By Yinka Giwa
Former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, has accused a fake news platform operating under the Twitter handle @AdcNews_ of deliberately misrepresenting his views on the 2027 presidential election, an action he said almost destabilised the emerging opposition coalition.
In a press statement dated December 15, 2025, El-Rufai excoriated the platform – which had recycled and distorted excerpts from a February 2025 interview he granted ARISE News, falsely portraying him as having taken a definitive position on zoning the presidency to the South in 2027.
The viral post quoted El-Rufai as saying, “We gave Southerners their chance and they gave us Tinubu. Has he done well? If he hasn’t done well, let’s vote him out. I’ll prefer that a Southerner succeeds Tinubu,” while omitting the broader context in which he stressed that electoral calculations, not regional sentiment, must ultimately determine a party’s choice of candidate.
El-Rufai in the February interview had said that whether he will be in the APC or any other party, the central question will always be who has the best chance of winning a national election. He recalled that this same logic guided decisions ahead of the 2023 polls, when southern aspirants were assessed and Bola Tinubu was considered by the party’s caucus to have the strongest electoral prospects. He said the 2027 decision, whenever it is taken, would be approached in the same manner.
Here is what he said in the February interview:
“As a private citizen, I can afford to be reckless and say that we, the Southerners, gave them their chance. They gave us Tinubu. Has he done well? If he hasn’t done well by 2027, let’s vote him out.
“I would prefer that a southerner succeeds Tinubu. But at the end of the day, in the party that I would be, whether it is APC or any other party, the calculation has to be who will win, and as I told you earlier in Kaduna when we looked at all the southern aspirants, our caucus said, look, Tinubu has the best chance of winning. Our party must win whatever the baggage he comes with; let’s manage it after we win.
“It is the same way these decisions are taken now in 2027. I will not be a governor, so I will not have the sort of clout that I had in 2023, but I’m just explaining this so that people understand that in those smokefield rooms where these political decisions are taken, hard political mathematics takes place, in which you want to win, and the person that wins is the one that you go for; it doesn’t matter where he comes from.”
Sources within the opposition coalition told KTH Daily that the misrepresentation immediately caused unease among leaders, who had earlier agreed not to discuss candidates or zoning until the party was firmly on its feet. The distorted quotation also appeared to inflame sensitivities among supporters of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, many of whom believe he should contest in 2027 despite being a northerner.
El-Rufai said the episode was particularly damaging because it occurred at a delicate stage in the coalition’s evolution, when trust, discipline, and message control were essential to keeping the alliance intact.
Other sources accused the @AdcNews_ account of a pattern of disinformation, alleging that it has repeatedly promoted partisan narratives, including frequent support for Peter Obi using AI-generated images depicting global and Nigerian leaders such as Donald Trump and President Bola Tinubu holding placards endorsing Obi for the 2027 presidency.
Sources close to Obi have also disowned any links to the account.
In his statement, El-Rufai categorically denied ever stating which region should produce the next president, describing the claim as false despite its wide circulation. He stressed that he speaks only through his verified social media platforms and interviews with credible media organisations, and that no views should be attributed to him unless explicitly expressed through those channels.
He also criticised the practice of attributing opinion articles written by other authors to him simply because he shared them online, warning that such conduct distorts public discourse and fuels misinformation.
El-Rufai took a swipe at sections of the media, saying some senior editors failed in their professional duty by amplifying claims sourced from a fake news platform without proper verification. He warned that society suffers when media leaders join what he described as the “unedifying Olympics of fiction and fakery.”
El-Rufai cautioned that irresponsible politicking and the misuse of social media pose a serious threat to democratic organisation and coalition-building, urging all actors to act with restraint and responsibility.
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