Former Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has said his support for the Muslim-Muslim ticket adopted by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2023 presidential election was not motivated by religion but was a political strategy.
El-Rufai, who made an appearance on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics programme, confirmed he backed the decision, describing it as a deliberate plan to secure electoral victory.
It was a political strategy; it was a strategy to win the election; it was not a religious strategy. When you are contesting an election, you look at every variable, every index, every criterion that will help you win. It has nothing to do with religion, he said on Sunday.
The former Kaduna governor argued that fears over religious exclusion were unfounded, citing his experience in Kaduna, where he also ran on a Muslim-Muslim ticket.
So long as we continue to speculate on these issues, we will not solve them. We have done a Muslim-Muslim ticket now. Tell me in what way Christians are now short-changed; nothing. No leader that wants to succeed will limit his choice of appointees to a particular religion or ethnicity.
If you want to succeed, you have to diversify. Now we have cured the fear and the love for the Muslim-Muslim ticket. It has been done, buried, and gone. I did a Muslim-Muslim ticket in Kaduna; I want to know which Christian in Kaduna was short-changed because of it, he added.
In the build-up to the election, the APC’s choice of President Bola Tinubu, a Muslim from the South-West, and Kashim Shettima, a Muslim from the North-East, generated mixed reactions.
The decision drew criticism from Christian groups, including the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), who described it as insensitive and a threat to national unity.
In the February 2023 presidential election, Tinubu was declared winner with 8.79 million votes, defeating Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who polled 6.98 million, and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, who garnered 6.1 million.
Despite opposition challenges in court, his victory was upheld, and he was sworn in on 29 May 2023 as Nigeria’s 16th president.
