EL-Rufai In Battle Of The Titans: Veterans At War- Who Blinks First?

BY EMMANUEL GANDU

Introduction

He had fought many titanic battles in the past and in all of them, he came out a triumphant warrior.

From his University Students Union Aluta days to the years of the demolition saga of the FCT during the Obasanjo PDP administration.

From the first and second infamous tenures as governor of Kaduna State widely characterised by blood and tears, life threatening, unpopular and controversial policies to the alleged “treasonable” confrontation/fight with President Muhammadu Buhari over the new currency redesign policy, going all the way to the Supreme Court.

From the battles of imposition of the Muslim-Muslim ticket in Kaduna State in 2019 and again in 2023, to the replication of same at the federal level in the 2023 presidential election.

It therefore remains to be seen whether this latest battle for confirmation as a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by the 10th Senate will be won or lost by El-Rufai.

Although he thrives on controversy, and win or lose, Nasir El-Rufai’s image and ego would have been bruised to such an extent that the memory will for a long time ever remain indelible in both his mind and that of the Nigerian public.

EL-RUFAI, THE MACHIAVELLIAN RUTHLESS STRATEGIST

Nasir Ahmed El-Rufai comes across to me as an astute, unrepentant, ruthless Machiavellian strategist.

People call him by as diverse names as there are available situations, some complementary and a lot more uncharitable – “fearless one”, “Hell Rufai”, “Mai Rusou”, “Bull Dozer”, and “Midjet”. I refer to him as the “Evil Genius”.

Be it as it may, these names are a reflection of what the phenomenon called Mallam El-Rufai has come to mean in the lives of the people he had impacted negatively or positively.

But one thing you cannot take away from the short man is his high level of intelligence and strategic planning which puts him miles ahead of others.

Give it to him or not, El-Rufai’s independent disposition works well for him. His ruthlessly shrewd personality is an asset he cherishes like gold. Hate him or like him, you may never know when your actions may be at your peril or not, but one thing I know is that El-Rufai is such an enigma that you would hate to love.

His type of specie and breed is so rare that they come once in a lifetime. This rare gem of El-Rufai seems to have come way ahead of our time, and the Nigerian society may not have been ripe ready for his brand.

However, the resultant outcomes of El-Rufai’s actions have been as disastrous as they have been seen to cause catastrophic consequences in the lives of Nigerians.

Consequently, Nasir Ahmed El-Rufai does not appeal to me as a unifier. He is definitely not a reflection of a bridge builder.

People like El-Rufai have put a knife on the things that held us together and we’ve fallen apart.

Nigerians now need to have leaders who will help to bring back Nigeria from the brink, and El-Rufai does not make the list.

Therefore, based on the foregoing facts, it remains to be seen whether President Ahmed Bola Tinubu will appoint El-Rufai as a minister of the Federal Republic or not.

WHY THE OPPOSITION TO EL-RUFAI’S MINISTERIAL APPOINTMENT?

(1) CORRUPTION PETITION AGAINST EL-RUFAI

The DSS and other anti-graft agencies have been investigating cases of corruption amounting to several billions of Naira against EL-Rufai.

(2) NAIRA RE-DESIGN TREASONABLE STATE WIDE ADDRESS BY EL-RUFAI

The Muhammadu Buhari government came up with the Naira Re-Design policy to arrest some identified monetary and currency problems. This policy though came with some hardship on the people, the Buhari government was determined to see to its successful implementation.

As the hardship of the exchange/swap persisted, three major incidents occurred:

(a) El-Rufai led a group of governors from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), and challenged the president at the Supreme court not to be allowed to go ahead with the Naira Re-Design policy.

(b) Focused on going ahead with the policy, President Buhari addressed Nigerians in a National State Wide morning broadcast calling on Nigerians to observe the guidelines on the use and exchange of the old notes for the new notes, as the Naira Re-Design policy had come to stay and would be pursued to its logical conclusion.

(c) Regrettably, El Rufai came up with a counter State Wide radio and TV broadcast in the evening of same day declaring the old notes legal tender, and citizens should therefore ignore the morning broadcast address of the president by going ahead to keep spending the old notes.

Nigerians therefore had two (2) presidents on that same day.

Is this not a case of treason?

(3) THE NEAR SPLIT OF THE NIGERIAN BAR ASSOCIATION (NBA) along religious devide by El Rufai:

The withdrawal of an earlier invitation extended to El-Rufai to attend as a guest speaker the NBA annual conference slated from 26 – 29 August 2020, sparked up a religious connotation and crisis of factionalization.

The NBA’s reasons for the withdrawal of the invitation to El-Rufai was linked to his poor human rights records, injustice especially to the people of Southern Kaduna.

Consequently, the Muslim Lawyers Association of Nigeria (MULAN) led by their branches in Kaduna, Jigawa, Bauchi and other states were in the vanguard of setting up a rival faction of the NBA for Muslims only.

