How Tinubu, government members are receiving heat “for unholy politicking” against Buhari, El-Rufai, others

By OUR REPORTER, Abuja

“What sense does it make when making new friends to not make extra effort to keep and sustain trusted and proven friends and allies? Especially if they have not offended or betrayed you,” said Dr. Uche Diala.

As more members of the Bola Tinubu’s government and All Progressives Congress (APC) supporters recently focused on a man revered as “small but big engine”, Mallam Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, for no justifiable reason, some of those attackers are having it back in full the response for their politically motivated actions.

Those unguarded utterances, according to those responding to them, are due to fear of the unknown as to the power of influence that Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, who is immediate past Governor of Kaduna State is capable of wielding against President Tinubu’s second term which will either be made or marred by the 2027 election.

The DEFENDER reports that Tinubu started off on a very stormy slab of controversies when he, despite knowing full well that his failed subsidy removal and naira floating policies were his own personal making that is devoid of collective decision of party stakeholders, went ahead to launch albeit by proxies media campaigns to shift the blame on his predecessor, President Muhammadu Buhari GCFR (2015-2023), his government and Northern Nigerian leaders.

Another trouble was how Tinubu stylishly attempted and was physically seen to use the machinery of office of the President to scheme core personalities of the Buhari era, who influenced his electoral success, out relevance.

Tinubu had, at Arewa House in the pre-election publicly refused to disembark from the podium until “Nasir El-Rufai will come here and promise that he will not run away and stay to work with us” after finishing his tenure as Governor of Kaduna State, which Nasir sluggishly conceded to but on a condition that “but on part-time basis”.

The same Tinubu, many believe, later set El-Rufai up with a ministerial nomination unsolicited for and still went ahead, when the former Kaduna governor in keeping to his forced promise at Arewa House showed up for ministerial screening at the Senate, to demolish him politically through claim of security report inducting him as alleged sponsor of unsubstantiated terrorism.

El-Rufai has since moved on with his post-office life to pursue his Ph.D programme abroad and his continued silence remains the major heat biting and burning both Tinubu and his government members as it is being witnessed.

None of his government officials and friends, formally or informally, including Reno Omokri, Nuhu Ribadu, Nyesom Wike among others has not made attempt at either the Buhari’s administration or the Olusegun Obasanjo’s Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (2003-2007) although with failure. Among the effort allegedly of the Tinubu’s government was the penetration of El-Rufai’s mid-wifed successive Governor of Kaduna State, Senator Uba Sani, who was used to launch a phantom corruption charges against him in order to weaken him all because of 2027.

The latest that has attracted direct heat generated in the oven of Nasir El-Rufai was Daniel Bwala, the Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Media and Policy Communications, who has been adequately replied by the Kaduna “mafia” himself.

He had disagreed, disrespectfully, with El-Rufai over his recent comment on the state of governance and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Recall that on January 28, 2025 at a national conference on strengthening democracy in Nigeria, Nasir El-Rufai had criticised the ruling APC for “straying from its core values,” stating that he no longer recognises the party.

While addressing the conference held in Abuja, El-Rufai labelled the state of governance and opposition in the country as a “national emergency” made possible by now involvement of “illiterates” currently being paraded by the APC.

He said, “I am the founding member of the APC. But frankly, I no longer recognise the APC. No party organ has met in two years — no caucus, no NEC, nothing. I don’t even know if it is a one-man show. It is a zero-man show,” El-Rufai said at the national conference.

Reacting to El-Rufai’s post, Daniel Bwala questioned the former governor’s stance, asking if he would have held the same position if he were to be part of President Bola Tinubu’s cabinet.

“My Senior brother, if you were to be in the government and cabinet, would you have held and expressed the same position? History is replete with examples. It is a government you participated in its formation, that you now want to unseat. Haba Mallam, a Ji soron Allah mana,” Bwala wrote.

Without allowing the Bwala’s served words to get cold, Mallam Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai simply fired back at him.

In his response on Thursday January 30, El-Rufai dismissed Bwala’s remarks in a post on X, stating that he had no interest in joining Tinubu’s government.

