Former governor of Kaduna State Nasir El-Rufai has withdrawn his interest in serving in President Bola Tinubu’s cabinet, according to report.
According to sources in the presidency, Mr. El-Rufai informed President Tinubu during a meeting on Tuesday that he was no longer interested in becoming a minister but would still make his contribution as a private citizen to the development of Nigeria.
Adding that he needed time to focus on his doctorate programme at a university in The Netherlands.
Jafaru Ibrahim Sani, a new ministerial nominee for Kaduna State, was proposed by the former governor, who claimed the President would find him to be very valuable and resourceful, according to sources.
Recall that, while Mr. El-Rufai was governor of Kaduna State, Mr. Sani served as commissioner in three ministries (Local Government, Education, and Environment).
Mr El-Rufai visit to the President at the presidential villa came 24 hours after the Senate confirmed 45 ministerial nominees after a week-long screening of 48 of them.
The upper legislative chamber, however, withheld his confirmation and those of two others, citing security reports from the State Security Service for the action.
The two others were a former senator from Taraba, Sani Danladi, and a nominee from Delta State, Stella Okotete.
Reports also revealed that, on becoming aware of the Senate pronouncement on his case, Mr El-Rufai, who only returned to Nigeria from London on Monday, sought and got an appointment to meet the president.
At the meeting on Tuesday afternoon, President Tinubu told the former governor he received some petitions critical of his ministerial nomination.
The president then asked for 24 hours grace to review the petitions and the SSS report to the Senate to enable him to reach a decision.
It was at that point that Mr El-Rufai responded that he was no longer interested in being minister since it appeared some forces around the president were scheming intensely to block his emergence as federal minister.
Mr El-Rufai had disclosed during his confirmation hearing on 1 August that Mr Tinubu asked him to work with him on the power problem facing the country.
According to him, the President had given a target of seven years for Nigeria to stop experiencing power outages in the country.
At the Tuesday meeting, Mr El-Rufai also reportedly told the President that since he would no longer be in the federal executive council, he would return the next day with his team to present the preliminary work done so far on the energy sector.
The team that accompanied the former governor to make presentations to the president on Wednesday includes Eyo Ekpo, a former commissioner at the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC); Hafiz Bayero, a former commissioner and administrator of the Kaduna Capital Territory Authority; Tolu Oyekan of the Boston Consulting Group and Ayodele Oni, a lawyer.
Olu Verheijen, the special adviser to the President on Energy Matters, presented on Gas.
Mr El-Rufai is studying for a doctorate in public policy at the United Nations University, Maastricht.
His associates say as he prepared to leave office as governor in May this year, he had indicated his desire to exit public life and concentrate on his PhD programme.
But that was until then President-elect Tinubu asked him to join his cabinet so he could charge him with the responsibility of repositioning the inefficient power sector in Africa’s largest economy.
It is unclear what suddenly went wrong between the two men such that an agency of government would block Mr El-Rufai’s ministerial nomination without the president lifting a finger.
When contacted, Muyiwa Adekeye, the media adviser to Mr El-Rufai, declined to comment for this story.
READ ALSO: Naira approaches N1,000/$, reaching N955/$ in parallel market