In the contemporary politics of Nigeria, Mallam Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai needs no introduction. The self-acclaimed “Accidental Public Servant” is the reigning storm petrel, defined as a person who delights in conflicts, or who deliberately stokes controversy with every step he takes.
Undoubtedly, El-Rufai, the immediate-past governor of Kaduna state, former minister of the Federal Capital Territory, and failed-to-be minister of power in the current administration, is an intelligent man who pursues his goals with a single-minded zeal that borders on recklessness. Not given to tact and diplomacy, his overbloated ego pushes him to give scanty regards to opposing views, and to trample on the interest of others. Always, he is engaged in one scheme or the other, as he struggles to present himself as the supreme pontiff in all things.
Therefore, it is not much of a surprise that El-Rufai is being suspected to be the arrowhead of an emerging political gang up against the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu government. In his characteristic arrogance, bolstered by baseless self-assurance that he can lead the entire North by the nose, he sees the present federal government as a push over, one that he can render dysfunctional with relative ease. Unknown to him, the platform is slippery, considering the powerful enemies arrayed against him.
If the posters signed by the Aswaju Support Group, which recently surfaced in parts of Abuja, are anything to go by, one can safely conclude that it’s only a question of time before the ultimate confrontation between El-Rufai and President Tinubu blows open.
Both men are no strangers to each other, but the emerging fight will be an encounter of two unequal fighters: Tinubu, as the President and Commander-inChief, controls the coercive power of the state that can be deployed to check the seeming excesses of El-Rufai. This is not a threat but a statement of reality.
If and when El-Rufai eventually gets into trouble with the Tinubu administration, as it seems most likely, it would be a typical El-Rufai phenomenon. The vintage Mallam is known to fall out with every new government, including the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, which barely tolerated his numerous irritations and reckless utterances.
In 2007, he had a problem with the late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua administration over alleged misconduct as FCT minister. El-Rufai eventually went into self exile and didn’t return until the death of Yar’adua, because the Goodluck Jonathan administration showed no desire to pursue the allegations against him.
El-Rufai is a man who not only creates an alternate reality but also peddles twisted facts to suit his selfish agenda. After Yar’adua’s death, the accidental public servant, in a leaked audio clip, claimed that Yar’adua had planned to inject him with HIV and Hepatitis viruses. Of course, he provided no shred of evidence to support his wild allegation. The Daily Nigerian newspaper in January 13, 2017, published the allegation by El-Rufai, which couldn’t be confirmed because Yar’adua had died. But many doubt his story, considering El-Rufai’s antecedents, and the peaceful nature of the late Katsina-born president who, it was believed, could not hurt a fly.
“This is what I heard. I don’t know whether it is true or not true. But the fact that I am alive and he is dead, I should be grateful to God. Everyone has his own fate and destiny”, said a triumphant El-Rufai in a veiled celebration of Yar’Adua’s demise!
But while Yar’Adua wasn’t around to speak for himself, Peter Obi, the former governor of Anambra state and presidential candidate of Labour Party, rebutted El-Rufai’s falsehoods against him. At a 2023 elections event for the presidential candidates of the various parties, organised by the Arewa joint committee, El-Rufai had conveniently claimed that Peter Obi got the Department of State Security (DSS) to place him under house arrest in 2013 to stop him from monitoring the governorship election in the state. Thankfully, El-Rufai successfully sued the DSS at the Federal High Court, and in 2014, the court awarded him N2 million damages and an apology by the DSS. Obi was not a party to the suit because El-Rufai knew he didn’t issue the order, but that didn’t stop him from lying barefacedly against Obi.
Said El-Rufai, “Your next guest, Peter Obi, was governor. He got me arrested and detained for 48 hours in my hotel room. Now, I am the governor of Kaduna state. And he is coming to Kaduna. In addition to the police and the SSS, I have one mechanised division Nigerian Army here, if I need to arrest and detain anyone”.
Though El-Rufai’s claim was debunked, that didn’t stop him from continuing to spin his tales by moonlight.
The story of El-Rufai organising meetings to form a mega party to ensure the defeat of Tinubu in 2027 elections is in character. He is not someone that forgives real or perceived insult, especially as President Tinubu had announced that he was going to be the power minister.
It can be recalled that though Jonathan refused to continue the case against him, which allowed him to come back from exile, he wasted no time launching a vicious attack against Jonathan who committed a crime by-passing him and choosing Namadi Sambo for the vacant vice presidency position. Jonathan was smart to ignore El-Rufai despite his provocations.
