•Nasir El-Rufai
Embattled former Kaduna State governor Nasir El-Rufai says he won’t opt for exile despite the many rumours that he might be arrested and tortured by the Bola Tinubu administration.
El-Rufai, who has been embroiled in a battle of words with the presidency and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), said he won’t be intimidated by the current administration, reports Channels TV.
The former governor, in a response to a post by an X user Imran Wakili on the alleged plot to arrest him, said he would return to Nigeria from Egypt before February 20, 2025.
He said, “I have been hearing these same rumours of arrest, detention and torture in some dungeon in the NSA’s office (where Emefiele was allegedly tortured to resign as CBN governor), since July 2024 when the so-called report of the Kaduna Assembly began circulating.
“They freaked out when we challenged the legality of the premeditated defamation and went to every length to compromise the judicial process, and this is continuing at the Court of Appeal.
“They have sent such similar messages of intimidation and threats through many of my friends, family and political associates because they want me to go on self-imposed exile.
“I will not.
“I have now put all my previous academic and language-learning plans on hold and will spend more time in Nigeria than ever before. Silence is no longer golden. Inaction has never been an option.
“The arrest, detention and torture of perceived political enemies are nothing new in human affairs. I have been arrested and detained thrice in the past for expressing my views of previous governments.
“There is always a morning after the arrest or detention or torture, and political life continues. As for death, it is when Allah destines it, and it is ultimately the date of every human.
“For the attention of the pathetic characters that don’t sleep well whenever I am in Nigeria, take notice that I intend to return in time for the launch of President IBB’s memoirs, in sha Allah, scheduled for 20th February.
“We depend on no one but Allah. We fear no mortal but Almighty Allah. We always hope for the best but plan for the worst.”
El-Rufai: Tinubu’s Ally-Turned-Outsider
El-Rufai was one of the northern power brokers 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 State 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.
