- A development that seems to have been overshadowed by the flurry of political intrigues is the happenings in the family of former Kaduna State governor Nasir El-Rufai, where allegiance and loyalty are being put to the test.
The year 2027, is a most pregnant and baleful one, for people and country. The questionable endorsement of President Bola Tinubu for a second term in less than two years into office, the fear of Nigeria becoming a one-party state, the dubious wave of defection, the intra and inter-party wrangling, the strident noise of a coalition and the likelihood of its materialisation and the devil-may-care aura of desperados in the political space, all add up to create suspense and drama.
However, a development that seems to have been overshadowed by the flurry of political intrigues is the happenings in the family of former Kaduna State governor Nasir El-Rufai, where allegiance and loyalty are being put to the test. Recall that the agitation for a coalition began to gain traction after El-Rufai quit the All Progressives Congress for the Social Democratic Party (SDP). While he has been in the forefront of the move to oust the APC from power, his son is still a member of the party he once venerated but now publicly lampooned.
This has raised questions about El-Rufai’s true intentions. His son is a member of the Nigerian lower legislative chamber and the House of Representatives and was elected on the platform of the APC. At the just concluded summit of the APC summit in Abuja. The younger El-Rufai was all smiles as he and members of the party gleefully endorsed Tinubu for a second term in office. This is a clear departure from the political path his father is treading.
The difference in political affiliation between the senior and junior El-Rufai has raised a few eyebrows. Many wonder if the shift in allegiance is spurred by true conviction and genuine creed or a script being acted out by the family. Trust, conviction and goodwill are not traits that many attribute to Nasir El-Rufai; this uninspiring public perception of him has cast suspicion on his role in the coalition. Some have opined his purported rift with the APC hierarchy was staged to make his defection from the party plausible and then infiltrate the opposition using coalition talks and then undermine them from within. It’s all part of Tinubu’s plot to severely weaken the opposition and pave the way for his reelection without any obstacles, they say.
But if El-Rufai is truly disenchanted with APC and Tinubu and his exit from the party is spurred by his desire and determination to end its rule, and he is not a mole secreted among opposition politicians like many of his traducers and detractors would have us believed, does that not put him and his son, who remains a member of the same party he’s trying to oust from power, on a collision course and break the sacred familial bond between a father and his son?
We’re still a long way from 2027 but happenings in the El-Rufai family and the relationship between the fat, her and the son as they fond themselvesides different side of the p,olitical divide will continue to dominate political discourse.
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