Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, has called out former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, for what he terms a glaring contradiction.
Onanuga points to a recently resurfaced video clip being in circulation, in which El-Rufai asserts that a single four year term is insufficient for any political office holder to implement meaningful change.
This statement, Onanuga argues, completely undermines El-Rufai’s current involvement in efforts to unseat President Bola Tinubu, who is only two years into his first term.
El-Rufai on Sunday during an appearance on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, El-expressed strong skepticism on a single term of four years being proposed by Peter Obi and Amaechi, saying such commitment is unrealistic.
He argued that, based on his experience as a two-term governor, as well as that of Obi and Amaechi—who also served eight-year tenures—real governance requires more time to deliver tangible results.
“On the question of people coming out and say I will do one term, I don’t think anyone believes them. I don’t think it is right, and frankly, as someone that has been governor for eight years, and Amaechi and Peter Obi have both been governors for eight years, they know the time it takes to make meaningful change in government. So, four years is not enough.”
However, in his response, the presidential aide described El-Rufai as a ringleader within a “gang of political desperados” who are actively plotting to remove President Tinubu from office.
Onanuga contended that this move is not born of genuine concern for national progress but is rather a desperate act by politicians who have become “politically displaced and irrelevant” since the last election. He frames the plot as a direct assault on the nation’s stability, motivated solely by a hunger for power.
This accusation is set against a backdrop of what Onanuga portrays as an era of unprecedented achievement for the Tinubu administration. He presents a detailed catalogue of economic successes to bolster his argument, including a stock market that has created over N26 trillion in additional wealth and a significant growth in GDP.
He further listed harmonised exchange rates, increased investment inflows, a consecutive four-month decline in inflation, and record-breaking revenue allocations to state and local governments as evidence of solid progress.
Onanuga concluded his remarks with a firm dismissal of the plotters’ ambitions and a strategic promise to the public. He declared that El-Rufai’s own words from the viral video would be used to confront him directly when the next electioneering period begins.
Discussion about this post