Kadun State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai, visited President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday to dispel his death rumour after alleged involvement in an auto accident.
The governor met with the President behind closed doors, but he shared with State House correspondents his mission and what the two of them discussed.
El-Rufai also criticised the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, over his claim that he won the February 23 poll and not Buhari.
The governor stated that Abubakar won the election in “his dream.”
He said, “I came to see Mr President after my re-election as governor because immediately after the election I took a break. I came back to report to him that I was not involved in an accident; I am alive, I am not in a coma.
“(I) also discuss other issues related to my state.”
Speaking further on the news that he was involved in an accident, El-Rufai stated, “My advice to everyone in Nigeria is to avoid forwarding stories that have not been verified.
“Social media provide platforms for disseminating information but they are also platforms for dissemination of lies and hatred.
“We should be very careful that we don’t use these platforms to advance the cause of the enemies of this country.
“I was never involved in any accident, I was not near any accident. In fact, at a time I was supposed to be involved in an accident, I was in an aircraft going to another country.
“But, somebody sat and concocted this story and we are trying to trace who started it. Criminal proceedings can be initiated against the person.”
On Atiku’s claim that he won the presidential election, including winning in Kaduna, El-Rufai said he didn’t believe when he first heard it.
He spoke more, “Well, I heard about that. Initially, I thought it was a joke and when I checked I saw clearly that he said he won Kaduna. It must be in his dreams.
“Let me say this without any fear of contradiction; since President Buhari started contesting for the presidency in 2003, he has never lost Kaduna.
“So, PDP has never won elections in Kaduna from 2003, even with a sitting governor in 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015. It has never happened. I don’t know what will happen that Atiku will win Kaduna in the elections this time.
“He lost Kaduna, he lost very badly, even though about 100,000 votes he claimed to have got were added because elections were conducted without card reader in some parts of the state, that’s how he even got up to the 400,000 that he got.”
But in contrast to el-Rufai’s claim that the Peoples Democratic Party had never won in Kaduna, official results released by the Independent National Electoral Commission in the 2003 presidential election showed that the PDP actually won Kaduna State with a margin of 154,893 votes.
The candidate of the PDP in the election, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, polled 1,025,347 votes to defeat Muhammadu Buhari of the All Nigeria Peoples Party, which polled 870,454 votes.
In the 2007 presidential election, INEC did not release the state by state results till date. But, in the 2011 presidential poll, Buhari, who was the candidate of the Congress for Progressives Change, scored 1,334,244 votes while PDP’s Goodluck Jonathan scored 1,190,179 votes, leaving a margin of 144,063 votes.
