After Malam Nasir El-Rufai’s recent defection to the Social Democratic Party (SDP), his son, Bashir El-Rufai, has been active on social media, making political statements and taking jabs at the supporters of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
In one of his tweets, Bashir commended Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 election, revealing that his perspective on him had changed.
Reacting to his father’s departure from the APC, Bashir claimed that APC members had previously influenced his opinion of Obi in a negative way. He posted, “Peter Obi is surprisingly not a bad person after all. My views on him have changed recently. My mind was poisoned by my former party members. Sai Obi!”
Additionally, Bashir encouraged young Nigerians to join his father’s new political party, stating that an online platform for registering and joining the SDP would be launched by the end of the week.
In response, Daniel Bwala, President Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Policy Communication, criticized El-Rufai’s move to the SDP, calling it an ambitious but ultimately doomed effort.
Bwala argued that aligning with “sore losers” to challenge President Bola Tinubu was neither ideologically driven nor progressive, but merely a manifestation of “inordinate ambition.”
In a tweet, Bwala remarked: “Senior @elrufai, I saw the news today that you resigned from APC to join SDP. I have no issue with your constitutional right to do so, but we will examine the motive behind this and remind Nigerians that your emergence is not as sudden as a thunderclap. We will remind you that associating with sore losers to unseat the incumbent is not an IDEOLOGY, nor PROGRESSIVISM; it’s simply misguided AMBITION that is bound to fail.”
