El-Rufai should stop over-rating himself, says Akande

Former presidential aide and journalist, Laolu Akande, has described former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai as a divisive figure in Nigerian politics.

Akande made these remarks while speaking on Sunrise Daily, a Channels TV program, on Thursday.

Akande did not hold back in his assessment of El-Rufai’s political career, particularly his tenure as governor of Kaduna State.

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He asserted that El-Rufai, despite being a hands-on politician, had overrated his own abilities.

“The former Kaduna Gov deserves his accolades as a brilliant technocrat and one of the more hands-on politicians in Nigeria. But he added that “But El-Rufai seems to have overrated himself tremendously.

“Second point about el-Rufai is the arrogance that he seems to take up saying that ‘Oh we allowed the South to have power.’ Who does el-Rufai think he is to be talking to the whole nation in that kind of arrogance?” No

Akande’s remarks reflect lingering concerns about the former governor’s approach to governance and national unity.

Speaking on the recent All Progressives Congress (APC) national caucus meeting held at the Presidential Villa, Akande downplayed any controversy surrounding it, noting that such meetings were not exclusive to President Bola Tinubu’s administration.

“It’s a tradition that predated the Tinubu administration. During the Buhari/Osinbajo era when I served [as presidential aide], they held the meetings there. I’m sure they inherited it from the PDP. So, it’s not peculiar to the Tinubu administration to the extent that the President is the host of the meeting. I don’t think it’s a big deal. I think it’s ideal to separate it when we can. It’s not a deal breaker. It’s not something that we should be banging the table about.”

Akande’s remarks suggest that while such meetings at the Villa may not be ideal, they are not unprecedented and should not be a major cause for concern.

Regarding the APC National Executive Committee (NEC) passing a vote of confidence on President Tinubu for his economic reforms, Akande took a measured stance.

He acknowledged that Tinubu still had significant challenges ahead and that the vote of confidence was largely symbolic.

“I am going to give the president all the time that he has won the mandate for before I start to make conclusions. I think there is a lot more that needs to be done. There’s still a long road to go. I get a sense that they are beginning to navigate through the issues. But, we still have very serious problems in the area of coordination. So, it’s not yet uhuru. The president’s job is still cut out for him. It’s still ahead of him.”

Akande also described the vote of confidence as a routine political exercise, primarily aimed at maintaining party unity.

“The vote of confidence, again, it’s not a parliamentary democracy, they’ll always give the president a vote of confidence. It’s like a regular thing. That’s not a big deal. But, it helps to rally the base of the APC to say that ‘look all of us we are one even though we’ve not held NEC in almost two years.’ It’s just the routine. Let’s have more engagements with the party organs. Let the party become seriously involved in working with the government. I don’t see a lot of interactions. And I have said it before, there is the need for the party, the presidency, and the National Assembly to have some kind of a forum.”

Akande also addressed the absence of key APC figures, including former President Muhammadu Buhari, former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, former Governors Rotimi Amaechi, and Nasir El-Rufai, from the NEC meeting. He suggested that the political realities had changed for some of them.

“Anybody that still pretends former Governors Amaechi and el-Rufai are still members of APC is just fooling his or herself. It’s very clear as daylight. This is the foolishness that defines Nigerian politics.”

“President Buhari just felt that his presence is not going to be a big deal. Vice President Osinbajo is out of the country. He’s in South Africa as we speak.”

“18% chunk of any budget is very significant. We just hope that other world leaders and other countries will be able to effectively resist this real bullying that is going on generally in the world.”

He emphasized the interdependent nature of global health, using the COVID-19 pandemic as an example of how diseases do not respect national borders.

“The nature of our world, especially when we are talking about health matters, is so interdependent. You don’t have lines that are so distinctively cut. Look at what happened in COVID-19. Our people travelling to the US, from other places. So, the issue of trying to fund a global health agency like WHO shouldn’t be the kind of thing that you should just pull out from because you think it doesn’t affect America. No. Americans are going to be travelling out of America. People are still going to be traveling into America just like we saw. COVID did not start from America. People brought it there. That tells you those borders are not very tight.”