Kaduna: El-Rufai turning ‘rotten situation to bad one’ is an achievement, says Tinubu

Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Bola Tinubu on Monday doubled down on his statement that Kaduna State governor Nasir El-Rufai turned governance in the state from a rotten one to a bad one.

“Some people need to understand idioms,” Tinubu said while addressing Arewa Joint Committee in Kaduna State. “When I said he turned a rotten situation to a bad one, it is an achievement.”

Tinubu explained that a rotten situation is a state of mess, saying the process of improving such would lead to making it a bad one – as a template before turning it to a good one.

The APC presidential candidate drew reactions from the opposition and many Nigerians when he spoke at the seventh Kaduna Economic and Investment Summit (KADInvest) on Saturday.

Tinubu, a former governor Lagos State governor, praised El-Rufai as a resilient and visionary leader who has turned Kaduna State around for good.

“I am openly begging governor el-Rufai not to run away from additional degrees like PhD or others. There are educated derelicts,” Tinubu said.

“We are not going to let you run away. Your vision, creativity and resilience in turning a rotten situation to a bad one are necessary at this critical time and that is why we are here.”

In the heat of backlash on Tinubu, a spokesperson of the APC presidential campaign council Bayo Onanuga said the candidate’s statement was a slip of tongue.

Onanuga argued that Tinubu “inadvertently said Governor El-Rufai “turned a rotten situation” he met on ground in Kaduna into “a bad one” whereas he meant to say “to a great one.”

“It was a mere slip, that is not unusual in life, even among leaders of nations,” Onanuga said.

“We recognise we are in political season where everything is latched on for deliberate distortion and twisted mischief.”

Tinubu, however, countered the APC’s spokesman on Monday when he insisted that his statement was deliberate, describing the backlash as a lack of understanding on the side of his critics.