•Gov. Nasir el-Rufai
Bello El-Rufai, son of Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State, has sparked social media outrage for hurling sexually offensive threats against a twitter user who referred to him ‘daddy’s boy’.
The confrontation between Bello, a legislative aide to Senator Uba Sani, and a twitter user, Consigliere (@thanos_zer ), ensued on Sunday April 11 and Monday April 12 when the latter criticised a tweet posted last Saturday by the governor’s son.
“There is nothing as radioactive as an incompetent leader during a time of crisis. The United States of America is a case in point. A few states in Nigeria too,” the younger El-Rufai tweeted after 8:00 p.m. on Saturday.
The twitter handle, @thanos_zer responded by asking what the governor’s son thought about President Muhammadu Buhari, who has been criticised as an “absentee” leader for his few public appearances. He insisted that the U.S. President was miles ahead of Buhari and even Bello’s father, El-Rufai, in terms of quality leadership.
“How about the absentee president in Nigeria? He (Bello) can’t call Buhari out for his ineptitude yet he’s calling Trump names? Did he vote Trump?” @thanos_zer wrote.
In response, Bello El-Rufai hurled incentives at the twitter user and said he was sure that @thanos_zer would be from the South-East and his state governor would be grossly incompetent. He also sent a private message saying it was obvious that he was attacking Buhari because he (the twitter user) is Igbo.
Bello then tweeted that Buhari was completing the Second Niger Bridge in the South-East, a feat which former President Goodluck Jonathan could not attain despite being supported by Igbo. He also insulted the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu and hurled sexually offensive incentives at him saying in one of his lewd comments which he tweeted at 11:02 a.m, that he had learnt of the sexual exploits of @thanos_zer’s grandmother.
The twitter handle, @thanos_zer responded, saying: “I don’t shield anyone who’s inept. I can’t say the same about you. You’re daddy’s boy and of course nobody attacks the finger that feeds them. Buhari’s ineptitude is mind-blowing. Yes, I said it and you’re not going to make me disappear!”
El-Rufai’s son responded saying: “Your mother is the main whore of the South-East. I can’t reply you publicly. This daddy’s boy has heard your mother’s ability to take dick is mind blowing, especially one dipped in kerosene from Abia land. Sounds about fair. Despite the ineptitude, he is completing a bridge your Ebele could not. You’re stuck with PMB and can’t do shit. How’s failed daddy? F**k Kanu and take a picture of the Second Niger Bridge, thanks to Buhari. My mentions are mine. If a Sunday bastard makes up lies and drags my father, his mother will be games. If he doesn’t want it, he shouldn’t mention me. The crowd has never fazed me (sic) me.”
About an hour after the public spat ended, @thanos_zer posted a screenshot that contained a threat which Bello El-Rufai sent to him as a private message. “This was what El Rufai’s son sent before blocking me. I’m not even Igbo and none of what he said got to me.”
The message read: “Oh and tell your mother I’m passing her to my friends tonight. No Igbo sounds please! Tueh.”
While the confrontation between both men went on, twitter users tagged Bello’s mother, Hadiza Isma El-Rufai, 59, who is the chair of the Kaduna State Sexual Assault Task Force and urged her to denounce her son’s statement but she refused.
“Don’t @ me. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. All is fair in love and war. The point I tried to make is for people not to @me. Why should they? Responding to insults on twitter is fair. I stand by that. I had not gone through the tweets because it’s really none of my business, so didn’t know the details. He’s an adult not a child, after all,” Mrs. El-Rufai said.
An anti-sexual violence organisation, NorthNormal, swiftly issued a statement condemning El-Rufai’s comment and questioned Mrs. El-Rufai’s competence to chair a panel seeking to fight sexual assault, demanding that she resigns as the chair of the task force.
Hours after she was asked to resign, Mrs. El-Rufai apologised for her tweets saying: “I can see how my tweet may have come across and I apologise to those who were offended by it. I say once again that I would never condone sexual abuse in any shape or form.”
A former Minister of Education, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, chimed into the controversy and asked Bello to apologise for making “acerbic comments laced with tribalism.” (Daily Sun)
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