18/08/2026
Southern Power Shift & Opposition Unity: Should Atiku Repeat El-Rufai's 2023 Mistake?
by Mohammed Bello Doka
August 18, 2026.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle once observed, "At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice, he is the worst." In the Nigerian political jungle of 2026, few spectacles illustrate this truth more vividly than the trials of Mallam Nasir El-Rufai—a man who, in the grand Shakespearean tragedy of our national life, played Brutus to a Caesar he helped crown, only to find himself cast into the very abyss he once cleared for another.
As the 2027 presidential election looms, a deafening chorus from the Southern political elite urges former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to step aside for a Southern candidate. Their refrain is simple: power must shift to the South to complete its "quota" eight-year tenure. Yet, as the cautionary tale of El-Rufai unfolds in detention cells and courtrooms across Abuja, one question demands an answer with the urgency of a nation at a crossroads: Should Atiku repeat the El-Rufai 2023 mistake?
Let us be clear about what that mistake was. El-Rufai, a founding father of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and a trusted lieutenant to President Muhammadu Buhari, made a political calculation in 2023. Approached by Islamic stakeholders from the South-West who desired a Muslim presidential candidate from the region, El-Rufai threw his considerable weight behind Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He knew the unwritten understanding: after eight years of Buhari, power would return to the South. "It wasn't about Tinubu," El-Rufai later confessed. "He was merely an accidental beneficiary" . El-Rufai supported Tinubu not out of friendship—he insists "I was never Tinubu's friend" —but out of loyalty to his party and a principle he professed: "to fight for the candidate of my party in every election, whether I like the candidate or not" .
What did this principled loyalty earn him? The Senate withheld his ministerial confirmation in August 2023, citing security reports from the Department of State Services (DSS). But El-Rufai himself has lifted the veil on the true architect of his humiliation. "Please, don't believe the story that the National Assembly rejected me," he declared. "The President didn't want me in his cabinet, so he changed his mind" . Tinubu had publicly appealed to him, begged him to put his post-governorship plans on hold, dangled the challenge of defeating Nigeria's electricity mafia—only to discard him like a spent cartridge. The nomination was a promise; the rejection was a betrayal.
Today, El-Rufai's tribulations have escalated from political rejection to what many describe as state-sponsored persecution. He faces multiple legal battles—allegations of money laundering, diversion of public funds, and the unlawful interception of the National Security Adviser's phone communications. The Federal High Court granted him N100 million bail, yet he remains in custody because he has allegedly been unable to meet bail conditions—conditions so punitive that Paul Ibe, Atiku's media aide, has condemned them as designed "to keep him perpetually in detention" . The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has accused President Tinubu of using state institutions to silence opposition, alleging that El-Rufai is being held to prevent him from strengthening the opposition ahead of 2027. "The desire and intentions of this government," ADC National Publicity Secretary Bolaji Abdullahi warned, "is to continue to hold El-Rufai to ensure that he does not participate in this election" . El-Rufai's family has raised alarms about denied access to personal doctors despite court orders. His wife, Hasiat, has spoken of living "in constant fear," with threats of raids and surveillance a daily reality.
And what of the Southern political elite during this ordeal? The silence has been deafening—except when broken by complicity. Some Southwest supporters have ventured into the realm of the grotesque, comparing El-Rufai's plight to "redemption for the death of Abiola" . The logic, if it can be called that, suggests that MKO Abiola's martyrdom should be avenged by El-Rufai's destruction. This is not justice; it is bloodlust dressed in political robes. As the Roman philosopher Seneca warned, "It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor." The Southern elite craves power so desperately that it would sanctify the persecution of a Northern Muslim who once served their ambition, all while ignoring the glaring hypocrisy of their own selective memory.
For let us not pretend the South has been a paragon of zoning virtue. From 1999 to 2007, President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Southerner, jettisoned zoning entirely in his quest for a third term. Atiku Abubakar, then Vice President, fought him on that very principle. When Goodluck Jonathan, a Southerner, completed the late Umaru Yar'Adua's tenure and contested in 2011, he too ran against the zoning principles that had brought him to power. The South has a well-documented record of wielding zoning as a convenient weapon—embraced when it serves ambition, discarded when it obstructs it. To now demand that Atiku, a Northerner, step aside on the altar of "Southern completion" is the height of political audacity.
The Southern elite, their media establishment, and their sponsored "data boys" have shown their true colors in the El-Rufai affair. They have openly advocated that he be allowed to "die in prison" —as if state-sponsored death were a legitimate tool of political settlement. This is the same elite that now lectures the nation on fairness and rotation. This is the same establishment that, by its silence, has condoned the weaponization of anti-corruption agencies against a political opponent. The Nigerian philosopher and legal scholar Professor Akintola once observed that when the instruments of justice are deployed for vengeance rather than truth, the entire social contract unravels. We are watching that unraveling in real time.
Having witnessed all this—the betrayal, the persecution, the gleeful complicity of those now pleading for Southern power—does anyone in their right mind think Atiku should repeat El-Rufai's 2023 mistake? El-Rufai trusted a Southern politician's promise and was cast into the wilderness. He delivered a Southern presidency and received detention, humiliation, and a health crisis in custody. Atiku would be a fool to believe that the same Southern political class that feasts on El-Rufai's suffering would treat him any differently.
It is, therefore, not merely in Atiku's interest but in the broader interest of the Northern political establishment for him to run in 2027. The North cannot afford to repeat the error of El-Rufai—the error of trusting that Southern promises are backed by Southern honor. Power, as Machiavelli wrote, "is the pivot on which everything turns." The North has the demographic weight, the political infrastructure, and the historical precedent to contend for the presidency. To step aside now would be to surrender leverage that may never return.
Moreover, the argument that Atiku should step down for a Southern candidate—worse still, for Peter Obi—rests on a foundation of hypocrisy so glaring it cannot be ignored. If the South argues that power must rotate to complete its eight-year "quota," then by the same logic, the North is entitled to its own eight-year quota after Buhari's tenure. The South cannot have it both ways: demanding rotation when it favors them, abandoning it when it does not. The worst that can happen is for Atiku to lose. But even in defeat, the North will have made its point: power will not remain in the South forever. It will return to the North, as surely as the tide returns to the shore.
The Roman historian Tacitus wrote, "The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." Nigeria today is drowning in laws deployed not for justice but for persecution. El-Rufai's ordeal is not merely his personal tragedy; it is a warning to every Northern politician who would place his trust in Southern promises. Atiku must heed that warning. He must run. He must contest. He must not repeat the mistake of El-Rufai—the mistake of believing that the hand that crowns you today will not crush you tomorrow.
For in the end, as the Greek tragedian Aeschylus reminds us, "In the lack of judgment, great is the ruin." Atiku's judgment must be clear: the South has shown its hand in the El-Rufai affair, and it is a hand stained with betrayal. To step aside now would be to walk willingly into the same trap that has ensnared El-Rufai. The North must stand firm. The North must contest. And the North must remember: the Southern political elite does not reward those who deliver power—it consumes them.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
Abuja Network News
