I Will Demolish Houses If Elected Governor In Kaduna State..El Rufai

Former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT and the All Progressives Congress, APC governorship candidate for Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, says he has no regret over the demolition of illegal structures he carried out in Abuja and threatens to repeat same if elected governor in the state in 2015.
El-Rufai stated this at the weekend when he visited members of the Correspondents Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ in Kaduna.
The former minister said he would not be intimidated by size, height and power of incumbency in the 2015 contest and pledged to play politics of issues.
He unveiled his plan to expand the Internally-Generated Revenue in the state.
According to him, “Once I am given a job and I agree to do it, I do it with all my heart and as Minister of the FCT, which is one of the most difficult jobs, I did my job to the best of my ability.
“I do not think that the issue is whether I was controversial or not. The issue is whether I left Abuja better than I met it. And I think most people in Abuja will say I did. That is what matters.
“Kaduna is different from Abuja in many respects. So, there is work to be done here. Not everything to be done here will be loved by the people. A lot of it will be embraced by the people but if there is a job to be done and I undertake to do it, if the people of Kaduna State elect me it is because they want change.
“They do not want this place to be a state of billboards and no action. They want schools to be better than what they are now; they want our healthcare system to cater for everybody, not the friends of the government that get sponsored to go to Egypt.
“They want agriculture to flourish and they want the state of insecurity to be addressed. Currently, these things are not being done. In the process of doing them, some people would say I am controversial.
“Everything we did in Abuja had the full support of the people of Abuja because they knew what we were doing. Each time we were going to do something, we had town hall meetings and we explained to the people and we carried them along. And that is what I intend to do in Kaduna.
“Do not worry, we will do some things which they may term controversial but we will get the job done for the people. We will not fill this state with billboards and no action.
“You will see results on ground by the grace of God even though we are inheriting the second highest debts in the country, you will see the difference by God’s grace.
“Let me give you an example. Around the Birnin-Gwari area, there is a lot of cattle rustling, armed robbery. Why has it persisted? It is because nobody has addressed it. If I go there with the security and we crush it, it may be controversial but what needs to be done has to be done and we will crush them if we have to.
“We have outlined in our manifesto, the draft policies and programmes, the commitments we have for the people of Kaduna State. We will do it. Whether that thing is controversial or not, if I am voted in, the people of Kaduna State want those things done and we will do them to the best of our ability.
“Everything we are going to do will be based on extensive consultations and participatory democracy,” he stated.
On why he demolished the NUJ Secretariat in Abuja, El-Rufai said he pulled it down because the secretariat was a brothel at night and illegally occupied.
“The NUJ had an illegal national secretariat in Abuja. Let me give you the history and why we did what we did. When the seat of government moved to Abuja in 1991, the NUJ was asked to move but they did not have an office. So, one of the primary schools at Garki was given to the NUJ as temporary office. It was a primary school which at the time was not populated because they had no pupils.
“The NUJ headquarters was a brothel at night where we were supposed to have a school. They did not move. We did not revoke the place because one can only revoke what you own. It was never the property of NUJ, it was given to you to use temporary and I chased them out. We demolished the hotel and put our children there. I am proud of what I did and I have no regrets,” El-Rufai said.