Governor Nasir El-Rufai of of Kaduna State says serving as the minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) again under the administration of President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu is akin to repeating class.
El-Rufai played a vital role in Tinubu’s clinching of All Progressives Congress presidential ticket after he and other northern governors insisted that power must return to the south.
There have been speculations that the outgoing governor will either serve as Chief of Staff or FCT Minister in the incoming government.
But El-Rufai, whom ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo appointed FCT minister, had earlier distanced himself from the reports that he is eyeing the position.
Speaking at a policy conversation and book launch in Abuja Tuesday, El-Rufai said he will not accept appointment as minister of the country’s capital city, adding that he is too old for such job.
He said “I have done my job, I’m done, I don’t look back. In fact when I left FCT, the only time I visited FCT was in 2016 when my secondary school classmate was appointed the minister and he said he wanted to see me, so I went there.
“Once I leave a job, I don’t look back. If I leave Kaduna in 19 days, I will only visit if it becomes necessary. So, I don’t think about the FCT. I’ve done my bit. I don’t comment on the performance of those that came after me.
“Even if offered, I’m not coming to Abuja. As I say, I never repeat class and there are many young people I know that I can recommend that would do even better job than I did as minister of FCT.
“I’m too old for this. I’m too old for demolition, get a young man with blood in his veins or a young woman.”
The event was jointly organised by the Africa Programme of the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Abuja-based Agora Policy.
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, established in 1910, is one of the oldest and most respected think tanks in the world. It was ranked as the number one think tank on the 2020 Global Go-To Think Tank Index published by the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Programme of the University of Pennsylvania, US.
Agora Policy is a nascent Nigerian think tank committed to generating evidence-based and practical solutions to Nigeria’s urgent challenges. It was founded by Waziri Adio, immediate past Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) and one of Nigeria’s leading columnists