Why El-Rufai’s defection a sad one for APC, by Ismaeel Ahmed

Wow! What a sad day for us. Malam has contributed immensely to the formation, promotion, development and continuation of the APC at so many levels and the progressive movement in general since he joined us in CPC in 2010. He chaired the CPC Renewal Committee of which I was a member then.

The committee recommended that there should be an ALLIANCE between the CPC and ACN at that time. A proposal some of our leaders in CPC opposed and the talks collapsed in early 2011. We went into elections separately and we all lost to Jonathan. GMB then said he wasn’t going to contest again.

In the lead up to merger talks in 2013, again Malam played a role and I remember PMB used to say all the time during the 2014/15 electioneering campaign that, Malam @elrufai was one of the few people that basically “forced” him to contest again after declaring he will “not contest again” 2011. And PMB in turn coerced him as well to run for KD State Governor and even, uncharacteristically endorsed him BEFORE the Primaries.
Malam as Governor, made Kaduna an example the Progressive party was proud of. And in 2022, when we started having problems with the leadership of APC at the national level, of which I was a member, Malam and some of his colleagues rallied some of us within the leadership to ensure we had the much demanded convention that ushered in a new leadership of the party headed by Sen. Abdullahi Adamu.

When the Adamu-led NWC wanted to toy with the idea of retaining the Presidency in the North after selling forms of 100m Naira each to more than 15 people, most of whom were from the South, Malam with his colleagues rallied again to ensure that civility, equity, equality, unity and most importantly, progressivism prevailed. The openly backed the emergence of a candidate from the South.

When the CBN announced the cashless policy and wanted to withdraw what it termed “excess cash” from the system, an unpopular decision, that many see as a direct attack on the candidacy of the APC at the time, Malam again rallied, sued and won against a policy of his own government.

The rest is now history.

I had hoped and prayed that it will not come to this. I had prayed that somehow the wisdom of our elders in the party and leaders will intercede early and perhaps prevail. But alas it either didn’t happen or not enough was done.

I am not a happy man today.
For what it is worth Malam, some of us are proud of your achievements and strides even when we disagree with you sometimes.

All the best sir. Until we meet on the field again