Nigeria’s presidency on Monday accused former Kaduna State governor Nasir el-Rufai of leading a “gang of desperados” plotting against President Bola Tinubu, dismissing his recent claims that Tinubu could not win re-election in 2027.
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, said those calling for Tinubu’s removal were “power-hungry politicians” who feel politically displaced.
“Nasir El-Rufai confesses here that four years is not enough for a political office holder to make ‘meaningful changes’. Yet he is at the forefront of the gang of political desperados plotting President Tinubu’s ouster, just two years into his tenure. What a contradiction!” Onanuga said in a statement posted on his X handle.
El-Rufai had said in a Sunday night interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme that Tinubu would not survive a runoff in the 2027 presidential election.
“I was governor of Kaduna State; I was one of Bola Tinubu’s biggest campaigners, but I couldn’t deliver the state to him. Bola Tinubu himself couldn’t win his state with his own governor in place,” El-Rufai said.
He added: “The worst-case scenario in the 2027 elections is that no winner will emerge in the first round. We may have to go for a runoff, and Bola Tinubu will not be on the ballot for the runoff because he will, at best, be third in the election. He has no pathway to win. I have done the maths, I have done the analysis; he cannot, he will, at best, be third.”
El-Rufai likened Tinubu’s position to that of former President Goodluck Jonathan, who lost to Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 despite incumbency advantages. “Invite ex-President Goodluck Jonathan for a chat, and ask him if he didn’t have all these in 2015, and we got him out. Is the case still the same? Similar to 2015? It’s worse,” he said.
Onanuga countered that Tinubu’s administration had made “meaningful changes” in two years, citing increased foreign reserves, stock market growth, harmonisation of the exchange rate and four consecutive months of inflation decline.
“Phenomenal wealth creation in the stock market has seen ASI skyrocket from 53,000 points to over 140,000 points. Over N26 trillion in additional wealth has been created in the market under Tinubu’s watch,” he said.
The adviser also pointed to reforms in education and social welfare, including student loans through NELFUND and cash transfers to vulnerable households. He said states and local governments were receiving more federal allocations, enabling them to launch capital projects and create jobs.
“The governors said they have never had it so good,” Onanuga noted, adding: “Yet, these power-hungry politicians want the President, who has achieved so much, to be removed, all because they have become politically displaced and irrelevant. May they never succeed in their plot against our nation and people.”
Onanuga warned that El-Rufai’s past remarks would haunt him when campaigning begins. “Please save the video. We shall confront Nasir with it when electioneering starts,” he wrote.