Ex-governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufa’i, has ridiculed an erstwhile Presidential media aide, Reno Omokri amid the backlash between him and supporters of President Bola Tinubu.
VoL reports that the face-face began when el-Rufa’i shared and supported an article by a frontline columnist, Farooq Kperogi accusing the President of recruiting his tribesmen into the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, (NNPCL).
In the article, titled: “Tinubu’s Buharisation of the NNPC,” Kperogi described as embarrassing the president’s “relentless Yoruba-centric take-over of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, (NNPCL)”, as the Northerners did under the immediate-past administration Muhammadu Buhari.
However, in a recent post, el-Rufa’i slammed Reno Omokri over comments accusing him of being frustrated for not being appointed a minister by President Bola Tinubu.
In the post, el-Rufa’i described Omokri as “a political mercenary retained by any paying person or government”. He also referenced a past case of alleged identity theft, whereby an American woman accused Omokri of using her son’s name, Wendell Simlin, in an attempt to link the former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Lamiɗo Sanusi, to the terrorist group, Boko Haram.
Omokri had on Sunday tweeted: “Nasir el-Rufa’i is just being clever by half in expressing his frustration at not being made a minister, by attacking the funding of a rail project in Lagos by the Federal Government. Under Buhari, Nigeria took out a $2 billion loan to build a railway in Niger Republic. Did el-Rufa’i complain, then?
“Not at all! Today, that same Niger is now hostile towards Nigeria. If we can build a railway worth $2 billion (which was 10% of the Niger Republic’s GDP then) for a foreign country, simply because General Buhari’s father was from the Niger Republic, why shouldn’t the Federal Government contribute towards building a railway in Lagos State?
“After all, 8% of Nigeria’s population lives in Lagos, while 35% of our GDP comes from Lagos, which contributes ₦44.17 trillion to our economy. How much does Niger Republic contribute to our GDP? Did the Federal Government under Jonathan not also spend $1.2 billion building the Abuja-Kaduna super fast 187-kilometre railway?”
In response, el-Rufa’i shared pictures on X of Omokri protesting against Tinubu’s election and making unflattering remarks about him. He wrote: “The interesting lifecycle of Wendell Simlin, also sometimes retained as a political mercenary by any person or government that can pay”.
The former governor’s comments sparked reactions within the political sphere, particularly among All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftains, with some viewing his remarks as an affront to President Tinubu’s administration.
Recall that a former lawmaker representing Kaduna-Central, Senator Shehu Sani, criticised el-Rufa’i for commenting on alleged nepotism in the NNPCL.
Sani accused el-Rufa’i of hypocrisy, stating that he failed to criticise former President Buhari for nepotism during his eight-year tenure. On his X handle, Sani posted: “There were people who were silent when Buhari was filling political offices with his kinsmen, and have now found their voices to speak out when the equation doesn’t favour them. Let’s not make reference to the nepotism that marginalised Southern Kaduna for eight years. Kaduna was an apartheid state for eight years.”.
Sani added that while anyone could critique Tinubu on alleged lopsided appointments or nepotism, el-Rufa’i lacked moral standing.
