Bayo Onanuga, the Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, has responded strongly to recent remarks by former Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, who questioned the president’s chances of re-election in 2027.
El-Rufai, speaking during an interview on Arise Television, claimed that President Tinubu would need a “miracle” to win a second term, citing results from a poll reportedly commissioned by his political team.
According to El-Rufai, the president’s disapproval rating was as high as 91 percent in parts of the South-East and North, and 78 percent in Lagos.
Onanuga, in a post on X, dismissed El-Rufai’s comments and referred to past criticisms made by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in his memoir My Watch.
He noted that El-Rufai’s history of political disloyalty and personal ambition was not new.
“Nasir’s penchant for reputation savaging is almost pathological,” Onanuga quoted from Obasanjo’s book.
“Why does he do it? Very early in my interaction with him, I appreciated his talent. At the same time, I recognised his weaknesses — the worst being his inability to be loyal to anybody or any issue consistently for long, but only to Nasir el-Rufai.”
Obasanjo, in the 2014 memoir, had accused El-Rufai of betrayal and dishonesty, labeling him as someone who “suffers from small man syndrome” — a psychological term used to describe individuals who may overcompensate for perceived physical or social shortcomings.
Onanuga’s post comes as tensions rise between former allies, with El-Rufai now emerging as a vocal critic of the Tinubu administration.
The former FCT Minister, who served under Obasanjo from 2003 to 2007, recently resigned from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and joined the Social Democratic Party (SDP), where he is said to be involved in building a coalition aimed at challenging the APC in the 2027 general election.