*”In 2007, Tinubu Did A Public Survey That Favoured Nuhu Ribadu; El-Rufai Never Got Over It” — Osuntokun Reveals Origins Of Bitter Rivalry
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A former political adviser to President Olusegun Obasanjo, Akin Osuntokun, has revealed the origins of the bitter political rivalry between former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai and National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu, tracing it back to a 2007 public opinion survey commissioned by then-Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu.
Speaking on Arise Television’s Primetime, Osuntokun disclosed that the survey, conducted when Tinubu was seeking a younger northern candidate to support for the presidency, showed Ribadu polling 45 percent while El-Rufai managed only 7 percent.
“Bola Tinubu was a kingmaker. He had left as governor of Lagos State in 2007. He wanted to support or sponsor somebody since it was viewed as a turn of the North. He wanted to support a member of the younger generation from the North,” Osuntokun explained.
“So he did a public opinion survey. Nobody knew. The results of the opinion clearly favored Nuhu Ribadu. The opinion for Nuhu got 45 percent, El-Rufai 7 percent, and so on and so forth. So, it was on that basis that Tinubu reached out for Nuhu and adopted him as a candidate.”
According to Osuntokun, that stark disparity in public approval and Tinubu’s subsequent adoption of Ribadu as the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) presidential candidate created “bad blood” that El-Rufai “never really got over.”
Osuntokun, who also served as former Director General of the 2023 Labour Party Campaign Council, revealed that a year before the Tinubu survey, in 2006, a nine-member caucus chaired by then-Attorney General Bayo Ojo had been convened by President Obasanjo to design his exit strategy.
The caucus, which included El-Rufai, Ribadu, and other consequential figures of that era, reached “almost a consensus” to present El-Rufai as their preferred presidential candidate.
“It was actually to avoid the President embarrassing us. He suspected that we were going to come up with El-Rufai. So he always tries to, you know… But nonetheless, we said we should push this on him,” Osuntokun recalled.
According to the former presidential adviser, at that time in 2006, El-Rufai and Ribadu were extremely close friends. “Nuhu Ribadu was actually one of the main motivators. He and El-Rufai were like this. They were five and six, you know. They were quite close. Being from the north, they were very high profile. And both of them were very efficient and effective public officers. El-Rufai had a serious record in the FCT. And Nuhu as chairman of EFCC. They were quite, quite close.”
However, President Obasanjo rejected the caucus’s recommendation outright. “He told us, he said he knows El-Rufai more than us. I mean, we saw the way he referred to El-Rufai later on in his book, which is not very complimentary. He didn’t want to be too harsh on him, on Nasir, and not considering. So he just kind of said look, you guys, you don’t know what I know about him.”
Instead, Obasanjo chose Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, driven partly by his relationship with the Yar’Adua family and partly because, according to Osuntokun, “if you were to pick from the pool of the governors from the North, Umaru had almost the best credentials. He was a highly disciplined person. Relative integrity, credibility.”
The real rupture between El-Rufai and Ribadu, however, came with Tinubu’s 2007 survey and subsequent political moves.
“That bad blood setting, you know, with Nasir, and Nuhu getting elevated, the rating kind of elevating Nuhu above him, and I think he never really got over that disappointment,” Osuntokun stated.
When asked if El-Rufai’s subsequent two-term governorship of Kaduna State would have satisfied his bruised ego, Osuntokun was emphatic: “No, he didn’t get over it. And of course, you know, if you compare the two of them, he had an upper hand by becoming the governor of Kaduna State for 8 years, while Nuhu was languishing in political wilderness, so to say.”
The former adviser noted that El-Rufai’s obsession with Ribadu continued even into the Tinubu administration. “El-Rufai thought he was going to be made minister and would have become a powerful minister. And then something happened. And I don’t think, I think that was a struggle. And El-Rufai basically felt that Mr. Ribadu had something to do with it.”
“He then began having what to me seemed like an obsession, you know, with almost every time finding a way to link him with whatever problems that he had,” Osuntokun observed.
The revelations come amid fresh controversy involving both men, with former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, alleging that Ribadu is planning to run for the presidency in 2031 while simultaneously working to ensure President Tinubu’s victory in 2027.
Amaechi, speaking during a phone-in conversation on Eagles Radio, also expressed doubt over claims that El-Rufai hacked Ribadu’s phone, stating: “I doubt that El-Rufai said he hacked NSA Nuhu Ribadu’s phone. He doesn’t have the capacity to do so. It’s the NSA’s office that is listening to our calls.”
The former minister accused Ribadu of targeting opposition parties: “Ribadu is busy arresting everybody. He’s planning double elections. He’s planning for himself in 2031 and also planning for Tinubu in the 2027 presidential election. All he’s doing is setting up parties to fight the ADC. He has his own fake ADC. Just go to court; he has so many ADC cases in court with small boys he has bought cars for.”
Amaechi warned: “The man needs to rest. If he thinks there won’t be proper elections in 2027, he’s wasting his time. He should prepare for his security job.”
Osuntokun also shed light on why both El-Rufai and Ribadu had to leave Nigeria during the Yar’Adua administration.
“Umaru didn’t want us near him. I mean, he wasn’t well disposed towards us. So that destabilized the group, so to say. And then Yar’Adua’s government went on to become some kind of victimizing, you know, witch hunting, Nuhu and El-Rufai. So they had to leave the country and go on exile.”
Ironically, Osuntokun noted, this persecution “led to a rise in their political profile, both of them, because of the way they were treated.”
The historical context provided by Osuntokun offers crucial insight into the personal and political dynamics currently playing out in Nigerian politics, particularly with both men now occupying influential positions in the Tinubu administration—or in El-Rufai’s case, being conspicuously excluded from it.
“I don’t like talking about some of these things that we have done together, but I think that things have gone too far and that’s why it was important for me to come out and speak,” Osuntokun concluded.
The revelations suggest that what many observers have interpreted as recent political maneuvering may actually be the continuation of rivalries and resentments that have festered for nearly two decades, shaped by rejected ambitions, comparative public approval ratings, and perceived betrayals dating back to the twilight of the Obasanjo administration
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