Nasir el-Rufai, former governor of Kaduna, says he was never a friend of President Bola Tinubu.
He said their lack of conviviality predated Tinubu’s election as the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential flagbearer in 2022.
In an interview, el-Rufai said public assumption of a deep personal bond between him and Tinubu was misplaced.
“There is an assumption that I was ever Tinubu’s friend. I was not. We never got along. We never had a personal relationship like the one I had with General Buhari,” he said.
The ex-minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) said his support for Tinubu’s presidential bid stemmed from two main factors — a request by some Islamic leaders from the south-west to back a Muslim candidate from the region, and his long-standing principle that power should rotate to the south after Buhari’s eight-year tenure, in line with a gentleman’s agreement within the party.
“For me, Tinubu was initially an aspirant of the party. And I was approached by certain Islamic stakeholders from the south-west and asked to support the emergence of a south-west Muslim presidential candidate. That was how even the discussion started,” el-Rufai said.
“I knew that we had an understanding with the south, or specifically with the south-west, that after eight years of Buhari, power would go to the south. It was a matter of principle I stood for. It wasn’t about Tinubu. He just happened to be a beneficiary of that.”
The politician added that once Tinubu became the APC standard-bearer ahead of the 2023 poll, he had no choice but to campaign for him in line with party loyalty.
“As soon as Tinubu won the primaries, it is my principle that I fight for the candidate of my party in every election to win. Whether I like the candidate or not.”
El-Rufai added that he and Tinubu did not experience a dramatic “fall out”. He said they simply never aligned on key issues.
“I don’t think we fell out. We just could not find areas of agreement. There was no equilibrium. We couldn’t agree,” he said.
He added that even if Tinubu’s offer to join his administration had materialised, he would have exited the federal cabinet “long ago” due to fundamental differences in approach and philosophy.
“Even if the offer Tinubu made to me had gone through, I’d have left the government long ago because the philosophy of this government is contrary to everything I had been taught as a Muslim, a northerner and as a Nigerian,” he said.
“These guys don’t care about public good. They didn’t come to govern, they came to enrich themselves.”