Tinubu, not N/Assembly dropped me as minister – El-Rufai

A former governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, said yesterday that he was not rejected by the National Assembly as a ministerial nominee. In August 2023, the Senate withheld the confirmation of El-Rufai as a ministerial nominee, citing security reports from the Department of State Service for the action. But speaking on Monday during an interview […]

A former governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, said yesterday that he was not rejected by the National Assembly as a ministerial nominee.

In August 2023, the Senate withheld the confirmation of El-Rufai as a ministerial nominee, citing security reports from the Department of State Service for the action.

But speaking on Monday during an interview on Arise TV, El-Rufai said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu simply “changed his mind on the nomination”

“After serving for eight years as governor of Kaduna State, I had my plans. The president publicly appealed to me to put my plans on hold and after sometime we finally agreed that he would nominate me as a minister, and there were certain conditions attached to that. I think along the line, either the president changed his mind or something else. “I told Tinubu that and he insisted and gave me a challenge. He appealed to me, begged me. He gave me a challenge. What was the challenge? Nobody has sorted out electricity.

“No president has defeated the electricity mafia. You and I can work to defeat it. It was the challenge that made me to accept,” he said.

El-Rufai added: “Please don’t believe the story that the National Assembly rejected me, they had nothing to do with it, the president didn’t want me in his cabinet”.

On the alleged security concerns cited for his rejection, El-Rufai challenged the claim, insisting there was no report against him.

“What was the security issue the National Assembly had against me? Where is the report? There were far less qualified, less experienced that scaled through because the president made a call. He is a human being he’s entitled to change his mind,” he said.

El-Rufai, however, noted that despite these circumstances, Tinubu sought to meet with him to find a way to work together which according to him, he didn’t turn down, while maintaining that he’s better off.

The former governor added: “I’m a founding member of the APC, but I have concerns about how the party is being run… how many people sacrificed a lot to ensure that it was an internally democratic party with progressive ideals, two years after the election of President of Tinubu, none of the party’s organs is functioning. The progressive ideals are not being pursued with any vigour,” he said.

 

I’ve no rift with Tinubu

Speaking on whether there’s a rift between him and the Tinubu’s administration, El-Rufai explained that he’s not obsessed with being paid back for the role he played in entrenching the government. He insisted that there is no rift between him and the president.

 

Policies okay but wrongly implemented

Speaking on the administration, he noted, “I support some of the policies,” adding that most of the economic policies are orthodox-based policies, “but the sequencing is wrong. The quality of people implementing the reforms needs much to be desired. I think that some of the reforms are wrong.

“You don’t address food inflation by destroying domestic agriculture through importation for instance. Food prices may be going down but farmers are impoverished because they are being forced to compete with the subsidised agricultural products from Europe and other countries.

“So, I have issues with many of them and I am in touch with many of the senior officials of the administration and I give them my opinion privately. But I don’t want to go beyond that because tomorrow they may say it’s because I have not been made a minister.”

He described Tinubu’s birthday felicitation as a ‘nice’ gesture, adding, “though I wasn’t flattered. I actually messaged Bayo Onanuga and said why did you mess up with my birthday? It’s kind of the president.”

 

On APC

Speaking on the APC’s internal democracy he lamented how the party failed to conduct NEC meetings in two years.

“To the best of my knowledge the party has not met for two years and there’s been no conversation about the alignment of the government policies with the values of the party,” he said.

 

‘I am stranded’

On his future in the party, he said, “I am not leaving the APC, but the APC has left me. We founded that party based on certain values. The party has left. I am stranded. The APC is here and I am there. To be accurate, I am not in the APC, the APC has left me,” he said.

He, however, noted that he’s not yet ready to retire from politics, but “sooner or later, I have to find another platform to pursue those progressive values that I believe in if I can’t find them in the APC. I hope that the APC will meet and correct its journey and maybe some of us can look at it again. But for now there are many of us that cannot recognise the party”.

He defended his recent courtesy visits to opposition leaders in the country noting that he has friends and colleagues in the opposition.

“But one thing for sure I can tell you is that PDP is not the party I’d go. I’ve decided that long ago and nothing has changed. If anything, PDP has gotten worse. So, I can tell you that I have ruled out PDP”, he said.

 

Uba Sani, Ribadu no longer my friends

El-Rufai further stated that his successor in office, Governor Uba Sani, and the National Security Officer (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, are no longer his friends.

 

Tinubu’s appointments

He also criticised the appointments made by President Bola Tinubu since assuming office.

“The president’s appointments are not being made because the appointees are Yoruba, but because they are his own boys. Most of the appointments do not even reasonably cover the South-West.

“So people should stop confusing the truth. The appointments are not balanced. Yes, definitely. You cannot argue that, but it’s not a Yoruba thing. Please don’t punish the Yorubas as you have been punishing northerners for the sins of the military.

“Let’s focus on individuals and hold them accountable.

“President Tinubu needs to do something about that. It’s not too late. He can correct it, but there is palpable anger in the north.”