Former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai has said he is disliked by Southern Kaduna Christians because he refused to tolerate what he described as their sense of entitlement, insisting he “dealt with them” just as he did with other groups that challenged his government.
Former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has said he is disliked by Southern Kaduna Christians because of his uncompromising stance against what he described as their sense of entitlement.
Speaking in an interview with Channels TV on Sunday, Mr El-Rufai insisted he governed with fairness and firmness, stressing that governance was “not a joke.”
“They can think what they think. I don’t tolerate nonsense; governance is not a joke. When you’re governing 10 million people as I did in Kaduna, you must discriminate between A and B. Nobody can blackmail me that because he is a Christian, the law doesn’t apply to him,” he said.
The former governor said he treated Southern Kaduna people in the same manner he handled Ibrahim El-Zakzaky and his followers. “There are people in Southern Kaduna that feel entitled to behave in a certain way, I dealt with them. Just like the IMN, El-Zakzaky’s people… I dealt with them,” he said.
Mr El-Rufai added that he stopped funding medical bills and monthly allowances for some Southern Kaduna leaders, just as he halted government spending on pilgrimages and other activities he described as wasteful.