By Achadu Gabriel, Kaduna
Nasir El-Rufai, the immediate past Governor of Kaduna State, has responded to a criticism from former presidential media aide, Reno Omokri, following his remarks about President Bola Tinubu.
El-Rufai had earlier reacted to an article by columnist Farooq Kperogi, who accused Tinubu of appointing his tribesmen to positions in the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC). Titled “Tinubu’s Buharisation of the NNPC,” Kperogi described the President’s actions as a continuation of the “Yorubacentric” takeover of the NNPC, similar to the northern dominance during President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
El-Rufai responded to Kperogi’s article by stating, “Two wrongs do not make a right. Sensible inclusion always trumps arrogant exclusion.”
This comment, however, sparked backlash from the Presidency and Tinubu’s supporters, including Senator Shehu Sani, El-Rufai’s political rival. Senator Sani argued that El-Rufai had no moral authority to criticize Tinubu, accusing the former Governor of turning Kaduna into an apartheid state during his tenure. He wrote on social media, “There were people who were silent when Buhari was fielding political offices with his kinsmen and have now found their voice when the equation doesn’t favour them. Let’s not make reference to the nepotism that marginalised Southern Kaduna for eight years. Kaduna was an apartheid state for eight years.”
Reno Omokri also joined the fray, launching a series of social media posts attacking El-Rufai. He mocked the former Governor, writing, “Just imagine, Nasir El-Rufai, a man who publicly admitted to using government money to pay killer herdsmen, is today complaining that the Tinubu administration is using government money to build a railway in Lagos. Maybe he would have preferred if the money was used to pay Boko Haram.”
In his response, El-Rufai fired back at Omokri, sharing old photos of the former presidential media aide, calling Tinubu a “drug baron” in the build-up to the presidential election. El-Rufai’s post read, “The interesting lifecycle of Wendell Simlin, also sometimes retained as a political mercenary by any person or government that can pay.”
