El-Rufai To Obi: I Can Arrest, Detain You In Kaduna For What You Did To Me

The Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has jokingly threatened to arrest and detain the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, over an incident that took place in Anambra while the latter was governor of the state.

El-Rufai told a group of northerners during an interactive session with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu on Monday that Obi allegedly got him arrested and detained when he visited Anambra to monitor the state’s governorship election in 2013.

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Obi, who is the Labour Party presidential candidate, is currently in Kaduna to meet with the Arewa Joint Committee which had previously met with Atiku Abubakar and Bola Tinubu — the respective presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Making his remarks after Tinubu had addressed the northern group, El-Rufai boasted that he could get Obi arrested and detained in retaliation for the 2013 incident.

“In 2013, I went to Anambra State as an official of the APC, to witness the by-election for the governorship.

“Your next guest, Peter Obi, as governor got me arrested and detained for 48 hours in my hotel room.

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“Now I’m the governor of Kaduna State and he’s coming to Kaduna. In addition to the police and the SSS, I have one Mechanized division of the Nigerian Army here if I need to arrest and detain anyone.

“But we are northerners, we are civilized. We don’t do things like that. I wish you all safe journey back to your destinations,” said the governor.

Obi had in 2018 responded to El-Rufai when he made the same allegation and referred to him as a bigot.

Obi’s response: “What His Excellency, Gov. Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai said about me has been brought to my attention. I believe that as we grow older and are saddled with more responsibilities, we are expected to become circumspect in our thinking and avoid recklessness in our speeches and utterances.

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“How does the circumstance he referred to related to bigotry to warrant such a label?

“All I do for people like el-Rufai is to pray for them and encourage them to concentrate on doing those things that will better the lots of Nigerians rather than engage in hate speeches that will divide and destroy the country,” he said during a youth programme in Nnewi, Anambra.

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