El-Rufai: I no longer believe in quality of decisions taken by those around Buhari

Nasir el-Rufai, governor of Kaduna, says he does not believe in the “quality of decisions” taken by those around President Muhammadu Buhari.

In a snippet of an interview published by Premium Times on Sunday, El-Rufai said he, however, still believes in Buhari.

“I believe in Buhari. I still do and I will never stop believing in him. But I no longer believe in the circle around him and the quality of decisions and actions coming out of that leadership,” the Kaduna governor said.

El-Rufai’s comment comes amid the controversy over the naira redesign policy.

On February 1, the Kaduna governor said there are saboteurs in Buhari’s administration working towards the failure of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the presidential election.

“Most of the people in the villa are not members of our party. I believe there are elements in the villa that want us to lose the election because they didn’t have their way,” el-Rufai had said.

“They had their candidates, and their candidates didn’t win the primaries and I think they are still trying to get us to lose the election and they are hiding behind the president’s desire to do what he thinks is right.”

Meanwhile, in a ruling on a suit filed by Kaduna, Kogi, and Zamfara states on the naira redesign policy, the supreme court had temporarily restrained the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from implementing the February 10 deadline on the old naira notes.

Hours before the supreme court ruling, the Kaduna governor asked traders in the state to continue to use the old naira notes for their transactions.

He added that Bola Tinubu, the APC presidential candidate, will review the naira redesign policy if elected.

Over the past days, Nigerians across the country have been battling the scarcity of new naira notes — a development that has led to queues at banking halls and automated teller machine (ATM) points.

The development, coupled with petrol shortage, has also led to protests in parts of the country.

Some APC members, including Tinubu, believe that the crisis was designed by fifth columnists in the party in order to scuttle the APC’s chances in the presidential poll.