Mallam Nasir El-Rufai , the governor of Kaduna State, is on the offensive. He is up in arms against everyone and everything imaginable. The man considers himself bold. That is why he delivers his messages with lethal finality anytime he talks. He is a man of anger. Some say he is obstinately attached to a life of recriminations. He wears animosity and antagonism like a badge of dishonour.

The governor appears to be in his elemental worst lately. He is angry that the scheme and plot he midwifed is about to hit the rocks. Like others who are constantly in search of scapegoats, El-Rufai is scavenging for those to blame. He just cannot hold his breath anymore. That was why he blurted out a few days ago. He alleged that some elements within the Presidency were working hard to stop Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), from emerging as the President of Nigeria. El-Rufai said that the grouse of these elements, whoever they may be, was borne out of ignominious defeat. Their candidate, contrary to their expectations, lost in the primary election that produced Tinubu as candidate. El-Rufai said they were working hard to bring down the house on account of this.

Regardless of the hangups, El-Rufai believes that Tinubu is standing on solid ground for the February 25 polls. He believes that the North, where he considers himself a heavyweight, will vote for Tinubu. He does not care a hoot if northern elders do not agree with him. For him, those that we refer to as northern elders are inconsequential. They are paper tigers. They cannot swing votes for or against anybody. For El-Rufai, the honour and respect reserved for these elders is misplaced. They do not deserve it. El-Rufai would rather pay heed to northern governors who he believes have taken the place of these elders. He believes that it is the northern governors, not the elders, that will deliver Tinubu in the North. That is the bone of contention between El-Rufai and elders of the North.

In his single-minded determination to pave the way for an imaginary Tinubu ascendancy, El-Rufai is also demonizing Tinubu’s opponents in the 2023 polls.

He has written off the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi. He said Obi cannot win. He accuses Obi of ethnic and religious bigotry. He does not believe in the opinion polls that have projected Obi as a candidate to watch. El-Rufai has even gone ahead to allocate votes to Obi. His conclusion is that the North will not vote for the Labour Party candidate. He dismisses northern Christians and their votes as inconsequential. How many are they, he asks. In all, El-Rufai has simply stratified Nigeria into tribes and religions. In the end, he came away as ridiculously biased, ill-informed and bigoted. But we know where El-Rufai is coming from. He is an embodiment of prejudice. His acrimonious instinct will always lead him astray.

Regardless of El-Rufai’s ridiculous displays against perceived or imagined enemies or opponents of Tinubu, those who have seen through the Kaduna governor say he does not mean business, that he is only trying to justify his hire. They say he knows that the North will not support Tinubu. But El-Rufai has chosen to prance about, displaying non-existent northern support for Tinubu.

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El-Rufai is not alone. He is being goaded on by a horde of northern governors of APC extraction who claim to be supporting Tinubu for the presidency. These governors have been parroting power shift to the South. They have been talking as if they are true Nigerians who want equity and justice in the allocation of power at the presidential level.

However, nobody is deceived by the antics of these northern APC governors, led by El-Rufai. Contrary to their claim that they want an equitable and just Nigeria, they are the real agents of division and acrimonious Nigeria. If they truly believe that power should shift to the South, they should also be interested in which part of the South it shifts to. The truth is that the real intentions of El-Rufai and his gang of northern APC governors is masked. They have a sinister motive. Tinubu is just their decoy, a pawn in their game of make-belief. But they will not go far in their plot to foul the political atmosphere in the build-up to the 2023 elections.

If all were to be well, Nigerians would have been sumptuously entertained by the theatrics of the APC bigwigs. But this is not the time for inanities. Nigerians are facing many existential issues that will not allow them a place in the absurd drama that El-Rufai and his gang are staging on behalf of the APC. It is regrettable that at a time when the ruling party ought to be displaying its scorecard to Nigerians, the party and its government are busy entertaining us with histrionics. El-Rufai, in a most petulant manner, has marched into the hallowed confines of the Presidency and reduced the seat of power to a marketplace. His charge at the Presidency has not been addressed by the appropriate quarters. Nobody seems to recognize the fact that El-Rufai, by his foolhardiness, has assaulted the highest office in the land. This man must be truly untouchable.

Tinubu, the presidential standard-bearer of the ruling party, has since joined the fray. He has been talking down on the President and the office he occupies. He has accused the President of reeling out policies that have the potentialities of scuttling his presidential ambition. He has pointedly said that Muhammadu Buhari has failed as the President of Nigeria. These are very uncomplimentary remarks coming from the wrong quarters. Whereas elements in the APC are supposed to be defending and protecting their party and the government it formed, they are busy washing their dirty linen in the public. El-Rufai is at the forefront of this desecration. I wonder why he imagines that Nigerians will choose to vote again for a party that formed the government that has brought them to their knees.

Thus, rather than the El-Rufais of the APC engaging in self-serving analyses of who will win and who will not win the presidential election of February 25, they should look inwards with a view to knowing what went wrong with their party and the government it formed. Seeking to lead Nigerians by the nose a second time is a doomed voyage. Nigerians cannot be taken in by the antics of nation-wreckers who masquerade falsely as patriots.

El-Rufai, certainly, does not want to face facts. If he were interested in the true state of affairs in the polity, he would not be pining away over Tinubu’s ambition. The plot has run into a storm.