A former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, has hit back at Daniel Bwala, the Special Adviser on policy communication to President Bola Tinubu, over questions surrounding the former’s stance with governance in the All Progressives Congress.
Last week, El-Rufai labelled the state of governance and opposition in the country as a “national emergency” and added that the APC had strayed from its core values.
“I am the founding member of the APC. But frankly, I no longer recognise the APC. No party organ has met in two years — no caucus, no NEC, nothing.
“I don’t even know if it is a one-man show. It is a zero-man show,” he said.
Bwala had reacted to El-Rufai’s diatribe, questioning the former governor whether he would have held the same views if he was a member of Tinubu’s government.
“My Senior brother, if you were to be in the government and cabinet, would you have held and expressed the same position?
“History is replete with examples. It is a government you participated in its formation, that you now want to unseat. Haba Mallam, a Ji soron Allah mana,” Bwala said.
However, In a post on Thursday on his verified X handle, El-Rufai told Bwala:
“I was a cabinet minister 22 years ago and made it clear to Asiwaju that I was not interested in any position in his future government.
“The manner in which you, latter-day converts to the Tinubu government, make an issue of something I never wanted in the first place reflects the level of your moral flexibility,” he said.
El-Rufai insisted that his position on the APC and Tinubu’s administration would not have changed, even if he had been part of the government.
“If I had remained in the Tinubu government, I would still speak out about the tragedy within a party I helped found, and the government that emerged from it—first privately with those concerned, and then publicly if no remedial actions were taken,” he added.
El-Rufai also knocked those he called “political mercenaries” in Tinubu’s government, referring to Reno Omokri, a former presidential aide, as Wendell Simlin.
“I am responding to you (Bwala) because I still think you are a decent person who may need a job, not in the class of Wendell Simlin or that Kaduna pretender whom our voters retired in 2019.
“These clowns are political mercenaries who receive humongous monthly stipends from the security vote to be the first to jump on X and other platforms to defend everything the Asiwaju government does or fails to do, no matter how indefensible it may be,” he said.
El-Rufai then told Bwala that in the human scale of accountability, allegiance to God came first.
“Enjoy your special adviser position, my brother, but remember that allegiance to God and country comes first in the human scale of accountability, before any person or authority,” he concluded.
