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These 2 advisers derail Buhari, El-Rufai confirms

Published

9 years ago

March 17, 2017

Kaduna Governor Nasir El-Rufai has hit hard on his hero and President Muhammadu Buhari for loosening up two years into a four-year run the APC promised would change Nigeria for the better.

Written last September when the bad blood between the presidency and the party leader worsened, the letter hit the public space Thursday.

It was a sequel to an earlier missive the governor forwarded to the president.

“In very blunt terms, Mr. President, our APC administration has not only failed to manage expectations of a populace that expected overnight ‘change’ but has failed to deliver even mundane matters of governance outside of our successes in fighting BH insurgency and corruption,” he said in the 30-page memo.

El-Rufai said supporters of the president and the party also believed the government was doing badly.

“This situation is compounded by the fact that some officials around you seem to believe and may have persuaded you that current APC State Governors must have no say and must also be totally excluded from political consultations, key appointments and decision-making at the federal level,” he said.

“These politically-naive ‘advisers’ fail to realize that it is the current and former state governors that may, as members of NEC of the APC, serve as an alternative locus of power to check the excesses of the currently lopsided and perhaps ambivalent NWC.”

The governor later went on to finger Buhari’s chief of staff and secretary to the government of the federation as the architects of the administration’s colorless showing.

“The two officials whose titles may enable them function as such generally alienate those that contributed to our success,” he said.

According to him, the SGF is not only inexperienced in public service but lacking in humility, in addition to being insensitive and rude to virtually most of the party leaders, ministers and governors.

“The Chief of Staff is totally clueless about the APC and its internal politics at best as he was neither part of its formation nor a participant in the primaries, campaign, and elections,” El-Rufai said.

“In summary, neither of them has the personality, experience, and the reach to manage your politics nationally or even regionally.”

He suggested Buhari consider communicating with the Nigerian public about his vision – the government’s plans, strategy, and roadmap to take the country out of the current, dire economic situation, suggesting a five-year national development strategy and plan urgently.

“The President should speak to the nation – something akin to a State of the Union address on December 1 or January 1.”

Although political observers see el-Rufai preening up to succeed Buhari in 2019, the governor claimed he was just being loyal telling the president to shape up.

He said he believes Buhari is all Nigeria needs now and in the short run to save it from collapsing, and to help the north regain its lost confidence so it stop leeching the Nigerian federation.

First lady Aisha Buhari last year also spilled her gut in an interview with BBC where she revealed certain power-mongers in the innermost wheel of Buhari’s presidency have derailed the APC government.

Her husband, however, dismissed the revelation as some kitchen talk.