Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai in a video making waves in the internet today issued a veiled threat at foreigners who plan to interfere or intervene in Nigerian elections.
Though it is unclear what he meant exactly with the words interfere or intervene, El-Rufai’s violent rhetoric is highly inciting and bears the potential to bring harm to foreigners who might be one way or the other involved in the elections in Nigeria.
El-Rufai’s comment (now viral on the internet) was made during a political programme of the National Television Authority (NTA), the Nigerian government owned news network and on the same day he signed a peace accord with his fellow gubernatorial candidates in Kaduna state. He said:
“Those that are calling for anyone to come and intervene in Nigeria…We are waiting for the person that will come and intervene. They will go back in body bags. Because nobody will come to Nigeria and tell us how to run our country. “
El-Rufai’s comments has been met with stiff criticisms. Nigerian activist and convener of the #EndSARS movement, Segun Awosanyo tweeted angrily: “A governor with a penchant for paying murderers for a job well done, who buried unarmed protesters in unmarked graves & justified their killing under his watch, was caught on National television threatening to kill foreign observers & send them back in body bags.”
“Who’s he threatening – observers? Diplomats? Journalists?” Ruth Maclean, a journalist with The Guardian (UK) queried in a tweet.
Kaduna state is one of the six high risk states listed on the International Crisis Group’s report which predicted that Nigeria would experience a more violent general election in 2019 compared to the previous one held in 2015.
