A former political adviser to President Olusegun Obasanjo has described the political dynamics involving Malam Nasir El-Rufai and Malam Nuhu Ribadu and referenced a previously undisclosed public opinion poll said to have influenced their political paths and relationships in internal party politics as early as 2006 and 2011.
The account was given in an interview aired on Arise News PrimeTime and reported by Vanguard News.
The interviewee, Akin Osuntokun, who served as Political Adviser to Obasanjo and as Director-General of the 2023 Labour Party Campaign Council, recalled working alongside El-Rufai, who was then Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, and Ribadu, who served as Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), among other senior officials.
Osuntokun said the group was convened into a caucus in 2006 to advise on the outgoing Obasanjo administration’s transition strategy.
He described the caucus’s mandate as engaging with media and public opinion on succession matters, among other duties.
According to Osuntokun, a proposal to recommend El-Rufai as a presidential succession option was discussed within the group.
In describing how the then President Olusegun Obasanjo approached succession, Osuntokun said that Obasanjo was ultimately inclined to support Umaru Musa Yar’Adua as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate for the 2007 general election, reflecting preferences expressed by northern governors at the time.
Osuntokun said that, within the caucus, El-Rufai and Ribadu were seen as strong public officers from the North and that they were close politically at the time.
He noted that Obasanjo began to avoid discussions on recommending El-Rufai as a presidential option once it became clear that was the direction of the caucus’s proposal.
Osuntokun said that, in the period leading to the 2011 general elections, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, then a key figure in the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), commissioned a public opinion survey that was not publicly disclosed.
According to Osuntokun’s account, the results of that survey showed greater public support for Ribadu than for El-Rufai in the context of choosing a presidential candidate for the ACN.
In the figures Osuntokun cited, Ribadu reportedly received 45 per cent support while El-Rufai received seven per cent. Osuntokun said the outcome was used by Tinubu as a basis to extend his support to Ribadu as a candidate.
Osuntokun described the polling and subsequent alignment as a pivotal moment in the evolution of El-Rufai and Ribadu’s political relationship.
He said the poll results, and the choice to back Ribadu as the ACN’s candidate, marked the beginning of what he characterised as a long-standing rupture between the two former allies.
Osuntokun said that, while the poll elevated Ribadu’s political profile within the ACN context, El-Rufai went on to serve as governor of Kaduna State for two terms.
He did not provide details on the subsequent political careers of each beyond those outcomes.
