PRESIDENCY TO EL-RUFAI : YOU NEED PRAYERS PLUS PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSISTANCE

The Presidency yesterday described former Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, as a “double-minded and unstable man in all his ways”. It was reacting to an interview the minister granted our sister publication yesterday in which he said: “nothing can make Jonathan succeed”.
El-Rufai, who is also the Deputy National Secretary of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), had also said that the President “is grossly incompetent, he doesn’t listen, he doesn’t even understand the issues”.
But the Presidency replied, saying, “if an incompetent President Goodluck Jonathan can grow the economy at over 6% per annum since assuming office, get Nigeria to be promoted from a Low Income Nation to a Middle Income Nation by the World Bank, ensure Nigeria won its first African Cup of Nations in 19 years,  then, Nigeria would since go beyond where it is today if former administrations were that incompetent”.
In a statement by the Special Assistant (New Media) to the President, Mr. Reno Omokri, the Presidency, while urging the public to ignore el-Rufai’s attempt to mislead the citizenry,  said the former minister is “a man who is in dire need of prayers and perhaps, psychological assistance”.
The Presidency said el-Rufai contradicted himself when he had, at a meeting with Ambassador John Campbell in April of 2007, said that Jonathan, the then vice presidential nominee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), “is clean and honest”.
The presidential aide said el-Rufai had told the envoy that “Jonathan was the only candidate that met Obasanjo’s guidelines- honesty and being an Ijaw”, the record of their conversation is now public in America.
“Beyond that, Nasir el-Rufai, who had gone into voluntary exile under the presidency of Mallam Umaru Musa Yar’Adua after he was accused of corruption and abuse of office while he was minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, felt safe enough to return to Nigeria as soon as President Jonathan ascended to power”.
Omokri recalled that on el-Rufai’s return to Nigeria in 2010, had visited President Jonathan at the Villa on May 11, 2010, and was the first major political figure to call on him to contest for the 2011 presidential election”.
Omokri said el-Rufai showed his double speak nature when he showered encomiums on Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari in the latest interview contrary to a damning conclusion on the General in 2010.
Quoting el-Rufai’s comment on recent interview on Buhari and juxtaposing it with his remarks on October 6, 2010, where he said Buhari was not a suitable person to rule the country, Omokri said the former minister clearly is unstable and shouldn’t be taken seriously.
“I think that where Nigeria is today, only someone like Buhari, with the experience of having run the country before, and having run it along certain principles of discipline, integrity and accountability, that Nigeria needs,” Omokri quoted el-Rufai.
“Mallam el-Rufai wishes to remind General Buhari that he has remained perpetually unelectable because his record as military head of state, and afterwards, is a warning that many Nigerians have wisely heeded,” he said.