Hadiza el-Rufai, wife of former Kaduna State governor Nasir el-Rufai, has taken on her son Bashir on X (formerly Twitter) after he criticized President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
The heated exchange began when Bashir described Tinubu’s media team as “ineffectual clowns” for their response to former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s recent comments on the 2023 elections and INEC.
Obasanjo, in his remarks on Sunday, referred to the 2023 elections as a “travesty” and called for credible leadership at INEC with short tenures to prevent corruption and restore public trust.
The presidency, through spokesperson Bayo Onanuga, fired back, accusing Obasanjo of presiding over Nigeria’s most fraudulent election and leaving behind poor economic policies.
Bashir took to X to question the priorities of Tinubu’s media team, saying, “Instead of addressing inflation at 33 percent, they are attacking Obasanjo. A mental illness seems to be permeating the team.”
Attacking Obasanjo with the state of the country now has to be a mental illness permeating the whole media comms team. Inflation is at 33% o.
Ineffectual clowns.
— Bashir El-Rufai (@BashirElRufai) November 19, 2024
Hadiza, in her reply, questioned her son’s stance, asking, “Would you be saying this if your father were part of this government?”
Are you sure you’d be saying this if your father were part of this government? https://t.co/I1JSdekyPO
— Hadiza Isma El-Rufai (@hadizel) November 19, 2024
Bashir retorted, asserting that his father would have resigned by now due to the administration’s failures. “If my father were part of this government, he would have dissociated himself by now,” Bashir wrote.