A former Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has revealed how the late ex-President Muhammadu Buhari abandoned his plan to appoint late Chief Audu Ogbeh as secretary to the government of the federation (SGF) after being misled by close associates.
In a video obtained yesterday, El-Rufai said Buhari had decided to give the position to a Christian from the Middle Belt to balance his government and dispel claims of religious bias.
“I will tell you my last story, which is a sad one. Shortly after the election, a very good friend came to me and said, “Look, I want to be the SGF. Can you go to President Buhari and talk to him?
“I went to the president-elect at the time. I said that Mr President X is interested in being the SGF. He said, ‘Well, yes, but I want to appoint someone from the Middle Belt, a Christian, as my SGF. Everybody says I don’t like Christians. I want to give the most important job, the most important appointment in the government, to the Middle Belt.”
El-Rufai noted that Buhari was firm on his choice. “I asked him, so who are you thinking of appointing, by the way?’ He said, ‘I have only one, Chief Audu Ogbeh.’ I said, ‘Excellent choice, congratulations,’ and left.”
However, he narrated that a cabal around Buhari worked against the decision. “Unfortunately, some people around the President felt that Chief Audu Ogbeh was too accomplished, that he would be too independent and not bend.
“So they packaged a story that Chief Audu Ogbeh had an outstanding loan with the bank for his agricultural business to the tune of a billion or two billion. And that if he were appointed SGF, his priority would be to pay off his loans rather than do the job,” he said.
According to El-Rufai, the falsehood eventually changed Buhari’s mind. “I don’t know how they played President Buhari, but the next time he called me, he said, ‘Look, some things have come up, and I’m appointing someone else as SGF.’
“I asked him, ‘Why?’ It took me time because Buhari is complicated to extract, to teach him to talk. After the SGF was announced, I now found out this was what he was told,” he added.
The former governor said he confronted Buhari, stressing that having a loan was no crime. “I went to him, I said, ‘Sir, borrowing is not a crime. Chief Audu Ogbeh is a thriving farmer. He has a big farming business. You can go and see it, and it is functioning. He is paying back the loan. Borrowing is not a crime.”
He added that the twist in the appointment was never made public, noting that he said it for the first time.
