By Kolawole Ojebisi
The All Progressives Congress(APC) has ascribed the stance of former governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, on the Tinubu administration to alleged refusal of the president to dance to his tunes by granting every of the ex-governor’s demands.
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 also 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.
