Former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has opened up on how former President Muhammadu Buhari was allegedly misled into dropping Chief Audu Ogbeh as Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) in 2015.

Speaking on Monday at Ogbeh’s Night of Tribute, held at the Bola Tinubu International Conference Centre in Abuja, El-Rufai recalled that Buhari had initially chosen Ogbeh as his top pick for the SGF position shortly after the All Progressives Congress (APC) won the presidential election.

According to him, Buhari told him that he wanted a Christian from the Middle Belt for the role and had settled on Ogbeh. However, the plan changed after some individuals around Buhari claimed Ogbeh owed banks nearly ₦2 billion from his agricultural ventures and might be distracted by the debts.

El-Rufai said Buhari later confided that he had been misled and sought to make amends by appointing Ogbeh as Minister of Agriculture instead.

“The next time the president called me, he said some things had come up and he was appointing someone else as SGF,” El-Rufai revealed. “After the announcement, I found out he had been told Chief Ogbeh owed a huge loan and would focus on repaying it instead of the job. Borrowing is not a crime; he runs a thriving farm and was servicing the loan.”

El-Rufai added that this was the first time he was publicly sharing the details of that private conversation.

Chief Audu Ogbeh, a farmer and former PDP national chairman, later served as Minister of Agriculture from 2015 to 2019.