A former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, has said that President Bola Tinubu and his supporters would learn their lessons in 2027.
El-Rufai said that the efforts of governors from the north to ensure that Tinubu became President in 2023 have been undermined.
In an interview on Arise News, the former FCT Minister pointed that Tinubu and his ‘puppeteers’ now feel that they could have won the 2027 election without the help and support he and other Northern governors provided.
El-Rufai was one of the people who supported Tinubu.
Prior to the election, Tinubu, candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, did not take part in any debate.
Asked if there was something about the former Senator that he detected that separated him from the pack and made him get his support so totally in 2022, El-Rufai answered:
“For us as Northern APC governors, the first concern we had was, after eight years of Buhari, power should go to the South. We believed that there was such an understanding in our party.
“We’re part of the formation of the party, and we felt that that was an honorable thing that must be upheld. So that was the first step.
“So we didn’t start by saying we want A or B to be president. We just said, look power should go to the south. That was the first step.
“The second step is now that power has gone to the South. Who do we support that we think will have a chance of winning?
“Because you want your party to win, you want to be the party in power. And lots of calculations went into that, and Bola Tinubu became the beneficiary of that, but we didn’t start with supporting a candidate. No, no, no.
“And I want to say that it was the support of the governors of the north west, north east and north central that was decisive in deciding the outcome of the primaries, as well as the election.
“Of course, Bola Tinubu puppeteers are now denying that. They are saying all kinds of things, and they will learn their lesson in 2027.”