As told by Reno Omokri, “Exactly six days after his return, Mr. El-Rufai visited the then President Jonathan at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, on Tuesday, May 11, 2010, and then held a press conference outside the then President’s office, where he made unsolicited comments asking Dr. Jonathan to contest the 2011 elections and said that he would support him. After the then President named Mr. Namadi Sambo as his Vice President, two days later, on May 13, 2010, Mr. El-Rufai became very bitter and made plans to leave the Peoples Democratic Party and began to undermine the Jonathan administration”.
El-Rufai’s volcanic antecedents makes the story of his current alleged plot against Tinubu believable. He can’t stand being snubbed, especially as he holds the president responsible for the refusal of the senate to clear him as a minister. The president should prepare for war from a man who, at a Kaduna APC stakeholders’ meeting, reminded his political enemies that he fought two former presidents, Yar’Adua and Jonathan to a standstill.
“I fought with two presidents, Umaru Yar’Adua ended in his grave, while President Goodluck Jonathan ended in Otueke,’ he boasted. The big question is, where would he want President Tinubu to end up; Ikoyi or below the ground?
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, a good judge of character, wrote about El-Rufai’s penchant for lies and twisting facts. In his book, “My Watch Volume 2, Obasanjo describes Mallam El-Rufai as follows: “Nasir’s penchant for reputation savaging is almost pathological. Why does he do it? I recognised his weaknesses; the worst being his inability to be loyal to anybody or any issue consistently for long, but only to Nasir el-Rufai. He barefacedly lied which he did to me against his colleagues and so-called friends. I have heard of how he ruthlessly savaged the reputation of his uncle, a man who was like, in the African setting, his foster father. I shuddered when I heard the story of what he did to his half-brother in the Air Force who is senior to him in age.”
Will the Tinubu administration ignore El-Rufai like Jonathan did even when he allegedly engages in subversive activities, like when he accused Jonathan of being the founder of Boko Haram, and funding it to the tune of N50 billion, to give Islam a bad name? He also lied that Jonathan planned Boko Haram attacks with the late President Idris Deby of Chad, a statement which he made on November 25, 2014. His effort to tarnish the image of Jonathan included the laughable statement that Jonathan had a hit list of prominent Nigerians that included Buhari, to be assassinated.
Will Tinubu ignore the seeming ruinous distractions of El-Rufai like Jonathan, or move swiftly against him like Yar’adua did?
The indication is that the Tinubu administration will not swiftly move against El-Rufai, because he is considered already damaged beyond redemption. But going by the posters that surfaced in Abuja some weeks ago, which flagged El-Rufai as a security risk, among other allegations, the accidental public servant might find himself in the cooler, just as they ensured that he wasn’t confirmed as a minister.
Tinubu is believed to be counting on El-Rufai’s self destructive statements, especially the video where he claimed that there was an Islamic agenda to foist a Muslim hegemony on the secular country and the uncomplimentary character testimonials from Obasanjo and Atiku Abubakar which he hasn’t been able to disprove.
El-Rufai has never stopped claiming that he was instrumental to the emergence of Yar’Adua in 2007 as president, which everyone knows was solely Obasanjo’s doing, just as he has equally been claiming credit for the emergence of Tinubu as the APC candidate and his election, even though Tinubu was defeated in Kaduna state under El-Rufai’s superintendence!
Like the leopard, El-Rufai never changes his spots. It would be recalled that he spoke highly of the late Yar’adua and campaigned for him, but quickly became disgruntled once he did not get what he wanted from the administration. He followed the same pattern in dealing with Jonathan after he was by-passed for the office of the vice president.
Knowing his antecedents, can anyone be fooled by the claims of El-Rufai’s spin doctors that the accidental public servant is not plotting some pitfalls for President Tinubu for failing to make him minister of power?
The president should expect a campaign of calumny that would have no boundary like he did to Yar’adua; including revealing his smoking habits and alleged insubordination at the famous Barewa College, which el-Rufai informed the public, gave Yar’Adua the nickname of “Bad Man”.
Indeed, the accidental public servant has made his marks, negatively and otherwise, in the sands of contemporary politics of Nigeria. In his shoes, a wiser and less egoistic man or woman would permanently retire from politics and focus on their family or private pursuit, rather than risking everything for poorly defined selfish objectives.
Aliyu writes from Kaduna
