The Governor of Kaduna Stae, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai has dispelled media claims that his decision on a Muslim-Muslim ticket in the Governorship election would further polarized the state along ethnic and religious lines.
The Governor who explained the reason for his decision while appearing on Channels Television Morning Show, Sunrise Daily said even if he decided to pick the Catholic Pope as his running mate, Christian in the Southern part of the state would still not vote for him. He posited that for the state to go forward, people must severe religion from politics.
“What if I tell you that no matter who I choose as my running mate, even if I choose the Pope, 67 percent of the Christians in southern Kaduna have made up their minds that they will never vote for me. This is what the polls show.
“So, for me, that is not the issue. The issue is this: Kaduna State is divided, it needs to be united. The way to begin to unite it is to take religion or ethnicity off the table. Since 1992, every deputy governor of Kaduna has been a Christian. What has it done for the state? Has it united the state? Has it assuaged the feelings of the Christian minority?
“My current deputy governor is a Christian and I didn’t pick him because he is Christian. I picked him because we were colleagues from university and I know him to be a brilliant, focused and just man. But, did that change anything? In fact, what it did was to bring disrespect to him. No one respected him in southern Kaduna because he is in what they call an Islamic party.
“So, there are complicated issues in Kaduna, which people sitting from a distance will not understand.”
He called on those criticizing his Muslim-Muslim ticket to justify their position.
“Those that are making the argument that I must have a Christian running mate have not been able to justify it, based on history. From 1992, we have had more violence in Kaduna than before. The presence of a Christian deputy did not change anything.
“Even when a Christian, Patrick Yakowa, of blessed memory, was governor, it did not stop the violence, the intolerance, and the insensitivity. In fact, it exacerbated it. In Kaduna, in my view, the way to heal and unite the state is to completely remove religion and ethnicity from the state; but we cannot change three decades of intolerance in the state.”
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