Nasir El-Rufai, former governor of Kaduna State, says he was not rejected by the National Assembly as a ministerial nominee.
In August 2023, the Senate withheld the confirmation of El-Rufai as a ministerial nominee, citing security reports from the State Security Service for the action.
But speaking on Monday during an interview on Arise TV, El-Rufai said President Bola Tinubu simply “changed his mind on the nomination”
“After serving for eight years as governor of Kaduna state, I had my plans. The President publicly appealed to me to put my plans on hold and after sometime we finally agreed that he would nominate me as a minister, and there were certain conditions I attached to that. I think along the line, either the president changed his mind or something else.
“Please, don’t believe the story that the National Assembly rejected me. The President didn’t want me in his cabinet, he changed his mind. Whatever it is, frankly, I don’t care,” he said.