El-Rufai bombs Tinubu,says President never wanted him in his cabinet.

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    By Victor Olubiye

    In an explosive interview on Arise TV on Monday, February, 24, 2025, former Governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir El-Rufai has disclosed that contrary to widespread belief, the national assembly didn’t reject him as a ministerial nominee.

   Rather, he posited that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu changed his mind regarding having him in his (Tinubu’s) cabinet. 

   “Please don’t believe the story that the national assembly rejected me. The president did not want me in his cabinet. He changed his mind. “

   What was the security issue? I had been a governor for 8 years in one of the most difficult states in the country. I had been a minister twenty years earlier. I have been in public life for the last 25 years.

   “Where is the report? What about other ministers who are far less qualified, less experienced with huge controversies around them, but they scaled through because the president made a call”

   The former Kaduna governor further revealed that the president begged him publicly for him to suspend his plans for ministerial appointment.

   “The president publicly appealed to me to put my plans on hold, and through two months of negotiation, we finally agreed that he would nominate me as minister,” he said.

   He rounded off the interview by saying“There were certain conditions I attached to that. I think along the line either the president changed his mind or something else."

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