Under-fire opposition politician, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, this afternoon moved to douse the fire he lit via his vile tweet of yesterday by apologising to those who feel offended by the sick joke about Jesus Christ having sex.

As reported this morning by News Express, the former Nigerian minister who is reportedly nursing presidential ambition, sparked outrage by retweeting a joke about the sinless Christ having sex with family friend Mary Magdalene.

As sober el-Rufai however apologised around 4pm in a tweet addressed to his over 133,000 followers. He however lambasted those he believes had sought to unfairly demonise him over the incident.

Said the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) chieftain: “Hello Friends. I have been travelling and try to catch some sleep in between the last 24 hours and missed all the furore arising from my retweet of Ogunyemi Bukola’s (@zeebook) joke Maku eat al and Jesus. I must say I am taken aback by the extent of desperate misrepresentation of what was an innocuous attempt to show the godlessness of the Jonathanians to denigrate anyone that dares to ask them to be accountable.

“To those who were genuinely offended by the retweet, I apologize. I did not meant to offend anyone, neither did the @zeebook I know and featured as one of the Young Voices in my Friday Column. Jesus or Isa Alaihis Salaam is a respected prophet of Islam. Every Muslim accepts this in addition to his miraculous virgin birth. It is therefore absurd for any Muslim believer to disrespect Jesus Christ.

“I hope those in this class will see my point of view and accept my apologies for any offense or disappointment caused. And I advise everyone to read @zeebook’s timeline and mine to read EXACTLY what was tweeted rather than the second-hand reports of certain people who ALWAYS twist whatever I write or not write to achieve their morally-repugnant objectives.

“To those in that class of liar – the political contractors who tried to attribute the entire statement to me to destroy perceived political capital, I say keep on doing that till the day your cups will be full. Everything these days is reduced to posturing for 2015, but those doing it do not even know which one of us will be alive to witness the events of that time. I leave all those to God and their conscience.

“To the Warriors of God, who misinterpret the Scriptures (both Bible and Qur’an) and pretend to be capable of fighting His battles, please learn from history. The multiple Crusades and Jihads are yet to convert the entire human race into one religion. If God wished us all to be of one religion, He would have made us so. So please leave God’s work to Him, and just be good to other humans.

“I thank all my friends who stood up for me in this saga. They know me better than what the desperate Jonathanians want to paint as El-Rufai. An those that wish to know me a little batter should please read my forthcoming book. Thanks and God Bless.”

•Photo: El-Rufai.