APC Primary: Why Northern Govs Didn’t Take Yahaya Bello Serious – El-Rufai

Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has explained why 12 northern governors who supported power rotation to the south rejected the candidacy of Governor Yahaya Bello ahead of the presidential primary of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

El-Rufai said this when he appeared on Channels TV Politics Today on Friday.

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“Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State made it clear that he was going to run, but we didn’t take that seriously because he is a second term governor, he is taking no risk at all, he is still governor till 2024, so maybe he is just gambling, so we didn’t take it serious,” he said.

On the emergence of former Lagos governor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the party’s flagbearer, El-Rufai explained that President Muhammadu Buhari asked the northern delegates to vote for any of the shortlisted five presidential candidates of their choice.

According to him, Buhari didn’t dictate how delegates from Kaduna State should vote at the APC presidential primaries.

“In many of our states, the delegate votes were divided,” El-Rufai said.

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“Before I went to address the Kaduna delegates for the last time, I went to the President and I asked him, have you decided on who we should vote for? He said, I told you, go and vote for any of the five (candidates selected by APC Governors)

“I said, Mr. President, the Kaduna delegates are your delegates, you are going to retire and live in Kaduna. So, you can tell me who you want out of the five, and the President said ‘I want all five’.

“I said, what then should I tell Kaduna delegates. He said, tell them to vote their conscience; they are representing 10 million people in Kaduna state. It’s a heavy responsibility, and they should discharge it and pick the best candidate.

“Now I don’t know how the Kaduna delegates voted, but the feedback I got after the voting is that most of them voted for Asiwaju, some voted for Amaechi and some voted for Professor Yemi Osinbajo.”

Recall, that Tinubu had emerged winner of the keenly contested presidential primaries polling 1,271 votes to defeat former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, who garnered 316 votes; Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, who polled 235 votes as well as Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, who had 152 votes.

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