Former Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism and All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain in Niger State, Mr. Jonathan Vatsa, has slammed Kaduna State Governor Mallam Nasir El-Rufai over his remarks about the ruling party’s Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket.
El-Rufai previously stated that a Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket for the ruling party would not be a problem in the country’s next general elections.
In response, Vatsa warned that such an arrangement will not only spell disaster for the party, but also amounts to “playing with fire,” in a press statement made available to newsmen in Minna captioned, “The Christians are awake and alive in Nigeria ahead of the 2023 general elections.”
He urged Bola Tinubu to disregard El-remark, Rufai’s claiming that if Tinubu runs on a Muslim-Muslim ticket, no Christian in Nigeria will vote for him.
According to him, “those scheming for Vice President position like El-Rufai are the ones advocating for a Muslim-Muslim ticket because of their unrealizable ambition even when they know fully that it is not absolutely possible. This country called Nigeria has grown pass what people like El-Rufai think.
“Our National Leader and Presidential flag bearer, Bola Tinubu is more intelligent than him, he is politically wiser than El-Rufai, he knows everybody’s antecedent so he can not be deceived. Tinubu knows that a Muslim-Muslim ticket will spell doom for him and APC in 2023.
“Kaduna State is smaller than Nigeria, if El-Rufai succeeded in Kaduna with a Muslim-Muslim ticket because he made sure the Christian communities in southern Kaduna did not come out to vote in the 2019 general elections to show their anger, such an experiment cannot work in the presidential election in 2023.”
Because of his religious intolerance, the former APC Publicly Secretary in Niger State noted that politicians in the country, especially El-Rufai, have made religion the primary concern in everything they do today, recalling how he proclaims every Friday a public holiday in the state.
“Now that El-Rufai is looking for Vice President, he wants Nigerians to put religious consideration in our dealings behind, when every form you fill in Nigeria today, they will ask you of your religion. I wonder why such a person should tell Nigerians not to lay emphasis on religion,” Vatsa insisted.
The governor should not raise the issue of competence, according to the statement, because competent people from all religions in Nigeria, including idol worshipers, can be Vice President.
It added, “there are very intelligent, competent and highly respected Christians in the north that can be Vice President to Tinubu. Those who have turned their state to war zone should not dream of becoming Vice President of this country.”
