By Kayode Sanni-Arewa

The All Progressives Congress on Monday hammered ex- Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, for attacking President Bola Tinubu and the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu.

The National Vice Chairman of the APC (South East), Dr Ijeoma Arodiogbu, described El-Rufai’s criticism of the President and the NSA during a Monday night interview on Arise TV as pathetic.

El-Rufai, in the interview, criticised the president’s economic reforms, saying the sequencing was wrong.

“I support some of (Tinubu) policies; most of the economic policies are the right orthodox policies, but the sequencing is wrong, and the quality of the people implementing the reforms leaves much to be desired. And I think that some of the reforms are just wrong.

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

“So, I have issues with many of them, and I’m in touch with many senior officials of the administration, and I give them my opinion privately.”

He accused the President of rejecting him as a ministerial nominee and not the National Assembly, as previously reported.

The ex-governor said the President changed his mind on the cabinet appointment offer after asking him publicly not to be far from him after he concluded his second term in Kaduna State.

He said, “Since I left office and the President begged me publicly to come and serve in his government, I had my plans and told President Tinubu from day one when he asked me to support him, I said would, but I don’t want anything because politics in Nigeria is always about what do I get for giving you support.

“I’m not in politics for that reason. I’m not in politics to get anything. I have a surname, and I’m a self-made man. I’ve made money before coming into public office.

‘’I don’t need anything. After eight years in Kaduna, I was nearly burnt out. I was struggling for eight years, and I wanted to take a break, and I had my private plans.

“The President publicly appealed to me to put my plans on hold and through two months of negotiations, we finally agreed that he would nominate me as minister and there were certain conditions I attached to that.’’

“I think along the line, either the President changed his mind or something else. Please don’t believe the story that the National Assembly rejected me. The National Assembly had nothing to do with this, the President didn’t want me in his cabinet, he changed his mind. Whatever it is, I don’t care and I’ve moved on,’’ the APC chieftain stated.

El-Rufai thumbed down Ribadu’s appointment as NSA, saying he was not qualified for the task.

He accused the NSA of leading a plot to tarnish his reputation because of his 2031 Presidential ambition.

El-Rufai alleged that Ribadu is collaborating with Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna, and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission to destroy his image.

According to him, Ribadu is nursing a presidential ambition in 2031 and he is ready to eliminate every northerner that he thinks is on the radar.

This project of destroying Nasir el-Rufai is Nuhu Ribadu’s conception. He is the architect and builder of that project. He is the one working with Uba Sani to implement it. So far, it has been frustrating for them.

“Somebody wants to destroy my reputation. Why? Nuhu Ribadu wants to be president in 2031. He has to eliminate every northerner that he thinks is on the radar,” El-Rufai further berated Ribadu.

But reacting to the attack on Tinubu, Arodiogbu described the ex-governor as a grudging man whose selfish expectations were not met by the Tinubu administration.

He stated, “El-Rufai is a grudging man. I think his personal expectations and selfish needs of the government were not met. So, he’s grudging for that. Nothing less than this is expected. That could also define what he meant by that the party left him. He didn’t leave the party.”

When asked if the APC was worried about losing such a heavyweight politician to the opposition camp, the APC vice chairman said the former governor wouldn’t pose any form of threat to the party.

“It is not a threat at all. I’ll tell you, in the past couple of weeks, almost any politician of note, whether Senators, House of Reps members, former candidates of Labour Party in House of Reps and Senate, former or current PDP serving lawmakers and other parties have come to the APC.

“So, you can see the optics are very clear. So, if everybody, if every politician of note in the states is defecting to the APC, what do you expect? So, El-Rufai’s support amounts to nothing.

‘’It’s just like seeing the lizard every day on the wall doing press-ups. It doesn’t matter the press-up it does, the biceps can’t grow to that of a crocodile. That is how I see it.’’

Speaking further, the APC chief said El-Rufai was pained because he was losing his loyalists to the APC.

“What is the right thing he was asking the APC to do? Is it for his selfish expectations or needs? I don’t think that the party is missing him so much because we have harvested so many people in Kaduna State. He is only pained because people are leaving him and joining the APC.

“That’s why he could muster up the courage to come and grant what he termed his first interview. He is only yearning for attention after discovering he was lost,” he asserted.

In his interview, the former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory hinted at leaving the ruling APC, saying the party had already abandoned him.

The aggrieved politician stated that unless the ruling party retraced its step back to the vision and ideology of the founding founders, he may move to another party that shares the same values as him

He stated, “First of all, I didn’t say I have no intention of leaving the APC. I said that the APC is my party, I found it. Now, I’m not leaving the APC. The APC has left me. We founded that party based on certain values. The party has left. I am stranded. The APC is there. I’m here.

“So, to be very accurate, I’m not leaving the APC. The APC has already left me. Well, I’m not ready to retire from politics. So, sooner or later, I may 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 then maybe some of us can look at it again. But for now, there are many of us who cannot recognize the party. It is not what we worked hard to create.”

When asked if he would be supporting the President’s re-election bid in 2027, the Kaduna politician dodged the question, saying he wasn’t even certain if he would still be in the APC by then.

El-Rufai, who has been hobnobbing with various opposition figures, including the 2023 Peoples Democratic Party presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, said he may need to consult again with his people in Kaduna to decide a viable candidate that would represent their interest and has the chances of winning the next presidential election just as they did during the 2023 poll where Tinubu was favoured to dust his opponents.

When asked if he had plans to defect to the PDP, the former minister dismissed the notion.

According to him, he did not consider the PDP as a possible destination.

“It should be clear that the fact that I’m in the APC doesn’t mean that I cannot visit a friend of mine who is in the PDP or SDP. So anytime I visit anyone that is not in APC, they say, ‘Oh, he’s thinking of leaving the party.

“In fact, about two months ago, one character in Kaduna posted on his Facebook page that I’ve collected a PDP membership card in my ward. It was totally untrue. I don’t know where I will end up if the APC doesn’t come back to where we started.

“But one thing I can tell you for sure is that PDP is not a party that I will go to, ever. I have thought about that. I’ve decided that long ago, and nothing has changed. In fact, if anything, the PDP has gotten worse; rule out the PDP. Other parties, possibly, if the APC doesn’t sort itself out,” he said.

El-Rufai also announced that he would not be attending the National Caucus and the National Executive Committee meetings of the APC, which were slated to start on Tuesday (today).

According to him, he wasn’t served any notice of invitation and would be flying out to Egypt on the same day.

He said, “Unfortunately, I will not be. I will be on my way back to Cairo where I spend most of my time. I didn’t get adequate notice. The constitution of our party requires 21 days, I think, or 14 days’ notice for this kind of national organ meeting. I don’t think that notice has been given.

“If it has been, I have not received the invitation two weeks to three weeks ago. So I have my plans, and I’m leaving tomorrow. But many of my friends will attend, so I will not miss anything. I will get to know what was discussed.”

Adebayo Folorunsho-Francis
The PUNCH journalist, Adebayo, has over 20 years of experience covering politics, health, metro, entertainment and properties