Following his controversial remarks last week on a live television programme, a renegade chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Nasir El-Rufai, may look in the direction of the Labour Party for a much-needed platform to pursue the progressive values he said were once upheld in the ruling party.
El-Rufai has become a vocal critic – even though he claims not to be one – of the President of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu, and many critics of the former Kaduna State Governor insist that he is so eaten up with regret because of his inability to land a lucrative ministerial appointment in Tinubu’s cabinet.
The 65-year-old El-Rufai, a former ministerial nominee who was in 2023 eyeing a seat in Tinubu’s then about-to-be-formed cabinet, told anxious Nigerians that it was the Commander-in-Chief who asked that he serve in his administration.
The Ahmadu Bello University-trained Quantity Surveyor also said that contrary to what is widely believed about him not being offered a ministerial portfolio, it was not his prerogative to be a cabinet member.
The scorned technocrat-turned-politician went on to slam the APC for a plethora of reasons, including that the party had left him, even though he had not left it.
El-Rufai also reiterated that he was not in a hurry to leave the APC.
According to him, he will only be forced to jump ship if the party continues to deviate from the values the founding fathers of the party laid down.
However, as things stand, the swirl of questions around which political party El-Rufai would pitch his tent with, should there be a future APC roadblock, have not been defused.
When he was granting the television interview – his first since he waved governance goodbye in May 2023 before unceremoniously leaving the political stage after alleged security reports put paid to his dream of becoming a minister – El-Rufai pontificated about main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party, quipping that it will not be the party of refuge for him.
“I have not left the APC but the APC has left me. I don’t know where I will end up if the APC doesn’t come back to where we started.
“But one thing I can tell you for sure is that PDP is not a party that I will go to, never. I have thought about that. I’ve decided that long ago, and nothing has changed.
“In fact, if anything, PDP has gotten worse. Rule out the PDP,” he said.
“Tinubu is politically more powerful now and Nigerians are starting to embrace his reforms. So, good luck to El-Rufai if he decides to join the Labour Party”
Although El-Rufai failed to let Nigerians in on the party that will enjoy his patronage, analysts insist that it is a safe bet that the Labour Party will likely be the new home to the embattled former Federal Capital Territory Minister, and with reason.
During the 2023 presidential election, Peter Obi, an influential politician from the South East, led the charge for the Labour Party, but the party, after so much huffing and puffing about the election, finished the race in third place.
Obi did remarkably well in the South East, Lagos State and in a good chunk of some North Central states, but he faltered where it mattered most – in Nigeria’s core North.
The former Anambra State Governor’s running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, a Northerner, did not pack a commensurate political punch in his region and it reflected in the overall results.
Some analysts agree that a formidable Northern politician like El-Rufai, also a former Director General of the Bureau of Public Enterprise, could change all that for Obi in a future presidential election by potentially helping the Labour Party and Obi to flip most of the states in the North.
And taking into considering the news that the National Chairman of the Labour Party, Julius Abure – while referring to Obi – has implicitly stated that the party is the only one that has “produced its candidate” for the 2027 presidential election, El-Rufai would not have any qualms working with the leader of the Obidient movement.
El-Rufai has even seemingly made it known to Nigerians that he confides in Obi, and vice versa, on matters relating to the state of affairs of opposition political parties.
Last month in Abuja at the National Conference of Strengthening Democracy in Nigeria, which was aimed at discussing pathways to good governance and political integrity in the country, El-Rufai, among other things, said that Obi had informed him that like the PDP – which is enmeshed in crisis – mercenaries were hired to cause crisis in the Labour Party.
“There are internal mercenaries in the PDP, hired and motivated to destroy the party.
“The Labour Party is also facing similar issues. Peter Obi himself told me, ‘I don’t know what’s happening in the party I contested with’,” he said.
What will, however, throw a spanner in the works of such bold joining of political forces between El-Rufai and Obi is the perception of the former among the latter’s supporters, the Obidient movement.
Coming from the APC, El-Rufai is a known opponent of the Obidient movement and will be viewed as an Obi enemy but, be that as it may, the National Coordinator of the Obidient movement, Tanko Yunusa, says there is no cause for alarm.
Yunusa, when he was asked whether El-Rufai would be welcomed to the Labour Party considering that Obi has been made the party’s flag bearer-in-waiting, clarified that he does not speak for the Labour Party.
The 2019 presidential candidate of the National Conscience Party said El-Rufai would, without doubt, be welcomed to the Obidient movement.
Yunusa added that the APC chieftain can work with Obi on the condition that he (El-Rufai) shared the “aspirations and principles” that were behind the movement.
“I cannot speak for the Labour Party. I don’t speak for the Labour Party at the moment. I only major my words on the Obidient movement, specifically.
“So, if El-Rufai wants to join us in the Obidient movement, he is more than welcome.
“And as long as he shares the aspirations and principles that are behind the Obidient movement, which are what we are housing ourselves with right now, he is more than welcome (to work with Obi).”
A political strategist, Muyiwa Bello, said of El-Rufai, “His spirit and soul have left the APC but his body is with the ruling party.
“Do you know what every politician is doing now? Politicians now are either strategising or restrategising, and as we are approaching 2027, if you wait to devise a course of action that will make you stay afloat, you will be swept away by political currents.
“This is why I don’t blame El-Rufai. He is fighting for his political future and will swim with sharks if necessary. But that said, the Labour Party will do him no good.
“What I don’t understand is why he is fighting the President. The President has never lost an election before and 2027 will cement that legacy.
“The President, when he didn’t enjoy power of incumbency, won the 2023 presidential election against all the odds. What do you think will happen if he seeks reelection in 2027? He will likely beat all-comers.
“Tinubu is politically more powerful now and Nigerians are starting to embrace his reforms. So, good luck to El-Rufai if he decides to join the Labour Party.”
Another analyst, Reginald Anene, said that even if El-Rufai was Obi’s running mate in the 2027 presidential election, the ticket would turn into a fiasco because the former Kaduna Governor does not rank among “the top ten real Northern political powers.”
Anene added, “Even in his Kaduna State, El-Rufai has lost relevance. He will never ever be able to win Kaduna South that is populated by Christians, because they detest him and Tinubu’s tenure has favoured southern Kaduna.
“So, where is this so-called influence of El-Rufai coming from?
“Kano is between Abdullahi Ganduje and Rabiu Kwankwaso.
“You go to Sokoto, it is Aminu Tambuwal and in the North East, El-Rufai cannot even encroach there – Borno State is under lock and key for Vice President, Kashim Shettima, and current Governor, Babagana Zulum.”
