PUNCH
The Chairman of Kaduna State Christian Association of Nigeria, Reverend Joseph Hayab, on Wednesday, urged Nigerians to ignore the state’s immediate past governor, Nasir El-Rufai, over the latter’s alleged Islamization claims.
He also claimed that the ex-governor’s recent statement on the Muslim/Muslim ticket and that the victory of President Bola Tinubu silenced his critics and CAN was a ploy and divisive tendency aimed to further his (El-Rufai’s) alleged presidential ambition.
The CAN chairman was reacting to a trending video on social media where El-Rufai was alleged to have said that the Muslim-Muslim ticket in the Kaduna governorship election would be sustained beyond 20 years in the state.
In the video, the former governor, who spoke in Hausa, also claimed that Muslim domination was being replicated at the national level.
But reacting to El-Rufai’s alleged comment while featuring on Arise TV’s Morning Show on Wednesday, Hayab said Nigerians should not be bothered about El-Rufai’s comment as he was just seeking relevance and playing to the gallery to rile up unsuspecting Nigerians.
According to him, El-Rufai is living in that dream that he could play these religious games, and possibly tomorrow he can become the president of Nigeria.
He said, “You know, since he (El-Rufai) is up to something, he is playing a game and what he would do is to confuse people and set up Christians against Muslims; set up Christians against the present government, and then he would stand to benefit from it tomorrow. Unfortunately, I will say to him, he has failed from the onset.
“With this, he has actually proved to Nigerians that he is not in the first place fit to be a leader and I think that is one of the problems in Nigeria. We give people power without testing their emotional stability whether they are mentally alright to lead.”
When asked to give an official response to El-Rufai’s statement, Hayab said, “Our simple response is that ignores the madman. Ignore the man who is calling for attention and ignore the man who is up to a gimmick and ignore the man who is up to an agenda, don’t even take him seriously.
