El-Rufai by no means wished ministerial job, says son

Member representing Kaduna North Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Bello El-Rufai, has said Nigeria lost an effective administrator in his father, former Kaduna Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, after the Senate rejected his appointment as minister.

Bello said it took his pleas and those of other family members for his father to accept the ministerial nomination from President Bola Tinubu.

He made this known in an interview with a media personality, Seun Okinbaloye, on a podcast, Mic on Podcast, sighted by our correspondent.

The Senate had in August, during the confirmation of the ministerial list sent by Tinubu, refused to confirm El-Rufai’s nomination as well as those of two other nominees for appointment as ministers.

The Senate confirmed 45, out of the 48 ministerial nominees sent by the President.

The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, said the three nominees not confirmed would be subjected to further security checks and urged those not confirmed to take their matter to the President.

Those rejected were El-Rufai, Stella Okotete (Delta), and Sani Danladi (Taraba).

Reacting to this, Bello, who doubles as the Chairman, House Committee on Banking Regulations, said he was disappointed when he learnt that his father’s nomination was rejected.

He said, “I was in the National Assembly when my father’s nomination was rejected. It was very disappointing and still is. Myself, the Governor of Kaduna State, Uba Sani,  and one of my father’s commissioners, Mr Hafiz Bayero, played a key role in convincing my father to work with this current government.

“He (Nasir) didn’t want it. It’s hard for Nigerians to believe it because they feel it is everyone in Nigeria who wants to be a minister.

“To be fair to him, he didn’t want the job. We convinced him that, with the antecedents of Asiwaju, he would create an excellent team as he did in Lagos.

“The President wanted to work with him. It was clear when he came to Kaduna. We also had an idea of what his portfolio would be. It was meant to be power and gas. He insisted to the President in private that Nigeria would not sort its electricity issue if gas was not put under the other components of power.

“The irony is that nothing has been rougher than the lack of power in the last two weeks. I’m disappointed because Nigeria lost an effective administrator in my father, one who is willing to make difficult decisions to solve a problem.”

Bello, further speaking, said many Nigerians do not really know his father.

He said, “My father is a very simple person who’s been stereotyped a lot. I got a video of him where people say this or that about him without even knowing him.

“My father does not go out of his way to change what people think about him. He doesn’t really care.

“There’s a perception that he’s anti-Christian. But, the closest person to him since we (children) were four years old was a man from Cross River State, Peter Jones.

“Religion is personal to us. As minister of the Federal Capital Territory, he demolished mosques. The imam said he hated Islam. He demolished churches and the Christians said he hated Christians. Maybe, it is the wrong imams and pastors who have issues, not him.”

He added that his father was highly flawed in many ways, noting that he was, however, in the league of ‘astute administrators’ like Dora Akunyili, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, Nuhu Ribadu, Charles Soludo and Akinwunmi Adesina.