Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State

Ayorinde Oluokun/Abuja

Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai has dismissed speculations that some governors will decamp from the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC following resignation of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar from the party on Friday.

There have been reports that some state governors, serving ministers, several law makers in the both Chambers of the National Assembly as well as others holding key positions in the government and the party have concluded plans to also dump APC to follow the former Vice President who is believed to be heading to his former party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

But speaking to State House correspondents, on Friday, after observing the Juma’at prayer at the Villa Mosque with President Muhammadu Buhari, el-Rufai said: “I don’t know about the loyalists in the APC that will go with him but I want to assure you that there is no one governor in the APC that is going to go with former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

He also dismissed claims that the former Vice President will  be a threat to Buhari’s re-election: “He has never been and will never be a threat to President Buhari. I have said this to the former vice president in 2014 in Dubai when we met because before joining the APC he sent for me. He told me of his intentions and I welcomed it because politics is a game of addition, not subtraction. So, the more you have the merrier.”

The Kaduna State governor pointed out that the governor of Atiku’s home state of Adamawa, Jubrila Bindow, had already endorsed Buhari for 2019.

He also noted that the former vice president was expected to leave the APC in December but had apparently decided to move earlier, saying, “the earlier the better.”

El-Rufai, however, said he was not surprised that Atiku left the APC since he could not realise his ambition to secure the presidential ticket of the party.

“I have heard about what the former vice president said about leaving the APC. We knew he was going to leave in December but he has left in November which is good because the earlier he leaves for where he belongs the better.

“He has changed political parties a few times, there is nothing surprising. Before the 2019 elections, if situation changes and he thinks he can get the ticket in 2019, he will come back. That is what he has done a few times,” the governor stated.

The Govenor denied claim that the former nation’s number two citizen was driven out of APC.