Former Kaduna State Governor Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai has detonated a political grenade at the heart of Nigeria’s ruling establishment, bluntly declaring that he was never personally friends with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and that his vocal, high-risk support for Tinubu’s 2023 presidential ambition was never about loyalty, affection, or shared political destiny. It was, in El-Rufai’s own words, nothing more than party discipline and adherence to a zoning arrangement — a deal, not a bond.
“I was never Tinubu’s friend.”
The statement is as stark as it is devastating. No qualifiers. No soft landing. No diplomatic cushioning. In a political culture built on exaggerated camaraderie, exaggerated praise, and exaggerated loyalty, El-Rufai’s remark lands like a scalpel — precise, surgical, and impossible to ignore. It strips away the theatre of unity that surrounded the 2023 elections and exposes the cold mechanics underneath: power arithmetic, zoning calculations, and temporary alliances forged for conquest, not conviction.
This is not a minor clarification. El-Rufai was not a background supporter of Tinubu’s rise; he was one of its most aggressive enforcers. He defended the controversial Muslim-Muslim ticket when others went silent. He mobilised northern delegates at the APC primaries. He sold Tinubu to sceptical power blocs in the North-West and beyond. He took political bullets — religious, regional, and reputational — to stabilise Tinubu’s candidacy. For that same man to now publicly declare that there was never friendship involved is not revisionism; it is repositioning of the highest order.
More revealing still is El-Rufai’s insistence that his support was purely transactional. Party discipline. Zoning agreement. Full stop. By reducing his role to contractual obligation, he is sending a clear message: whatever happens under Tinubu’s presidency — economic hardship, insecurity, policy confusion, or elite infighting — is not his burden to carry. This is political insulation in its rawest form. A pre-emptive distancing from a government facing rising public anger and internal fractures.
The reference to zoning is especially explosive. Zoning has long been Nigeria’s unofficial stabiliser — an elite handshake meant to prevent total collapse in a deeply divided federation. El-Rufai’s framing suggests that once that handshake was honoured, the moral contract ended. Governance outcomes, performance, and national direction were never part of his personal stake. In effect, he is saying: the deal has been delivered; responsibility now lies elsewhere.
For Tinubu, this is a significant political loss — not necessarily in numbers, but in narrative. El-Rufai brought northern intellectual credibility, strategic depth, and ideological cover to the APC coalition. His voice helped normalise Tinubu’s candidacy in spaces where suspicion ran deep. To lose that voice — and to lose it publicly, without courtesy or ambiguity — weakens the perception of a united ruling bloc. It tells other power brokers that defection, distancing, or silence is now acceptable.
Predictably, Tinubu loyalists have responded with outrage, brandishing old photographs, past speeches, and glowing campaign rhetoric as proof of hypocrisy. But El-Rufai’s statement was never about denying cooperation; it was about redefining its meaning. He is not disputing that they worked together. He is asserting that the work was never personal — and that distinction matters enormously in Nigerian politics, where “friendship” often implies lifelong obligation and silence in the face of failure.
For the Nigerian public, the implications are sobering. El-Rufai has said aloud what many voters already suspect but rarely hear admitted by insiders: that elections are won not by shared visions for the country, but by elite bargains negotiated far above the heads of citizens. Alliances are assembled, not out of belief, but out of necessity. When those necessities expire, so does loyalty.
The bigger question is what El-Rufai is preparing for. This is not the language of a man retiring into the background. This is the language of a strategist clearing space — detaching himself from an administration under pressure, preserving his independent brand, and keeping his options open for the inevitable post-2027 recalibration. Whether he remains in the ADC as an internal critic, aligns with a new coalition, or re-emerges as a kingmaker, one thing is clear: he does not intend to sink or swim with Tinubu.
In Nigerian politics, personal relationships often function as the real constitution. By publicly declaring “we were never friends,” El-Rufai has torn up that unwritten contract. It is a reminder that beneath the smiles, handshakes, and campaign slogans, power remains brutally transactional — and that today’s ally can become tomorrow’s liability the moment interests diverge.
The mask is off.
The deal is exposed.
The alliance is emotionally dead, even if politically unresolved.
And as Nigeria inches toward another cycle of power struggles, one truth has been laid bare with chilling clarity: in this game, friendship is optional, ideology is negotiable, and loyalty lasts only as long as it is useful. The rest is theatre.
The 2027 chessboard is already being set.
El-Rufai has moved his piece.
And the shockwaves are only just beginning.
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