Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has disclosed that that the hunt has begun to fish out the harbinger of fake news that he was involved in an accident that claimed his driver’s life and left him in coma.
El-Rufai who said he was in the presidential villa to inform President Muhammadu Buhari that he was never involved in an accident nor was he in coma, while fielding questions from State House Correspondents, said: “I came to see Mr. President because immediately after my re-election I took a break. I came back to report to him that I was not involved in an accident. I’m alive, I am not in coma and also to discuss other issues related to my state.”
Asked what he has to say to those behind the rumour, he said, “my advice to everyone in Nigeria is to avoid forwarding stories that have not been verified. Social media provides platform for disseminating information but it is also a platform for dissemination of lies and hatred. We should be very careful that we don’t use this platform to advance the cause of the enemies of this country.”
Reacting to claims by the presidential candidate of People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar that he won Kaduna State, El-Rufai said, “Well, I heard about that. Initially, I thought it was a joke but when I checked I saw clearly that he said he won Kaduna. It must be in his dreams. Let me say this without any fear of contradiction, since President Buhari started contesting for the presidency since 2003, he has never lost Kaduna. So, PDP has never won elections in Kaduna from 2003, even with a sitting governor in 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015. It has never happened. I don’t know what will happen that Atiku will win Kaduna in these elections this time. He lost Kaduna; he lost very badly, even though about 100,000 votes he claimed to have got were added because elections were conducted without card reader in some parts of the state, that’s how he even got up to the 400,000.
“He has lost Kaduna, he will always lose Kaduna, he will lose Kaduna 10 more times because he has never won Kaduna in any presidential elections.”
When reminded that the results were from INEC server, the governor said, “well, I don’t know about INEC server, it must be Atiku’s server. I don’t know about INEC server, we don’t know how they had access to it, they will tell us during the tribunal proceedings what is this server and how they got access to it and how they got their numbers. You do not go to court in an election petition by quoting INEC server or any other server. Anyone can create a server, I can go and buy it, it is a piece of equipment and call it INEC server. But that does not mean that it amounts to anything, we are guided by the electoral act and the evidence act and other enabling legislation and he has to prove his case. But anyone can make claims; we live in the age of fake news and fake claims. Anyone can make claims but you have to prove it.”
The electoral body had announced Buhari as winner of the election in Kaduna State, having polled 993,482 to defeat PDP’s Atiku, who polled 613,318.
