On el-Rufai’s allegations against Tinubu, Ribadu

Today, Monday, 24, 2025, Malam Nasir el-Rufai appeared on Arise Television and accused President Bola Tinubu and the National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, of being behind his failed ministerial nomination.

Mr. el-Rufai said, among other things, that “the President did not want me in his cabinet.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that President Bola Tinubu nominated Malam Nasir el-Rufai as a minister and, as is constitutionally required, sent his name to the National Assembly for Senate confirmation.

During the Senate confirmation process, the National Assembly requested security clearance from both national and international security and intelligence agencies, and it was discovered that Nasir el-Rufai failed his security screening woefully.

He was considered a diplomatic liability to Nigeria because, on Thursday, February 7, 2019, Malam Nasir el-Rufai threatened European Union observers with death if they intervened in Nigeria’s impending Presidential elections, which were to take place on Saturday, February 16, 2019.

On that day, Mr. el-Rufai said: “We are waiting for the person who will come and intervene. They will go back in body bags because nobody will come to Nigeria and tell us how to run our country.”

So strongly did the European Union view this threat that they wrote officially to the Government of Nigeria to protest and issued a public statement censuring Nigeria.

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.

Thirdly, 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.

For example, he demolished the home of Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi and Inuwa Abdulkadir, the then North-west Zonal Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, who was an ally of Nasir el-Rufai’s political foe, Senator Shehu Sani.

Then, there is the demolition of another critic’s home under the guise that the house hosted a sex party. It was later established that the so-called sex party was a prank, and the prankster was not even the owner of the building. Yet, the el-Rufai regime destroyed Aisha Yakubu’s home.

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’.

For these and other reasons, Malam Nasir el-Rufai failed his security clearance and could not be cleared by the Senate of the National Assembly. He has himself to blame for this, not the President or the NSA.

Nigerians may recall that el-Rufai was not the only ministerial nominee who was refused clearance. Nasir el-Rufai and two others, including Danladi Sani, the Taraba state nominee, and Stella Okotete of Delta state, were rejected because security agencies refused to clear them.

None of the others has blamed the duo of the President or his NSA. None. Except el-Rufai.

Thereafter, el-Rufai withdrew his nomination and named his former Commissioner for Local Government, Jafaru Sani, as his replacement.

Nasir el-Rufai is bitter that his desire to be a minister was scuttled, and in his bitterness, he is attacking those who are bringing betterment to Nigeria.

Omokri, a former presidential aide, can be reached via @renoomokri on X