Former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, says he consulted President Muhammadu Buhari before he left the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Mr El-Rufai left the APC on 10 March after meeting the former president at his Kaduna residence on 7 March. He said he consulted the former president and several other personalities before making the decision.
“I consulted Buhari on Friday; I told him my reasons for leaving the APC and the responses of other people I consulted. (Mr) Buhari responded that he is now a statesman, but he knows my worries and prayed for me,” Mr El-Rufai said in an interview with BBC Hausa Service Thursday morning.
In the interview, Mr El-Rufai said he didn’t regret supporting President Bola Tinubu in the 2023 election but was disappointed by the president.
He also refuted a narrative that he left the ruling party because of his botched ministerial nomination.
“People said I left the APC because I wasn’t given a minister, but I never opted to be a minister in Tinubu’s cabinet. I knew people who paid money to get a ministerial appointment.
“The President begged me publicly to join his cabinet and threw up to me a challenge to fix the power sector, and I accepted the challenge because the president said he wanted to break the jinx and fix the power sector; I thought he was truthful, but I learned that he deceived himself”, the former governor said.
Mr El-Rufai campaigned for President Bola Tinubu’s election. He was thereafter nominated for a ministerial position, but the Senate withheld his confirmation, citing a report from the State Security Service (SSS).