Datti: When outbursts do more harm than good

Datti Baba Ahmed had written a rebuttal against Kaduna State’s governor, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, on his stance on the ideological thoughts of Nigeria’s founding fathers after independence in the Daily Trust of 24th July, 2017 titled “El-Rufa’i’s vituperations against Sardauna, Awolowo, Zik”. Contrary to Datti’s assumption, the video was shot at the Transformed To Transform […]

Datti Baba Ahmed had written a rebuttal against Kaduna State’s governor, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, on his stance on the ideological thoughts of Nigeria’s founding fathers after independence in the Daily Trust of 24th July, 2017 titled “El-Rufa’i’s vituperations against Sardauna, Awolowo, Zik”. Contrary to Datti’s assumption, the video was shot at the Transformed To Transform Nigeria Conference for Youth Corpers, held on January 22, 2014 at the Yar’Adua Center, Abuja. Datti being a PhD-holder ought to have known the importance of research in verifying information. This intellectual deficiency – and quite frankly, laziness – coupled with his outright hatred for Malam El-Rufai, made him display his profoundly hidden side to the public. 

Datti has accused Malam El-Rufai of riding on President Muhammadu Buhari’s popularity to win the election that saw him become Kaduna’s governor. But what he could have reasoned, is that at least El-Rufai worked hard with Buhari to make sure there was a platform – Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) – through which political unknowns would ride and win elections, as far back as 2011, if you catch my drift. Again, El-Rufai worked hard with other Nigerians to get rid of PDP by taking a leading role in the restructuring committee of CPC, which later contributed to the merger that led to the formation of APC. 

El-Rufai was among the 37 persons that signed the document which gave birth to the formation of All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2013. After investing his energy, intellect and resources into bringing the APC into existence, and given the potential to turn the fortunes of Kaduna State around, which he has showed the people, it cannot be said to be out of place that El-Rufai rode on President Buhari’s popularity to win his gubernatorial seat. 

Datti in 2003 defeated Hon. Abdulkadir Usman (Global) to win a seat to represent Zaria Federal Constituency in the Federal House of Representatives under Buhari’s ANPP. Datti won that election solely because of Mai Gaskiya’s popularity and Sen. Suleiman Hunkuyi’s political structure and financial support. Now, neither President Buhari nor Senator Hunkuyi has any respect in the eyes of Datti, which I find disturbing. 

Let us rewind a little to El-Rufai’s video: The event was meant to address the dilemma of nation-building and guide the NYSC members on how not to repeat the mistakes of the past if they desire a united and truly integrated country. El-Rufai attempted to highlight the errors made by our founding fathers – Sir Ahmadu Bello, Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe and Chief Obafemi Awolowo, being the trio’s inability to dismantle the self-serving structures instituted by the British colonialists prior to independence was at the crux of el-Rufai’s discourse. Despite being the best leaders we’ve ever had, our founding fathers were not infallible. But most of us have a consensus that their mistakes, as late Danmasanin Kano Maitama Sule would put it, were mistakes of the head, not of the heart.

Malam El-Rufai’s argument was more of an ideological argument than infrastructural or physical. He drew a comparison with the great Mwalimu of Tanganyika – Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, who was a Nationalist and pan-Africanist – with our founding fathers whose nationalism died at the dawn of independence. Any good student of Nigerian Government and Politics would know that the Nigerian Nationalist’ main goal was achieving an independent sovereign state. Hence, from 1st October , 1960, Zik, Awo and Sardauna’s attention was more on developing their regions distinctly than national integration. This, however, they did undoubtedly with distinction. 

In 2011, Senator Datti lost his mandate through a court judgment in a controversial and questionable manner that left a lot of us, his constituents, hapless. Circumstances that led to that judicial debacle in favour of Senator Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi at the election tribunal in 2013 are still fresh in our collective memory. Some had alleged that he fiercely pursued his case but suffered a dignified defeat. Be it as it may, the outcome reinforces my earlier position of Datti’s mastery in the ‘philosophy’ of political entrepreneurship.

I would suggest to the Distinguished Senator to pay more attention to the noble cause of developing our educational sector through his citadel of higher education than engaging in an unworthy cause of character assassination and propagation of unsubstantiated content, or fake news as U.S president Donald Trump would call it. If Datti has a score to settle with El-Rufai, he’s at liberty to do so, as the Kaduna governor – like our founding fathers – is not infallible either. 

Finally, Datti pretending behind a ‘defense’ of the Sardaunan Sokoto, is cowardly and hypocritical, while also proving that most times, outbursts do more harm than good, as they often have little to no thought behind them. May God bless our founding fathers for their sacrifices and forgive them for their trespasses, amin.

Bashir wrote from Ikeja, Lagos.