{"id":178027,"date":"2025-09-09T07:46:20","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T06:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/presidency-criticizes-el-rufai-for-past-support-of-bandits"},"modified":"2025-09-09T09:23:02","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T08:23:02","slug":"presidency-criticizes-el-rufai-for-past-support-of-bandits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/presidency-criticizes-el-rufai-for-past-support-of-bandits","title":{"rendered":"Presidency Criticizes El-Rufai for Past Support of Bandits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>The presidency has accused former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, of double standards in his position on negotiations with bandits.<\/p>\n<p>Presidential spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, in a post on X on Monday, described El-Rufai as a \u201cmaster of ambivalence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He alleged that the former governor once spearheaded the payment of bandits in a bid to restore peace but now criticizes such measures for political reasons.<\/p>\n<p>He said: \u201cMalam Nasir EL-Rufai is the master of ambivalence. Once upon a time, he supported and led the way in paying bandits to calm them. Today, in the name of politics, he opposes it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>El-Rufai has in recent weeks openly disagreed with the Bola Tinubu administration over its approach to tackling insecurity, particularly its stance against negotiating with terrorists and bandits.<\/p>\n<p>His comments had sparked mixed reactions, with the government accusing him of spreading falsehood.<\/p>\n<p>The Tinubu government said it has consistently maintained that it would not pay ransom to the bandits.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Nigeria<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. The presidency has accused former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, of double standards in his position on negotiations with bandits. Presidential spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, in a post on X on Monday, described El-Rufai as a \u201cmaster of ambivalence.\u201d He alleged that the former governor once spearheaded the payment of bandits in a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":178025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,14],"tags":[1651,254,158],"class_list":["post-178027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-el-rufai-2","tag-nigeria","tag-presidency"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Presidency Criticizes El-Rufai for Past Support of Bandits - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The presidency has accused former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, of double standards in his position on negotiat ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/presidency-criticizes-el-rufai-for-past-support-of-bandits\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Presidency Criticizes El-Rufai for Past Support of Bandits\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The presidency has accused former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, of double standards in his position on negotiat ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/presidency-criticizes-el-rufai-for-past-support-of-bandits\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-09T06:46:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-09-09T08:23:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/09\/sm_1757393749.724445.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/presidency-criticizes-el-rufai-for-past-support-of-bandits#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/presidency-criticizes-el-rufai-for-past-support-of-bandits\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Presidency Criticizes El-Rufai for Past Support of Bandits\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-09-09T06:46:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-09-09T08:23:02+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/presidency-criticizes-el-rufai-for-past-support-of-bandits\"},\"wordCount\":177,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/presidency-criticizes-el-rufai-for-past-support-of-bandits#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/09\/sm_1757393749.724445.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"El Rufai\",\"Nigeria\",\"Presidency\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/presidency-criticizes-el-rufai-for-past-support-of-bandits#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/presidency-criticizes-el-rufai-for-past-support-of-bandits\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/presidency-criticizes-el-rufai-for-past-support-of-bandits\",\"name\":\"Presidency Criticizes El-Rufai for Past Support of Bandits - 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