Ahead of the 2027 general elections, a former lawmaker, Honourable Farouk Aliyu, says President Bola Tinubu is the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Aliyu, a former Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, stated this during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
“In our own party, we have our candidate in the President. There is no qualm about it. We know our candidate and will work for him by the grace of God,” he stated.
Ministerial Appointment
He also weighed in on the recent resignation of Nasir El-Rufai from the ruling APC, recalling how the former Kaduna State governor galvanised support for President Bola Tinubu in 2023.
Aliyu explained that El-Rufai, once a close ally of President Tinubu and a key figure in the APC’s electoral victories in 2015, 2019 and 2023, led his then northern governors to secure Tinubu’s electoral victory.
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“My friend Nasir El-Rufai came out when Bola Tinubu wanted to be President. He led the governors of the North, he insulted everybody.
“He said he would go with Tinubu so all of us went with Tinubu. Tinubu won the election, he was promised ministerial election, something happened and he didn’t get it,” he stated.
El-Rufai: Tinubu’s Ally-Turned-Outsider
El-Rufai was one of the northern powerbrokers who insisted that the APC presidential ticket for the 2023 general elections be given to a southern candidate in line with the unwritten principle of rotation of power between the southern and the northern regions in Nigeria. This was after the eight-year tenure of President Muhammadu Buhari, from the North-West geopolitical zone.
El-Rufai, who was Kaduna governor between May 2015 and May 2023, was vocal in his choice of ex-Lagos governor Bola Tinubu as the flag bearer of the party in the last general elections.
The then Kaduna governor, alongside his northern colleagues, backed Tinubu against two other northern juggernauts who were also aspirants – – then Senate President Ahmad Lawan and ex-Jigawa governor, Mohammed Badaru.
Tinubu later clinched the APC ticket and was elected Nigeria’s president during the February 2023 presidential poll.
In Nigeria’s political turf where compensation politics has become almost a norm, Tinubu nominated El-Rufai as one of his ministers three months after his inauguration.
However, El-Rufai fell out with the movers and shakers in the current government and was rejected by the Senate during the ministerial screening process. The upper legislative chamber cited security reasons from the Department of State Services as one of the reasons for his rejection.
El-Rufai, once a close ally of President Tinubu and a key figure in the APC’s electoral victories in 2015, 2019 and 2023, now presents himself as one of the fiercest critics of the administration, alleging that what the APC has become is a far cry from what its founders envisioned.
Since the August 2023 incident, El-Rufai has not been seen in a gathering of APC chieftains. The former governor has also not been seen around the Aso Villa, the seat of power, or near the president whom he vigorously campaigned for in the last poll.
Conversely, El-Rufai was previously spotted with SDP chieftains fuelling defection rumours, which he initially dismissed before the final admission on Monday, March 10, 2025.
