El-rufai’s meeting with Ribadu, SDP secretariat visit elicits reactions

Varying reactions have continued to trail the meeting between former Kaduna state governor Nasir El-rufai and the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, as well as the subsequent visit of El-rufai to the secretariat of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Abuja, with the two incidents increasing the permutations towards the 2027 presidential election.

Daily Trust gathered that the former Kaduna state governor, who has been relatively silent since his nomination as minister was rejected by the senate last year, hosted Ribadu, Kashim Ibrahim-Imam, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as well as Shehu Musa Gabam, the national chairman of the SDP, and others to a Ramadan iftar (the breaking of fast) at his Abuja home on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, it was gathered that El-rufai decided to return the visit of Gabam, who was described as a long-term friend.

Receiving El-rufai with some members of the SDP National Working Committee (NWC), Gabam said El-rufai is a friend and respected national figure with a rich and remarkable political pedigree.

“This is a welcome development that concerned Nigerians are cross-fertilizing ideas on how to salvage the nation’s present unpleasant socio-economic challenges of the times. The prevailing circumstances call for bipartisan and robust collaborations that transcend ethnic and religious lines to address the nation’s woes and find sustainable ways to redeem the situation,” Gabam said at the meeting.

He also said that Nigerians need a leader like El-rufai with a high political pedigree to achieve the needed transformation.

In one of the videos of the visit obtained by Daily Trust, El-Rufai was heard saying he does not care if the photos and videos of the visit were posted on X (formerly Twitter) when an unidentified person told the photographer not to upload the photos and videos of the visit.

The photos from the visit as well as the ones from the iftar with the NSA have continued to generate different reactions on social media, with many commentators linking the visits to permutations of the 2027 presidential election.

In one of the posts on his visit to the SDP chairman, a user of the microblogging app, Okakwu Umuozoma, wrote, “Something is cooking,” to which another user, Muh’d Haruna, wrote, “Malam El-rufai’s visit to the SDP headquarters wasn’t about him defecting to that party after all! He was just visiting a friend.”

As it relates to his meeting with Ribadu, a user, Oseni Azeez Owolabi, wrote, “The Nigerian government really misses Malam El-rufai. I don’t know what President Tinubu is thinking, but I definitely know that he will be called back one day.”

Another user, Joseph Koye, wrote, “To prepare him for reins after 2031? An El-rufai presidency is a possibility, a mouthwatering one at that.”

Recall that the Senate, while rejecting El-Rufai’s nomination last year, cited security reports against the former Kaduna governor, leading many commentators to suggest that Ribadu, his long-term friend, could have intervened but chose not to.

Many had insinuated that the reason for the rejection of El-rufai could be connected with the permutations that there were fears in certain quarters that the former FCT Minister could become too popular within the party structure and might therefore be a frontrunner for the presidency in 2031, when power is expected to return to the north.

But reacting on his X account, Muyiwa Adekeye, the media adviser to El-rufai, said the speculations that have trailed the two visits were nothing but an “unhealthy obsession with politics,” insisting there was nothing political that should be insinuated from the visits.

“People have personal histories and relationships that predate political affiliations. It cannot be a hallmark of civilisation to have friends from within only your political party. When people visit each other or mingle across party lines, it is because human relationships exist, distinct from the political or the partisan.”

He said El-Rufai “is known for being open and forthright. If he had any political decisions to make, it would not be in character to let them be subject to speculation.”