THE GAME IS ON FOR 2027 ALREADY.
NIGERIANS , FORGET ABOUT GOVERNANCE.
El-Rufai is one politician with whom you will never be unsure of where you stand. He never hides his mouth and always comes out with his full chest on any side he chooses. All well, and great.
The problem is that like a certain mammal, he easily goes back to his vomit.
He opposed Buhari bitterly in 2007 when he supported Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in PDP and then turned around to support the man ahead of 2015 to kick Jonathan out. Buhari forgave and forgot.
El-Rufai went to Lagos in 2019 and boasted about how he retired four godfathers in Kaduna, then urged Lagos to also retire their godfathers – good message, Tinubu heard it.
El-Rufai attended Aregbesola’s 60th birthday webinar and said “I want to congratulate my brother, Ogbeni (Aregbesola), on his birthday. You know I’m your man any day. I’m not Asiwaju’s man and you are Asiwaju’s man, but I am your man any day. Asiwaju and I have differences but you and I have no differences.” Tinubu heard it.
He then turned around to campaign heavily for Tinubu in the North and thought to become the most powerful northerner in Tinubu’s administration. But some men neither forgive nor forget and if you bring out a gun against them, be very sure it is loaded, and don’t miss.
I think El-Rufai is in the battle of his political life and he finally has to take a firmly courageous stand for probably the first time in his accidental political career. He was initially loyal to our Atiku then betrayed him for Obasanjo. He endorsed Yar’Adua but the Katsina blueblood saw through him and he ran into self-exile for two years until the very day Yar’Adua died – May 5, 2010.
Few days after on May 11, El-Rufai visited PGEJ in Aso Rock and afterwards told the state house press that GEJ should contest the 2011 election. The speculations were that GEJ would run the 2011 elections with him but on May 19, Jonathan’s announced Gov. Namadi Sambo as Vice-President and El-Rufai ran to join Buhari in CPC for the 2011 election in which his former ally, Nuhu Ribadu, also ran for President on the platform of ACN. (Certain closed door statements he made then about Ribadu may be why the current NSA is working hard against him now.)
Ahead of 2015, El-Rufai rode on the political wave of Buhari in the North and became Governor of Kaduna. For 2023, he backed Rotimi Amaechi but then latched onto Bola Tinubu after the primaries. Now Tinubu is in power and Tinubu knows how to use power.
Tinubu is not Jonathan who will allow him return from exile and watch him maneuver the polity against him. Tinubu is not Yar’Adua who will allow him go into self-exile. Tinubu will fight him through proxies, weaken him from below and then deliver the final blow. This has started already.
El-Rufai will need to take a break from his nomadic political style of “fight today, friends tomorrow” and take a clear stand in the next couple of weeks and months. The political choices before him appear limited but Tinubu is a relentless enemy who only very few politicians can withstand and El-Rufai, by himself, is not one of them.
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