the convention is going to go very well.
“So, APC is one big family, we are all children of the same father and mother and we don’t abuse each other; we don’t fight each other and as you have seen in all the primaries that have taken place in the states, those that lost to me have congratulated me and we are already meeting to have an inclusive campaign structure and we will also form an inclusive government because it is one large family.
“If four children of the same parents go out to do business and one of them becomes richer than the others he wouldn’t say my brothers are poor and he would not take of them. He would share that prosperity in our African tradition and that is the approach of APC to this competition. They are competitions, they are not war. I am sure everything would go well”.
