Nasir el-Rufai has stressed the need for President Bola Tinubu to discontinue sectional politics reminiscent of the era of ex-President Muhammadu Buhari in terms of lopsided appointments of his kinsmen into key federal positions.

Mr el-Rufai, a former governor of Kaduna, made the statement while reacting to a Saturday opinion by Nigerian-American writer Farooq Kperogi, who alleged a plot by Mr Tinubu to replace the head of NNPCL with yet another Yoruba kinsman.

“Two wrongs do not make a right. Sensible inclusion always trumps arrogant exclusion,” the ex-governor wrote on his X handle on Saturday.

Mr Tinubu has faced allegations of stacking top federal positions with people of his Yoruba ethnic stock. This action evoked recollections of Mr Buhari’s near-exclusive installation of only northern Muslims into top federal offices throughout his eight-year tenure between 2015 and 2023.

Recently, the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) and the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) criticised Mr Tinubu for favouring the southwest in his key appointments, accusing the president of destructive sectionalism and lopsidedness.

However, critics said Mr el-Rufai, a northerner, did not condemn Mr Buhari during his time but instead praised most of the appointments as merited and devoided of ethnic and religious sentiment, a talking point now adopted by Mr Tinubu’s supporters to justify overwhelming Yoruba occupation of federal ministries and agencies.

Aisha Yesufu, a human rights activist, knocked the former governor over his comments, noting Mr el-Rufai was largely responsible for Mr Tinubu’s emergence as the president.

“Whatever Tinubu is doing today, he got the memo from Buhari and his supporters who wanted to kill many of us because we said it was ICCIF! And you, @elrufai, you were one of those instrumental In Tinubu getting the critical number of votes he could use to rig the 2023 election, and you gleefully supported him,” Ms Yesufu wrote on X.

Meanwhile, recall that Mr el-Rufai turned down Mr Tinubu’s ministerial position last year, following a hold on his endorsement by the Akpabio-led Senate. 

Some of his opponents swore the hold was due to Mr el-Rufai’s handling of ethnic and sectarian clashes that overshadowed most of his tenure as a two-term governor, while others cited the politician’s insinuated propensity for corruption and betrayal of allies.