A presidential media aide Daniel Bwala has faulted ex-governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, for saying the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) lacked internal democracy and active party structures.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Bwala said El-Rufai would not have expressed such a position if he were in the cabinet of President Bola Tinubu.
On Monday, El-Rufai spoke at a national conference in Abuja, saying he no longer recognise the APC and that the party has tended toward a one-man show.
“You cannot afford to have illiterates, semi-illiterates, and cunning people as your leaders. This is why we end up with the poor leadership we have today,” he had said, criticising the leadership of the party.
Replying to the former governor’s comment, Bwala said, “My Senior brother, if you were to be in the government and cabinet, would you have held and expressed the same position? History is replete with examples. It is a government you participated in its formation, that you now want to unseat. Haba Mallam.”
El-Rufai was one of the northern powerbrokers who insisted that the APC presidential ticket for the 2023 general elections be given to a southern candidate in line with the unwritten principle of rotation of power between the southern and the northern regions in Nigeria. This was after the eight-year tenure of President Muhammadu Buhari, from the North-West geopolitical zone.
El-Rufai, who was Kaduna governor between May 2015 and May 2023, was vocal in his choice of ex-Lagos governor Bola Tinubu as the flag bearer of the party in the last general elections.
The then Kaduna governor, alongside his northern colleagues, backed Tinubu against two other northern juggernauts who were also aspirants – – then Senate President Ahmad Lawan and ex-Jigawa governor, Mohammed Badaru.
Tinubu later clinched the APC ticket and was elected Nigeria’s president during the February 2023 presidential poll.
In Nigeria’s political turf where compensation politics has become almost a norm, Tinubu nominated El-Rufai as one of his ministers three months after his inauguration.
However, El-Rufai fell out with the movers and shakers in the current government and was rejected by the Senate during the ministerial screening process. The upper legislative chamber cited security reasons from the Department of State Services as one of the reasons for his rejection.
Since the August 2023 incident, El-Rufai has not been seen in a gathering of APC chieftains. The former governor has also not been seen around the Aso Villa, the seat of power, or near the president whom he vigorously campaigned for in the last poll.
Conversely, El-Rufai has been spotted with chieftains of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) fuelling defection rumours, which he has dismissed. El-Rufai’s relationship with his successor, Sani Uba, in Kaduna, has turned sour with the state assembly probing his eight-year administration for alleged corruption, an allegation denied by the ex-governor.
