Protest Would Give You Nothing Except You Join Politics – El Rufai

Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai has called out on Nigerians to find themselves active in politics and governance selection process if they really want a change in the country.

He made this statement when he appeared on a program organised by Radio Now 95.3, in partnership with Nextier, and with the support of Channels TV.

According to him, the best candidates in the private sectors must find their way to politics and stop standing on the sidelines protesting because that would take us nowhere.

In his words, “Good people must offer themselves for public service and suffer the indignity that we all suffer. We get abused every day; we get insulted; we get accused, but we must have our best people in public service. We must have our best people in politics.  We must not have them in banks, in telecoms companies, in oil companies and in civil societies protesting. Protesting what? Protesting will take you nowhere unless you have a seat at the table and the most important table is that political table.”

“My call to Nigerians is, if you want to see better governance, be part of the selection process of those that offer themselves for public service and politics. And the only way to do so is to join political parties, and be active, and influence the leadership that emerges in the political parties. There is no other way; no shortcut to it,” the governor said.

“The pastors and imams that have made money, the bankers, the telecoms guys, leave that thing, come and make Nigeria work, because if it doesn’t work you will not sleep at night no matter how much money you make. I believe that if we have more and more young people, and we have five million of them attaining the age of 18 every year, they can come and overwhelm the parties and chase out the old men like me and take over.

“But they must come and not stand on the sidelines and keep criticising. Any fool can criticise. Solutions are what this country needs. You can only propose these solutions, fight for them if you are in the system.

“I have said this before and I will say it again. Young people think that because the not-too-young-to-run bill has been passed and they join a political party yesterday, they will go for elections tomorrow. It doesn’t work that way. You must not come into any organization with a sense of entitlement. We are all young too. We worked through the ladder to get to where we are” he said.