CAN also advised the former FCT minister to go for a psychiatric test, in response to comments made by him in the September 14, 2013 edition of a national daily entitled: “My Problem With Atiku, Obasanjo – El-Rufai” concerning the CAN president Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor wherein he made snide remarks about Oritsejafor’s credibility.
In the interview El-Rufai had described Oritsejafor, among others, as a pretender, a ethnic bigot, a person devoid of credibility and a PDP chief propagandist.
CAN position was made know to LEADERSHIP in a press statement signed by Rev. Emmanuel Dziggau, Head of TEKAN/ECWA Block in CAN “Tarayar Ekklisiyar Kristi A Nijeriya” in Hausa language, a conglomeration of 13 church groups in CAN, and Elder Sunday Oibe, CAN’s National Director (Research, Planning and Strategy)
In the statement, CAN warned el-Rufai that the fact that he abused Jesus Christ in his tweets and Christians ignored him did not give him the impetus to make unguarded comments about Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, who is the leader of Christians in Nigeria, noting that Christians respect other faiths and had never abused the Sultan of Sokoto and President-General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III who is the leader of Muslims in Nigeria.
Meanwhile, President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday urged Nigerians to beware of former FCT Minister and Deputy National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Malam Nasir el-Rufai who it described as “a double-minded and unstable man in all his ways”.
But in a statement issued in Abuja by his special assistant (News Media), Mr Reno Omokri, the president urged the public not to be misled by the machinations of el-Rufai, “a man who is in dire need of prayers and perhaps psychological assistance”.
He recalled that contrary to his position in the interview, el-Rufai had at a meeting with Ambassador John Campbell in April of 2007 described Jonathan, the then vice presidential nominee of the PDP, as “clean and honest”.
He said unknown to el-Rufai, the ambassador kept a record of their conversation which is now a public record in America.
Omokori also recalled el-Rufai had gone into voluntary exile under the presidency of Umaru Yar’Adua after he was accused of corruption and abuse of office while he was minister of the FCT, felt safe enough to return to Nigeria as soon as President Jonathan ascended to power and that when he returned to Nigeria, in 2010, he visited President Jonathan at Presidential Villa on May 11, 2010, and was the first major political figure to call on him to contest for the 2011 presidential election.
He noted that in the double-speak nature of el-Rufai, the former minister showered encomiums on Buhari in the latest interview contrary to a damning conclusion on the general in 2010.
He alleged that the ex-minister was only condemning Jonathan because he was not given a position.
“Nasir el-Rufai wanted something from the President which was why he visited him at the Presidential Villa to heap unsolicited praise on the president in 2010. When he did not get what he wanted, he became bitter,” he said
Source: Leadership
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