Former Kaduna State governor Nasir El-Rufai left the nation quickly after abandoning his desire to be appointed to a cabinet position.
El-Rufai was headed to Europe, according to a reliable source, but he first planned to visit Egypt.
Out of the 48 nominees for ministers put up by President Bola Tinubu, the Senate had last week confirmed the appointment of 45 of them.
El-Rufai and the other two nominees, Stella Okotete (Delta) and Danladi Abubakar (Taraba), weren’t confirmed because the senate claimed it wasn’t yet ready to give the go-ahead for security clearance.
During el-Rufai’s screening last week, Kogi west senator Sunday Karimi reportedly presented a petition against him.
Tuesday’s meeting between the former governor and Tinubu at the presidential mansion in Abuja was kept private.
However, Premium Times cited sources in the presidency who claimed that El-Rufai informed President Tinubu that he was no longer interested in becoming a minister but would still make his fair share of contributions to Nigeria’s development as a private man.
Another source was cited by PT as saying, “He also told the president that he needed time to focus on his doctorate programme at a university in The Netherlands.”
Another source claimed that the former governor proposed Jafaru Ibrahim Sani as a new ministerial candidate for Kaduna.
El-Rufai allegedly informed the President that he would return the next day with his team to submit the preliminary work completed so far on the energy sector because he would no longer be a member of the federal executive council.
According to the online publication, Eyo Ekpo, a former commissioner at the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Hafiz Bayero, a former commissioner and administrator of the Kaduna Capital Territory Authority, Tolu Oyekan of the Boston Consulting Group, and attorney Ayodele Oni were among the team that accompanied the former governor to make presentations to the president on Wednesday.
El-Rufai’s spokesperson, Muyiwa Adekeye, did not react when asked for comment.
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