Governor of Kaduna state Nasiru El-Rufa’i has said that governors and ministers under the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) have resolved to call on President Muhammadu Buhari to contest the 2019 presidential election.
El-Rufa’i, who made this known to State House correspondents after a closed door meeting with President Buhari in the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Friday, said the governors and the ministers made the call as members of the “Buharist Group”.
The “Buharist Group” is an association of APC governors and ministers, whose primary aim is to promote and defend the perceived socio-political interests of President Buhari.
The governor dismissed the assertion that he was being groomed to replace President Buhari in 2019.
According to him, as a member of the “Buharist group’’ he has no presidential ambition as being speculated since he left the public service as minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in 2007.
On the recent political comments attributed to the Minister of Womem Affairs and Social Development, Aishat Alhassan, El-Rufa’i said Nigerians should not be surprised or shocked over her utterances, saying that in the APC she was never in the Buhari camp.
Aishat Alhassan had on Wednesday disclosed in a BBC Hausa Service interview that she would rather resign as minister than abandon the former vice president “if he decides to run for presidential elections in 2019’’.
However, El-Rufa’i said that Alhassan neither supported Buhari’s candidature during the APC National Convention nor voted for (Buhari) him during the party primaries.
“This has always been her position because from time she has never supported Buharism or what Buhari stands for.
“Being part of Buhari government is a different thing because government sets policies and if you are a minister you execute the policies. You can execute those policies while pursuing a different brand of politics,’’ he said.