This imbroglio became an Achille’s heel for the then MBA President, Paul Usoro, SAN.

(4) EL-RUFAI’S ENDLESS SACK OF THOUSANDS OF WORKERS

El-Rufai had acquired a notoriety for pursuing an unpopular policy of retrenchment and job loses in order to save money for the state instead of thinking outside the box by creating avenues of business and wealth creation to retain the work force at the same time absorb the teaming school leavers.

According to figures from the Kaduna state Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), since 2016, Governor Nasir Ahmed El-Rufai had sacked about 70,000 workers as at May 2021, an unprecedented situation never experienced in any state of the federation.

This gale of workers sack that regularly swept through at the slightest excuse of change in the revenue profile of Kaduna state shows clearly that El Rufai will be incapable of managing a federal ministry spanning the entire 36 states and FCT.

In 2016, over 13,000 employees of the state labelled as ghost workers were dismissed. The following year (2017) another 40,000 public sector workers were retrenched. Around half of these were teachers who’s competency test had been arbitrarily pegged by the state government at an unprecedented 75%.

To make matters worse, many of these teachers did not receive any redundancy money.

From May 2021 to the end of that year, El-Rufai had dismissed as many as another 17,000 workers. This included 6,000 local government and primary health care workers.

Some other 11,000 workers from the state ministries were dismissed for reasons of having spent 30 years and above, or being on level 14 and above.

Unfortunately, persons who have earned pension for between 5 and 10 years and “refused to die” were no longer paid their monthly pensions. El-Rufai had maintained that their children should take care of them, claiming that these policies were necessary due to declining state revenue.

Regrettably, the sacking of workers had continued up to 2023 as Nasir Ahmed El-Rufai had vowed on 20th May 2023 to continue the sacking of workers till his last hour in office.

(5) EL-RUFAI’S DEMOLITION OF BUILDINGS SENDS HUNDREDS TO THEIR GRAVES

Beginning from his days as Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) during the Obasanjo presidency up to his 8 years at the helm of affairs as governor of Kaduna state ending on May 29th 2023, El-Rufai’s demolition of houses, office buildings, business premises, schools, hospitals, churches and mosques, recreational facilities etc, in Abuja and Kaduna state have brought untold hardship to Nigerians.

By his arbitrary actions, El-Rufai drove many Nigerians prematurely to their graves leaving behind helpless and vulnerable families.

Among some of the demolitions in recent memory include the series of buildings belonging to political opponents, and even members of his own APC, the Shiites facilities in Kaduna and Zaria, the El Zakzaki residential compounds in Zaria and Kaduna, the Grace Land village in Zaria, the Gbagyi Villa in Kaduna, and so many others.

The initial demolition of 200 of the 450 houses earlier earmarked for demolition in October 2021 threw up many families in the Zaria Grace Land village to the mercy of nature.

In all, the El Zakzaki led Islamic Movement had over 48 of its structures demolished between 2016 and 2023.

The last of El-Rufai’s demolition exercise was the Gbagyi Villa carried out on the eve of his departure at the end of his 8 years tenure as governor of Kaduna state in May 2023. This Gbagyi Villa demolition affected over 3,000 houses, over 40 churches, some schools, hospitals, business centers, and recreational facilities.

Senator Hunkuyi’s house in Kaduna was demolished in 2018 despite being in the same party (APC) with El Rufai.

Unconfirmed stories went round in May 2023 that some nine (9) buildings belonging to former Governor Ahmed Makarfi of Kaduna state were marked for demolition. But we hope those stories ended up in the rumour dust bin.

(6) UNEVEN DISTRIBUTION OF EMPLOYMENT AND INFRASTRUCTURE:

(a) Development projects are concentrated in the Muslim dominated parts of Kaduna State. These projects include major roads, township roads, neighborhood roads, flyovers, and markets.

(b) On the contrary, the Christian dominated parts of Kaduna state and indeed the entire Southern Kaduna is totally neglected and abandoned. The only semblance of road construction/renovation is the Muslim settlement in and around the Emir of Kafanchan palace, and Muslim settlements in Kachia.

(7) CHURCHES AND MOSQUES

(a) The 17 year old Kaduna State University have five Mosques on the Kaduna campus while Christians have no single Church. Efforts by the Christian community to erect a structure was resisted with a June 6, 2022 demolition allegedly supervised by military/security who collected the hand set phones of the few Christians present at the time of demolition.

(b) Since their place of worship was revoked, the Catholic students and staff of the Kongo campus of Ahmadu Bello University Zaria have been thrown up to the mercy of the harsh weather as they worship in make shift locations, most times under trees for more than decades now.

