Former Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has alleged that opposition political parties, especially the Peoples Democratic Party and the Labour Party are being targeted for destruction by the ruling All Progressive Congress, warning that the very fabric of democracy is under threat.
He spoke on Monday in Abuja, as a panellist at a national conference on strengthening democracy in Nigeria, organised by the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development (Centre LSD), the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD), the Peering Advocacy and Advancement Centre in Africa (PAACA), and the National Peace Committee (NPC).
“The way and manner opposition political parties are being targeted for destruction and the style and quality of governance in this country today is a national emergency. It should concern everyone. And I think this is a problem for all of us to think about and play a role in changing it because, as His Excellency (Atiku) said, we stand the risk of losing democracy itself” he warned.
According to El-Rufai, “There are internal mercenaries in the PDP that have been hired, paid or otherwise motivated to destroy the party. The party is on its way to the grave, and it is most unfortunate”.
He said a recent poll suggested that 75% of registered voters in Nigeria do not intend to vote in 2027, adding, “This is very dangerous, and I believe every voice must rise to fight for this democracy. For those of us in our 60s, we lived half our lives under military rule. We know what it is, and we don’t want a military rule, but we also don’t want civilians behaving like the military in their babariga and suits. So, this is a national emergency.”
He, therefore, appealed to opposition political parties to coalesce into one big party, like the APC in 2014, to save democracy.
El-Rufai further stated that “there seems to be a project to destroy all the opposition political parties. We have to put aside our differences and create a broad platform that will do the driving of the military again because we are there almost again” he said.
Speaking about the APC, the former Kaduna state governor said the party was no longer addressing the challenges facing the country.
“I no longer recognise the APC. No party organ of the APC has met for the past two years. No caucus, no NEC, nothing. You don’t even know if it is a one-man show; it is a zero-man show,” he added.
He described how the original goal of forming the APC was to build a progressive party focused on fighting corruption, revamping the economy, and restoring security, but he believed those objectives had been abandoned.
“The problems are still there. However, I no longer believe that my party believes in confronting those problems. So, the distance between me and APC is widening, but I remain where I am because these problems remain the living problems of Nigerians and they have to be addressed, and the only way to address them is through the instrumentality of the political parties,” he added.
El-Rufai also stressed the need for minimum qualifications for both political party candidates and the delegates who elect them. “You cannot afford to have illiterates, semi-illiterates, cunning people, and so on as your leaders,” he said.
He warned that failing to set such standards results in poor leadership: “You will end up with what we have. So, the parties must have a standard.”
While acknowledging that the constitution sets the minimum qualification as a secondary school certificate, he stressed that political parties should be free to set their own standards.
He said while he is still a member of the APC, “This is a challenge to the opposition; you must come together and form a party that, in my view, should closely resemble the NPN of the second republic. That is one political party that was an effective machine.”
