A former governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai has taken to X to mock ‘political mercenary’ Reno Omokri.
El-rufai accused Omokri of weaponizing himself as a political mercenary for any administration that can pay.
He made the submission on Monday.
It all began when El-rufai shared and supported an article by a frontline columnist, Farooq Kperogi accusing the President of recruiting his tribesmen into the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL.
In the article, titled “Tinubu’s Buharisation of the NNPC,” Kperogi described as embarrassing the president’s “relentless Yorubacentric take-over of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, NNPC,” as the Northerners did under the immediate past administration Muhammadu Buhari.
Reacting to the article, El-Rufai posted on X: “DECEMBER MESSAGE: Two wrongs do not make a right. Sensible inclusion always trumps arrogant exclusion.”
His reaction, however, attracted backlash from the presidency and supporters of President Tinubu including Reno Omokri.
The first attack came from a former Kaduna Central Senator, Shehu Sani, who accused El-Rufai of being silent while Buhari appointed his kinsmen into political offices.
According to a post on his official X handle, Sani claimed that Kaduna was an apartheid state under El-Rufai.
He wrote, “There were people who were silent when Buhari was fielding political offices with his kinsmen and have now found their voice to speak out when the equation doesn’t favour them.
“Let’s not make reference to the nepotism that marginalised Southern Kaduna for eight years. Kaduna was an apartheid state for eight years, he had said.”
Responding, President Tinubu’s media aide, Bayo Onanuga posted on X: “Senator Shehu Sani responds to El-Rufai’s cheap shot against President Tinubu.”
Meanwhile, on his part, Omokri in a series of posts on his X and Facebook pages, berated El-Rufai over the remark about Tinubu.
One of the posts reads, “Just imagine, Nasir El-Rufai, a man who publicly admitted to using government money to pay killer herdsmen, is today complaining that the Tinubu administration is using government money to build a railway in Lagos.
“Maybe he would have preferred if the money was used to pay Boko Haram”.
Responding to Omokri’s attacks, El-Rufai who shared old posts of Reno campaigning against a“drug baron in Aso Rock”, wrote, “NIGERIA UPDATE – The interesting lifecycle of Wendell Simlin, also sometimes retained as a political mercenary by any person or government that can pay”.
Read also:
Reno Omokri Visits Tinubu at Presidential Villa (video)
‘Political Mercenary’- El-Rufai Mocks Reno Omokri for Comments Against Tinubu