Adewole Adebayo, the 2023 presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), has described the new addition to the party, Nasir El-Rufai, as an asset with a proven track record of exemplary public service.
Adebayo extolled the intellectual sagacity of El-Rufai, a two-term ex-governor of Kaduna State, but said the former minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has some weaknesses to work on.
“The issue is that I see him as an asset, as a hard-working person and he has a verifiable and measurable track record of public performance,” the SDP chieftain said on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief breakfast programme on Tuesday.
“What I believe is that he has his weaknesses which he needs to work on but I am not his mentor or therapist.
“What I know is that Nigerians have a bird’s eye view of El-Rufai, they will consider some of the comments that he’s made and some other aspects. Overall, Nigerians will say: ‘Here is a very good public servant.”
On Monday, March 10, 2025, El-Rufai, a northern political heavyweight and one of the strong support systems of ex-Lagos governor Bola Tinubu in the 2023 presidential poll, announced his defection from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to one of the opposition parties, the SDP.
The former Kaduna governor said the APC has strayed from the dreams and vision of its founding fathers. El-Rufai was involved in the merger of parties that formed the APC in 2013.
Adebayo said El-Rufai was welcomed into the SDP. He said, “Nigeria is diverse and you will find patriots on all sides. It doesn’t mean that if you narrow the discussion to particular areas, I will agree with Nasir El-Rufai on many of them but I agree with the fact that he is a hard-working person and a highly intelligent person.”
The SDP politician lampooned the APC as a party of lousy people with the overriding goal of state capture.
“I consider APC to be a lousy coalition of people who do not know what governance is all about and who are very good with politics of how to capture power.
“When El-Rufai joined them, I thought that that was a loss to the more intellectual side of our society, and I am not surprised that he had a head-on collision with them on many issues,” he said.