Blast from the Past: El-Rufai reveals how hostilities between him, Jonathan started, worsened

Kaduna Governor Nasir El-Rufai has revealed the genesis of the sour relationship between him and his former friend and ex-President Goodluck Jonathan.

His tell-all in a recent interview could only confirm there’s no permanent friend in politics—but permanent interest.

He claimed Jonathan was his very close friend from when the first south-south president was the deputy governor of Bayelsa State.

But, in an interview published in The Point, the Kaduna governor said Jonathan was going to jail him because he was told, and he believed, El-Rufai was a threat to his reelection in 2011.

El-Rufai, however, dated his political hazards as far back as 2006—when he was FCT minister, and the rumored candidate then President Olusegun Obasanjo pencilled down for the presidency.

That first pitted him against then Katsina Gov. Umar Yar Adua.

“My name being mentioned with regard to presidential aspiration has been on since 2006, since I was running the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja” he said.

People were speculating that the then President Olusegun Obasanjo was preparing to hand over to me. It was part of the reasons I was exiled. Late President Yar’Adua was told, according to those around him, that Obasanjo shortlisted two names to succeed him – Yar’Adua’s name and mine. It was totally false.

“But Yar’ Adua believed that, and he thought that I was a threat, and all the hullabaloo, lies and persecution that got me exiled for 23 months were as a result of that.”

While the possibility of him being exiled again is remote as 2023 approaches, his name has not ceased to be associated with the presidency.

He has denied nursing any ambition for the 2023 presidential election by fronting for the southwest in the APC zoning arrangement.

That might not exactly be his call to be made.