“El-Rufai Is Still APC, We Still Consult Him” – Kaduna Party Chieftain

The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kaduna State says it still considers former governor Nasir El-Rufai a member of the party and regularly seeks his counsel despite his recent political moves. Speaking to journalists in Kaduna on Thursday, party chieftain Bashir Jamoh, a former Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), dismissed suggestions that the state chapter had severed ties with El-Rufai. Jamoh stressed that the former governor, who served two terms under the APC, remains a card-carrying member and continues to offer advice without any charge.

El-Rufai had in recent months been linked with the opposition coalition-backed African Democratic Congress (ADC) after first moving from the APC to the Social Democratic Party (SDP), citing what he described as a lack of internal democracy under President Bola Tinubu’s leadership. Despite this, Jamoh insisted that the bond between the Kaduna APC and El-Rufai endures, likening it to a parent’s permanent connection with a child. “You cannot disown your child of eight years,” he said, recalling El-Rufai’s role in the party’s development since his days in the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), which later merged into the APC.