Former presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Adewole Adebayo, has said every country needs a character like Nasir El-Rufai to succeed.
Naija News reported that the former Governor of Kaduna State, El-Rufai, defected from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to SDP, on Monday.
In an interview with Arise News on Monday, Adebayo said though people may disagree with the former Governor’s ideology, but he could be likened to an angel if not for imperfection.
The SDP chieftain stated that most people were angry with El-Rufai’s defection because they have lost a warhorse.
His words: “I had a temptation to use the word angel, but because no human being is an angel, I did not call him an angel. I call him a hard-working person. In politics, people must respect the truth and must respect facts. So it is not every aspect of El-Rufai’s life, both in politics and out of politics, that agree with mine. But what I cannot deny him is the fact that in every public office where he has been given an opportunity to serve, he has actually served.
“He’s a very strong character. Those who love him, love him dearly, and those who don’t agree with him tend to be very passionate about it. He happens to be someone that I’ve always liked. I like him. It doesn’t mean that now that he has joined my party, we will not disagree next week. But I have a lot of abiding respect for him, and I like him. And he looks like a kindred spirit when it comes to intellectualizing the problems of the country. So he’s a welcomed person to the party. I do not want to know politics to the extent that I will see a great talent and I will hesitate to acknowledge that this is a great talent just because I’m afraid of what the politics might be later.
“What I know, that any country that has an El-Rufai needs more of an El-Rufai if we are going to get out of the doldrums. So I don’t know everything he’s done in APC. I’ve never been a member of APC or PDP. I’ve always been a member of the SDP, and now he’s coming to my party. I welcome him, and many of our colleagues welcome him. And we’ve been working very hard in the background to make sure that he comes to the party with an open hand. And he gets used to our ideology, and we’ve been exchanging ideas, and I don’t think what the SDP stands for is strange to him.
“It may not have been something that his previous political parties have been practicing, but it’s something that when he looks at it, he knows that we are committed to it. And El-Rufai is not a person driven by personal ambition. He’s usually, from my experience of him, a person driven by purpose. Whether that purpose is for his own benefit or the benefit of another person, once he’s committed to a purpose, El-Rufai does not look back. Maybe that’s why some are jittery that their warhorse is no longer available to them. But for us, he’s just an additional hand in the effort to rescue Nigeria. We welcome more people of like-minded commitment to our national agenda.”
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