“I found my father saying that he will consult President Jonathan. I said: ‘please, when you see him, tell him I am very sorry, I am wiser now’.”
Bello El-Rufai, a member of the House of Representatives, has expressed regret for his past criticism of former President Goodluck Jonathan, calling himself “naive.”
Speaking Thursday on Channels Television during a Democracy Day programme, the Kaduna North lawmaker admitted he misjudged Jonathan’s tenure.
“I even forgot in my naivety, as many young people do, that we had governance then,” El-Rufai said. “I found my father saying that he will consult President Jonathan. I said: ‘please, when you see him, tell him I am very sorry, I am wiser now’.”
The son of former Kaduna governor Nasir El-Rufai acknowledged Jonathan’s rare act of conceding defeat in 2015. “It takes a lot, particularly in Africa, to lose an election and leave. He did that,” he noted.
El-Rufai, now an outspoken critic of President Bola Tinubu, added that he would resist attempts to allow voting without voter cards, stressing the importance of electoral integrity.
“The system is a problem,” he said.