Immediate past governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-rufai has come under heavy verbal attack following his Monday night interview.
DAILY POST reports that during an interview on Arise TV, El-rufai criticized President Bola Tinubu, the present administration and some key elements in the government.
El-Rufai claimed that President Tinubu did not want him in his cabinet, exonerating members of the National Assembly, who actually screened him out.
DAILY POST recalls that in August 2023, the Senate withheld the confirmation of the former governor as Tinubu’s ministerial nominee, citing security reports from the State Security Service for the action.
But El-rufai said the “security thing was a good excuse they used. Since then, has anyone released that report telling us the security issue?”
Similarly, the former governor alleged that the National Security Adviser, NSA, to the president, Nuhu Ribadu was behind a plot to tarnish his reputation.
According to El-rufai, Ribadu is nursing presidential ambition to succeed President Tinubu in 2031, stressing that the decision of the NSA is to eliminate any potential competition from the North.
The NSA has since denied the claims.
However, El-rufai’s outburst didn’t sit well with some loyalists of the president and other concerned Nigerians who took to their social media handles to lambast the former governor.
All the anger because Tinubu denied him ministerial position – Deji Adeyanju
Popular activist lawyer, Deji Adeyanju claimed that El-rufai’s outburst was birthed by his inability to secure the ministerial appointment.
“Nigerian politicians can only fool idiots, not me. All the noise-making and anger of El-rufai is because Tinubu denied him a ministerial position.
“They don’t love Nigeria, it’s about self and nothing else”, he wrote in a post on his Facebook page.
You were fingered in Southerner Kaduna, Zaria Shiite massacre – Reno Omokri
Countering El-rufai’s claims that Tinubu not the National Assembly denied him the ministerial job, a former presidential spokesman, Reno Omokri said the erstwhile governor was fingered in the killing of innocent Kaduna residents.
He said, Malam Nasir el-Rufai was also fingered as a major contributor to the genocide of Southern Kaduna Christians after he admitted on multiple occasions to paying killer herdsmen while he was Governor.
“Nasir el-Rufai’s government was indicted in the Zaria Shiite massacre of Saturday, December 12, 2015, where 438 Shiite men, women, children and infants were slaughtered in one of Africa’s worst human rights violations.
“Additionally, Mr. el-Rufai was specifically cited for demolishing the homes of his political opponents in Kaduna.
“Finally, his reckless utterances against Christians, whereby on Saturday, January 27, 2013, he insulted Jesus Christ, and on Friday, January 18, 2019, when he said, ‘Even if I bring the Pope, Christians will never vote for me’”.
Shehu Sani says El-rufai cannot be trusted
On his part, former federal lawmaker, Senator Shehu Sani attributed President Tinubu’s decision to lack of trust in the former governor.
According to Shehu Sani, “no Nigerian President in his right senses will ever closely embrace or trust a man who repeatedly celebrated and gloated about sending President Yar’adua to his grave.
“It’s a case of ‘if you can do this and say this about your own brother what about me?’
“No one will ever admit a man into his house who came with a sword stained with the blood of his brother”, he posted on his X handle.