Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State yesterday met President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Speaking to State House reporters after the meeting, he said he was in the sky when fake news of his involvement in a fatal accident went viral.
“I came to see Mr. President after my re-election as governor because immediately after the 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,” he said. He advised Nigerians 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.
“I was never involved in any accident, I was not near any accident, in fact, at a time I was supposed to be involved in an accident, I was in an aircraft going to another country.
“But somebody sat and concocted this story and we are trying to trace who started it because criminal proceedings can be initiated against the person. Sometimes it is very difficult to know who started it but we are on it,” he said.
Reacting to the claim by the presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar that he won the election in Kaduna State, El-Rufai said Atiku won Kaduna “in his dream”.
“Let me say this without any fear of contradiction, since President Buhari started contesting for the presidency in 2003, he has never lost Kaduna. So, PDP has never won election in Kaduna from 2003, even with a sitting governor in 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015. It has never happened.
“I don’t know what will happen that Atiku will win Kaduna in this election 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 readers in some parts of the state, that’s how he even got up to the 400,000 that he got.
“He lost Kaduna, he will always lose Kaduna, he will lose Kaduna 10 more times because he has never won Kaduna in any presidential election,” he said.
On Atiku’s claim that the results were from INEC’s server, he said: “It must be from Atiku’s server. But anyone can make claims, we live in the age of fake news and fake claims. Anyone can make claims but you have to proof it.”
