{"id":241379,"date":"2026-02-10T07:13:37","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T07:13:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/i-was-never-tinubus-friend-el-rufai-clarifies-reason-for-fall-out-with-president\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T07:13:37","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T07:13:37","slug":"i-was-never-tinubus-friend-el-rufai-clarifies-reason-for-fall-out-with-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/i-was-never-tinubus-friend-el-rufai-clarifies-reason-for-fall-out-with-president\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I Was Never Tinubu\u2019s Friend\u2019 \u2013 El-Rufai Clarifies Reason For Fall Out With President"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai<\/strong>, has explained that his differences with President Bola Tinubu <\/a>stem from a philosophical difference in governance.<\/p>\n

Abia Radio News<\/strong> reports that El-Rufai, in an interview with Trust TV, said he and Tinubu <\/a>never had a close personal relationship, stressing that his initial support for the President was driven by principle rather than personal affinity.<\/span><\/p>\n

El-Rufai, a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), emphasised that the disagreement with Tinubu <\/a>was never personal.<\/p>\n

He also noted that even if he had accepted Tinubu\u2019<\/strong>s ministerial position, he would have left the government because of those fundamental philosophical differences.<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cI was never Tinubu\u2019s friend. We never had a personal relationship like the one I had with General Buhari.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI was approached by certain Islamic stakeholders from the southwest to support the emergence of a southwest Muslim presidential candidate.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThat is how the discussions started. As governor of Kaduna and one of the founders of APC, I knew there was an understanding that after 8 years of Buhari, power would return to the south. It wasn\u2019t about Tinubu; he was merely an accidental beneficiary.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t fall out; we didn\u2019t find areas of agreement. I am in government to serve the public and deliver results not to enrich myself or appoint cronies.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe philosophy of this government is contrary to everything I\u2019ve been taught as a Muslim, a northerner, and a Nigerian. They came to govern the cake, to enrich themselves. We are different people parallel lines that will never meet.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

El-Rufai also stated that his commitment to party unity after Tinubu <\/a>won the All Progressives Congress (APC) primaries was based on his principles.<\/p>\n

He stressed, \u201cIt is a principle of mine to fight for the candidate of my party in every election, whether I like the candidate or not.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that he emerged as the party\u2019s candidate meant I would give everything to ensure he won.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\n <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, has explained that his differences with President Bola Tinubu stem from a philosophical difference in governance. Abia Radio News reports that El-Rufai, in an interview with Trust TV, said he and Tinubu never had a close personal relationship, stressing that his initial support for the President was driven […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":241380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[187,1356],"class_list":["post-241379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-bola-tinubu","tag-nasir-el-rufai"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Nasir-El-Rufai-and-President-Bola-Tinubu-1024x576.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}