“I was a cabinet minister 22 years ago and made it clear to Asiwaju that I was not interested in any position in his future government. The manner in which you, latter-day converts to the Tinubu government, make an issue of something I never wanted in the first place reflects the level of your moral flexibility,” El-Rufai said.

The former governor insisted that his position on the APC and Tinubu’s administration would have remained the same, even if he had been part of the government.

“If I had remained in the Tinubu government, I would still speak out about the tragedy within a party I helped found, and the government that emerged from it—first privately with those concerned, and then publicly if no remedial actions were taken,” he added.

El-Rufai also took a swipe at political loyalists, whom he accused of being paid to defend the government at all costs.

“I am responding to you because I still think you are a decent person who may need a job, not in the class of Wendell Simlin or that Kaduna pretender whom our voters retired in 2019. These clowns are political mercenaries who receive humongous monthly stipends from the security vote to be the first to jump on X and other platforms to defend everything the Asiwaju government does or fails to do, no matter how indefensible it may be,” he said.

He concluded by advising Bwala to remember that allegiance to God and country should come before loyalty to any individual or authority.

“Enjoy your special adviser position, my brother, but remember that allegiance to God and country comes first in the human scale of accountability, before any person or authority,” he said.

In the meantime, a public affairs analyst and APC member, Dr. Uche Diala, and other Nigerians aggrieved by what APC has been turned to, have been taking to their social media network pages disagree with what is best Ng done against Buhari and El-Rufai.

They said enough of all the vituperation coming from Tinubu’s government members and APC supporters to Buhari and El-Rufai.

Particularly on Friday, Dr. Diala reposted the Arewa House Kaduna event video where Tinubu made El-Rufai to promise to work with him.

According to Diala in the post titled “IT OUGHT TO BE A MATTER OF HONOR”, it was said:

“If some people have any degree of intelligence and conscience and any iota of a sense of decency and shame, after watching this video, they will be sobre and keep quiet, if they don’t have any honourable and sensible thing to say. But trust me, they won’t.

“I can bet that even Mr. President wouldn’t say some of the things that some people who purport to solely own, love and support him are saying about this and Mallam El-rufai, because I want to believe that deep in his soul and conscience, he knows and feels.

“I know how some Nigerians reason. So, let me put it on record that I have no personal relationship with Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, neither have I received any favour from him before nor am I expecting any. In fact he once demolished my office in the line of duty as FCT Minister after we had gone to plead with him in his office, but I understood.

“I’m only fixated on this matter, most importantly, because I understand the weight of it morally.

“I also understand the weight of it politically.

“‘That is politics for you’, as some people like to say, but there are certain cases that weigh more than others, if put in their peculiar and proper context. It takes tact, wisdom and humility to deal with such.

“Unfortunately, some people will keep missing the point and keep talking about appointment, as if El-rufai asked for an appointment. That’s why I presented this video.

“Listening to El-rufai in this video, any discerning person would see that he was ready to assist Jagaban even if not in any specified appointment. He truly believed.

“So why was the ball dropped? If there was sincerity of intention. Would anyone still blame El-rufai for that not happening? Was he the one to push that? After he was brought out to the market square and essentially humiliated. Wither our sense of reasoning?

“No one individual is a champion or indispensable in politics, but speaking to the noise makers, it’s only a fool that does not know and recognise one who has greater capacity and sagacity than he in politics.

“Only a prodigal son would make enemies for his father or would encourage his father to ignore or make enemies out of friends who have proven themselves worthy.

“What sense does it make when making new friends to not make extra effort to keep and sustain trusted and proven friends and allies? Especially if they have not offended or betrayed you.

“Who embraces his betrayers and enemies, even if they claim to have repented, while neglecting trusted friends and allies who stood by him/her and have proven their loyalty or taking them for granted?

“I’m asking those who attained PhD in identifying betrayal and pronouncing fatwas on betrayers but have suddenly forgotten their lesson notes.

“Unfortunately, naive and unschooled political toddlers and ignoramuses litter the entire space with noise in arrogant ignorance.

“Everything I say on this matter, I say just to please my own conscience and that’s it. Not that it will move any needle because the people who need to hear and heed are too far gone down the road of ignominy and shamelessness,” said Dr Uche Diala.

I wish everyone luck.

©️ Uche Diala