The Kaduna State former Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has faulted parameters adopted by President Bola Tinubu’s for the appointment of Ministers, heads of agencies and other public officeholders under the administration.
El-Rufai stressed the need for President Bola Tinubu to discontinue the strategy which he described as sectional politics reminiscent of the era of ex-President Muhammadu Buhari where lopsided appointments of his kinsmen into key federal positions was major issues that characterised the administration.
The former governor made the statement while reacting to an opinion by Nigerian-American writer, Farooq Kperogi, who alleged a plot by Tinubu to replace the head of NNPCL with yet another Yoruba kinsman.
“Two wrongs do not make a right. Sensible inclusion always trumps arrogant exclusion,” the ex-governor stated on his official social media handle yesterday.
Meanwhile, a human rights activist, Aisha Yesufu, has knocked the former governor over his comments, noting that the former governor was largely responsible for Tinubu’s emergence as the president.
“Whatever Tinubu is doing today, he got the memo from Buhari and his supporters who wanted to kill many of us because we said it was ICCIF! And you, El-Rufai, were one of those instrumental In Tinubu getting the critical number of votes he could use to rig the 2023 election, and you gleefully supported him,” Yesufu wrote while responding to the former governor’s comment.
Meanwhile, recall that El-Rufai turned down Tinubu’s ministerial position last year, following a hold on his endorsement by the Akpabio-led Senate.
Some of his opponents swore the hold was due to el-Rufai’s handling of ethnic and sectarian clashes that overshadowed most of his tenure as a two-term governor, while others cited the politician’s insinuated propensity for corruption and betrayal of allies.
Tinubu has faced allegations of stacking top federal positions with people of his Yoruba ethnic stock. This action evoked recollections of Buhari’s near-exclusive installation of only northern Muslims into top federal offices throughout his eight-year tenure between 2015 and 2023.
Recently, the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) and the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) criticised Mr Tinubu for favouring the southwest in his key appointments, accusing the president of destructive sectionalism and lopsidedness.
