The prince, the General, the fallen ally: The mechanics of neutralization (I).
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 […] 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.
But peace with circumstance is not the same as understanding circumstance.
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. 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.
MSEApp News is publishing an original rewrite of this tip for readers, based on reporting associated with Daily Trust.