Sojworldnews | Politics

Mahdi Shehu Says El-Rufai’s “No Elders” Remark Cost Him Northern Support

Political commentator Mahdi Shehu has said Nasir El-Rufai’s past remarks about northern elders explain why few of them now speak up for him. In an interview on Symfoni, Shehu argued that El-Rufai’s current troubles offer a lesson to every public official: power does not last. Moreover, he claimed that elders who could have helped El-Rufai have chosen silence instead. These are Shehu’s own claims, and he spoke as a critic.

El-Rufai, a former Kaduna State governor, has been in custody since February. His trial in Kaduna continues, and the Court of Appeal this month dismissed his challenge to the refusal of bail. He has pleaded not guilty, and the allegations against him remain before the courts.

Shehu recalled a remark that El-Rufai made at the height of an election campaign, when northerners opposed Bola Tinubu’s candidature. According to Shehu, El-Rufai declared that the north had no elders and that he and his allies were the elders. “We are the elders,” Shehu quoted him as saying. Shehu called the remark arrogant and reckless.

Today, Shehu said, elders in the north have looked away. They have folded their arms and gone into deliberate silence while El-Rufai moves from one court to another. Many of those elders are in their 80s and 90s, Shehu noted, yet they remain active and follow the political scene closely. He claimed they could have helped El-Rufai.

“Don’t disparage people because you have power.”Mahdi Shehu, on Symfoni

Shehu went further. He said one elder he knows could travel to Abuja without an appointment and walk past the guards at the Villa straight into the president’s office. In Shehu’s telling, that elder could then secure El-Rufai’s release. However, Shehu claimed the elder will not act because of the earlier remark.

Shehu also shared an account from an elder of about 89 years, whom he did not name. According to Shehu, the elder said El-Rufai revoked his only plot in Kaduna, which he had held for more than 25 years, fenced and kept paying ground rent on. The elder said he sent his son to tell El-Rufai about the payments. In response, the elder claimed, El-Rufai said a man over 80 no longer needed a plot and should give others a chance to develop it.

Shehu said he spoke with the elder within the past three months. “If he had not disparaged us, we would have been of help to him now,” the elder told him, according to Shehu. Sojworldnews could not verify this account, and no response from El-Rufai had surfaced at the time of writing.

Shehu closed with lessons for others. “Power is transient,” he said. He urged officials not to run faster than their speed and not to assume that people coming down the ladder will never rise again. Furthermore, he warned against believing that anyone holds a monopoly on wisdom or intelligence. “Recklessness is just like a goat’s skin,” he said. “Everybody has one.”

Taken together, Shehu’s comments mix political criticism with personal anecdotes. However, readers should treat his claims as one commentator’s view, not established fact. Sojworldnews has not independently verified his statements about the elders or the plot. In the end, the case continues in court, and the courts will decide the allegations against El-Rufai.

Source: Mahdi Shehu interview on Symfoni. Quotes are lightly edited from a transcript.