There is nothing new under the sun and nothing new in the spectacle now unfolding between President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his former ally, Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai What the public sees as betrayal is the oldest choreography in the theatre of power. El-Rufai’s restrained statement—that he seeks neither revenge nor retribution, that accountability belongs to Almighty Allah—is noble. But peace with circumstance is not the same as understanding circumstance. What has happened to him is not unique. The Greeks knew it. The Romans perfected it. The Italians codified it. Nigeria is now living it.
Machiavelli’s The Prince was never a moral treatise but a clinical dissection of how power is acquired, held, and lost In Chapter Seven he warns that princes who rise through the arms and fortune of others stand on shaky ground, depending on those who elevated them; the prince who rises through the strength of others must eventually neutralise those others—or be neutralised by them. Tinubu understood this instinctively.
When El-Rufai delivered the northern votes that made Tinubu’s presidency possible in 2023, he was no mere supporter He was a kingmaker—a general who mobilised troops, secured territory, and handed victory to his prince. According to former minister Solomon Dalung, El-Rufai created Tinubu; remove El-Rufai, and Tinubu would not have won in 2023. This was never friendship but a calculated transaction. El-Rufai needed Tinubu for post-gubernatorial relevance; Tinubu needed northern legitimacy. Machiavelli warns that a prince must never fully trust those who serve out of their own ambition. The alliance was always destined to fracture because it was built on utility, not trust.
The nomination process was the masterstroke When Tinubu submitted his ministerial list in July 2023, El-Rufai’s name was conspicuously included. It appeared a reward for loyalty. Machiavelli would have recognised it as a feint. By nominating El-Rufai, Tinubu achieved three objectives: he shifted blame for rejection onto the Senate; he placed El-Rufai under public scrutiny and security clearance; and bought time to consolidate a loyalist cabinet. This is indirect action—achieving the goal while concealing the hand. In Chapter Eighteen, Machiavelli advises that the prince be a great feigner and dissembler. The nomination was appearance; the rejection was reality; the Senate bridged the distance.
The Senate’s rejection on alleged security grounds was not due process but performance of it Other governors with comparable or more troubling profiles were cleared without incident. They were pliable, unambitious, or sufficiently indebted to the presidency. El-Rufai was none of these. His independent stature, northern network, and capacity to mobilise made him a liability in a cabinet Tinubu intended to control absolutely. The Senate became the intermediary that performed the unpopular act while the president preserved plausible deniability. El-Rufai later confirmed this. In a 2025 interview, he said: “The president did not want me in his cabinet. He changed his mind.” He called the security clearance a “smokescreen,” noting that “less qualified” nominees were confirmed “because the president made a call.” This transforms the Machiavellian reading from inference to documented allegation.
History offers chilling parallels In Rome, Sejanus, prefect of the Praetorian Guard under Tiberius, was the emperor’s most trusted ally. He eliminated rivals and became second most powerful. But he became too capable, too indispensable. Tiberius orchestrated his fall via letters read before the Senate. Sejanus was condemned by the Senate, strangled in prison, and his body cast down the Gemonian Stairs for the mob to abuse. Like El-Rufai, he was elevated, used, and neutralised through institutional machinery. The difference is that El-Rufai survived. The Ottoman devshirme offers a colder version: Christian boys elevated to the highest offices, but with no independent family or tribal base, destroyable by the silent bowstring. El-Rufai is no devshirme servant. He has an independent base—which is precisely why he was neutralised. The prince fears not the servant who owes everything to him, but the ally who can stand alone.
Nor is this experience peculiar to El-Rufai, or to politics, or to our century; it is the common inheritance of mankind, written into the scriptures of all faiths and the chronicles of all nations History gave us Julius Caesar, struck down by Brutus, the man he had pardoned—”Et tu, Brute?” is the eternal cry of every leader who finds the dagger in a friend’s hand. The Bible is a catalogue of such wounds: Joseph sold by his own brothers; David betrayed by Absalom and Ahithophel; Job abandoned by accusing friends; Jesus delivered for thirty pieces of silver by Judas, denied by Peter, deserted by Demas. Islam tells the same truth. The Quran recounts Yusuf—”the best of stories”—whose brothers cast him into a well, yet God raised him to the treasury of Egypt and made him say to his betrayers, “No blame upon you today.” The Prophet Muhammad himself was stoned at Ta’if and tested at Uhud when the archers abandoned their posts; and Karbala remains the enduring testimony that those who invite a leader may be the first to abandon him. The Quran consoles every betrayed soul: “You will surely be tested in your possessions and in yourselves” (3:186), and “perhaps you hate a thing and it is good for you” (2:216). What El-Rufai now feels is therefore no aberration but a rite of passage—painful, yes, but part of life and, rightly borne, an experience worth the while. It is also a reminder that not everyone is ready for the bullet. Betrayal breaks some and refines others; only those with the constitution to absorb it without bitterness can convert the wound into wisdom.
El-Rufai’s own testimony invites deeper reflection, stated diplomatically yet forcefully As a Muslim he knows that power belongs to God alone, who gives and withdraws it as He wills. Dominion is His; He gives and takes as He pleases. The lesson cuts both ways. The prince now seated must never assume permanence, for the same Hand that elevated him can lower him. The ally now cast aside must never assume his season has ended, for the same Hand that permitted his humiliation can restore him. God uses human beings as instruments—Tinubu was in part El-Rufai’s instrument, just as El-Rufai now appears Tinubu’s casualty; both remain instruments in a design neither controls. This is no licence for fatalism but a call for humility and vigilance. Human beings must be careful with assumptions, whether of invincibility or of irrelevance. The prudent man plans, prepares, and waits—but does not presume to know the decree.
Nigeria’s system is patrimonial Power flows through personal ties, patronage, and ethnic alliances, not impersonal institutions. The prince cannot rely on institutional loyalty; he must rely on individuals whose loyalty lasts only as long as their interests align. El-Rufai’s base is the North. Tinubu needed northern legitimacy to win; once elected, he had to prevent El-Rufai from using the North independently. The rejection was never merely about security. It was about restructuring the North’s relationship with the centre, ensuring northern leaders owed their positions to Tinubu, not to El-Rufai. This is divide-and-rule. Machiavelli would have recognised it instantly.