(8) EL-RUFAI PAID MONETARY COMPENSATION TO FOREIGN FULANI

At a world press conference in December 2016 in his office, Governor El-Rufai told journalists that “We have paid some foreign Fulanis to stop killings in Southern Kaduna”

In that press conference as reported by Vanguard of 3rd December 2016, El-Rufai said his government traced some aggrieved Fulanis to their countries to stop the killings.

According to the report these Fulani are from Niger, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Senegal, other 9 African countries.

Hear now is the implication of El-Rufai’s actions:

(i) Southern Kaduna is seen by every Fulani in the world as the aggressor in this unending conflict.

(ii) Is this El-Rufai action not a catalyst/cannon fodder for the unending spate of killings and destruction of property in Southern Kaduna?

(iii) Why haven’t El-Rufai also compensated the people of Southern Kaduna who have continued to bear the brunt of the Fulani herdsmen terrorists massacre on daily basis all these years.

(iv) El-Rufai’s traveled, talking, and paid compensation to foreign Fulani in their countries is a foreign policy action. The Nigerian 1999 constitution as amended placed foreign policy on the exclusive list:

(a) Does El Rufai have the powers to travel and pay money to foreigners in their own country?

(b) Is his actions not tantamount to treasonable felony or a coup d’etat?

(c) Is El-Rufai’s trans-borders movement of unrecorded, unapproved, and unappropriated cash not a financial crime?

(d) Must El-Rufai not be investigated by the EFCC or other monitoring agencies?

(9) FRIDAY WORK FREE DAY IN KADUNA STATE:

Kaduna State government declared a Friday work free day for its work force. If this was for the purposes of equity since Sunday is also a work free day which to me is commendable, then it behoves on the person who preaches equity to be fair and just to all concerned in all cases.

He who talks about equity must come with clean hands.

What about mosques built in court premises, market places, government residential quarters, etc yet Christians have not insisted for the application of equity and same treatment by demanding for the building of churches in public government premises.

Christians are conscious of the five times Muslims pray and hence have accepted the building of mosques in and within office premises, but El-Rufai is bent on stocking hate, division and violence.

(10) UNENDING RELIGIOUS CRISIS IN KADUNA STATE:

Kaduna State has witnessed a dangerous and an unending religious crisis than any other state in Nigeria.This got to a heightened, alarming, and deadly situations with catastrophic consequences from 2016 till date.

Consequently, killing in the name of God by both adherents of Christianity and Islam in Kaduna state became the norm rather than the exception.

Regrettably, cases of religious related attacks and killings are reported on daily basis, with government either seemingly overwhelmed, or lacking the political will to protect the lives and property of the vulnerable.

(11) MUSLIM-MUSLIM TICKET WAS A TRICK PLAYED ON CHRISTIANS TO ISLAMIZE NIGERIA – EL-RUFAI

El-Rufai in a video that went viral told Nigerians in an address to a group of Islamic scholars on June 4, 2023 that the Muslim-Muslim ticket of Tinubu/Shettima and that of Kaduna state was meant to Islamize Nigeria.

He went further in the video to assert that Christians were deceived/tricked into the plan by voting for the tickets, emphasising they would ensure that this plan would be sustained beyond the “next 20 years by God’s grace.”

El-Rufai went further to tell his audience that Muslims will continue to win elections comfortably even without the votes of Christians.

Interestingly, keen watchers of El-Rufai’s brand of politics had warned severally of his penchant for divisiveness with the attendant consequences:

(a) Prior to the 2019 elections. El-Rufai introduced the Muslim-Muslim ticket in Nigeria by bringing a Muslim deputy governor for APC in Kaduna State.

(b) This Muslim-Muslim ticket has been a catalyst for a feeling of superiority of Muslims over Christians who feel that they are in charge.

(c) On the part of the Christians, they have a feeling of a second class status and therefore resign themselves to any situation meted to them.

(d) Consequently, this superiority and inferiority complex is the gunpowder for violence at any slightest provocation.

(e) Is Nigeria practicing a democratic federal system or an Islamic theocracy?

(f) The decision by APC to have an all Muslims ticket for the 2023 presidential election is said to be a decision crafted and foisted on Nigeria by the Northern Muslims who are bent on having one of their own at the highest decision making process in order to continue controlling the federal government.

(g) Having seen the success of the Muslim-Muslim ticket in Kaduna state for the Islamic agenda, including the economic, political, and social benefits that have accrued to the Hausa/Fulani, the need therefore to replicate it at the federal level, the El-Rufai invention, cannot be overlooked.

Good spirited Nigerians from all parts of the country, Muslims and Christians, workers and unemployed, young and old, have a common enemy today – cost of living.

Therefore, any individual that is identified not to be innovative enough to create jobs for the teaming population is not a ministerial material.

With the abundance of natural and human resources, Nigeria have no business with poverty, hunger, unemployment, lay-offs and retrenchment.

Nigerians need jobs, jobs and jobs in a society free from religious bigots and religious violence.

The El-Rufai we already know, cannot guarantee these ideals.