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FACT CHECK: Did El-Rufai ask northerners not to vote for Tinubu?

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CLAIM: A Twitter user, on Wednesday posted a video in which Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai purportedly declared that northerners would not vote for the presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) Bola Tinubu, because he was not from the north.

VERDICT: False

FULL TEXT

Former Lagos State governor and presidential candidate of the APC, Bola Tinubu flagged off his presidential campaign in Jos, the Plateau State capital, on Tuesday, November 14.

The mega rally was attended by bigwigs within the party, including President Muhammedu Buhari, the party’s National Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, Senate President Ahmed Lawan, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, all APC Governors, members of the party’s National Working Committee, ministers, and former governors, among others.

Meanwhile, a video clip which is being circulated on social media, captures El-Rufai saying “Asiwaju Tinubu is not a Northerner, Arewa people will not vote for him”
The video was posted here

and here and the posts have gained hundreds of likes and retweets.

VERIFICATION

Short video clips are often misleading, as they may not capture the message contained in the full video from which they are extracted.

Ripples Nigeria found the full broadcast of the rally uploaded by TVC News on its YouTube Channel. The video is three hours long.

In the three-hour long video, state governors and some other major stakeholders in the party were called to the podium to extol the party’s presidential flag bearers, Tinubu and Kashim Shettima. Most of the nothern governors spoke in the Hausa Language.

On his part, El-Rufai urged the people to vote for Tinubu because the Yorubas voted for Buhari in 2015 and 2019. He stated that the opposition party had said Tinubu should not be voted in the north because he is not a Northerner. However, the governor urged them to vote for Tinubu as gratitude to the Yoruba people who voted for Buhari.

Below is an English translation of his admonition:

“The PDP in their campaigns are telling northerners that Tinubu is not a northerner and as such he should not be voted. I, therefore, call on the northerners not to be deceived by such a campaign.

“When Buhari contested in 2015 and 2019, Tinubu and Yoruba in the southern part of the country, voted for him and he won. For that, there is no reason why the northerners should not vote for Tinubu.”

CONCLUSION

El-Rufai never said that northerners would not vote for Tinubu because he is not from the North. He only mimicked what was allegedly said by the opposition party.

The circulated clip was cut from a longer video and does not carry the governor’s full message.

By: Oluwatobi Odeyinka

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