The verbal exchange between Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, the former governor of Kaduna State, and the presidency has escalated as the former governor reacts to the presidency’s accusation that he and his associates plan to remove President Bola Tinubu.

Mallan El-Rufai, who spoke on Monday as a panellist at the national conference in Abuja on strengthening democracy in Nigeria, criticised the All Progressives Congress for failing in expectation, adding that the party has become a one-man show that no longer represents the ideas of its establishment.

The former minister of the Federal Capital Territory also denigrated the leadership of the All Progressives Congress, which he tagged as a group of illiterates and cunning. He also attributed the poor leadership to the lack of structure in the political party.

“I no longer recognise the APC. No party organ has met in two years—no caucus, no NEC, nothing. You don’t even know if it is a one-man show; it’s a zero-man show. You cannot afford to have illiterates, semi-illiterates, and cunning people as your leaders. This is why we end up with the poor leadership we have today,” he said.

In his recommendation, Mallam El-Rufai urged the opposition parties to step up, citing intentional efforts to undermine their presence in the country.

El-Rufai further criticised the supposed democratic leaders who are showing military tendencies to stifle the tenets of democracy.

“There are internal mercenaries in the PDP, hired and motivated to destroy the party. The Labour Party is also facing similar issues. Peter Obi himself told me, ‘I don’t know what’s happening in the party I contested with.’

“There seems to be a deliberate project to destroy opposition parties. This is dangerous. For those of us who lived half our lives under military rule, we know what it is. We don’t want military rule, but we also don’t want civilians behaving like the military in their barbara and suits.

Reacting to El-Rufai’s speech, the special adviser to the president on policy communications, Daniel Bwala alleged the former governor of Kaduna state of unseating the president because he is not part of his cabinet.

He insisted that the former minister of FCT would have had a different opinion if the president had chosen him as one of the political appointees, referring to a failed attempt to appoint the former governor of Kaduna state as one of the ministers of the state.

“My senior brother, if you were to be in the government and cabinet, would you have held and expressed the same position? History is replete with examples. It is a government you participated in its formation that you now want to unseat. Haba Mallam, a Ji soron Allah mana,” Bwala wrote on his official X handle.

Responding to the allegation by the presidential spokesperson, El-Rufai, though silent about trying to unseat the president, debunked the claim that he shared his criticism because he is not a member of the presidential cabinet.

He further explained that the priority of his allegiance to the country comes first in the human scale of accountability, before any person or authority.

“I was a cabinet minister 22 years ago and was clear to Asiwaju that I was not interested in any position in his future government. The pathetic manner in which all of you latter-day converts to the Tinubu government make an issue of something that I never wanted in the first place is perhaps a reflection of the level of your moral flexibility. 

“If I had remained in the Tinubu government, I would say or do the same on the tragedy within a party I was a founder of the government that emerged from it—first in private sessions with those concerned and then go public if no remedial actions are taken. Go and check my public service record from 1998.”, he said.