After a Tuesday meeting at the Presidential Villa, El-Rufai decided against joining President Tinubu’s cabinet.

Recall that El-Rufai met with the President the day after the Senate approved 45 ministerial nominees after a week-long screening and confirmation process.

But the upper legislative chamber refused to confirm him and two other people, citing State Security Service security reports as justification for the rejection.

Sani Danladi, a former senator from Taraba, and Stella Okotete, a nominee from Delta State, were the other two.

A presidency source who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES revealed that El-Rufai was no longer interested in becoming a minister due to his current doctorate programme but would continue to contribute his quota to the development of Nigeria as a private citizen.

The sources said, “He also told the president that he needed time to focus on his doctorate programme at a university in The Netherlands.”

The former governor is studying for a doctorate in public policy at the United Nations University, Maastricht.

Another insider also told the publication that El-Rufai suggested a new ministerial nominee, Jafaru Ibrahim Sani, for Kaduna State, saying the President would find him helpful and resourceful.

Also, during the meeting, President Tinubu also told the former governor he received petitions critical to his ministerial nomination.

The President, however, demanded 24 hours of grace to review the petitions and the SSS report to the Senate to enable him to reach a decision.

At that point, El-Rufai responded that he was no longer interested in being a minister since it appeared some forces around the President were scheming intensely to block his emergence as federal minister.

During his confirmation hearing on August 1, El-Rufai revealed that Tinubu had requested him to work with him on the country’s electricity issue.

He claimed that the President had set a deadline of seven years for Nigeria to be free of power of outage.

El-Rufai reportedly informed the President of the situation at the meeting on Tuesday, saying that because he would no longer be a member of the federal executive council, he would return with his group to submit the preliminary work completed so far on the energy sector.