Ubiquitous Nasir El-Rufai

El-Rufai, former Minister of Federal Capital Territory; former Director-General, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), is, the rave of the moment. Initially exploded on our political scene as, in the eloquent words of Wale Adebanwi, the writer-scholar-journalist who has recently published a rather seminal but ravenously unsparing book on the equally controversial (like El-Rufai) Nuhu Ribadu, […]

El-Rufai, former Minister of Federal Capital Territory; former Director-General, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), is, the rave of the moment. Initially exploded on our political scene as, in the eloquent words of Wale Adebanwi, the writer-scholar-journalist who has recently published a rather seminal but ravenously unsparing book on the equally controversial (like El-Rufai) Nuhu Ribadu, titled, A Paradise for Maggots: The Story of a Nigerian Anti-Graft Czar, ‘one of the younger generation of northerners who had emerged in official circles in the late military years’—‘reformers and modernizers who disagreed with their more conservative older generations about the paths that the vast areas that made up the behemoth, the Northern Region, should take in the context of contemporary global challenges.’ El-Rufai became one of the most visible figures on our national scene—for good or for ill.
He belonged with, still echoing Adebanwi,  a  generation that heaved and vibrated with the acute consciousness that the ‘contentious federal opportunity equalization projects and state patronage which afforded key members of the northern elite exceptional opportunities and access could only be taken to the next step in the development ‘ of the North if the ‘emergent global spirit of enterprise was embrace by the conservative elite of the north’. (Adebanwi; 34)
Everybody that has watched the political scene of Nigeria since Chief Obasanjo’s tenure as President, must at least cognize El-Rufai as reformer and modernizer but certainly not as a revolutionary. There is a wide conceptual margin between reformism and revolution. And this is not the space for such conceptual reflection. But Adebanwi, whose biographical study  on Nuhu Ribadu is equally voluble but far more revealing in its profound intellection than El-Rufai’s personal hagiographo-autobiography, etches reformist apprehension of El-Rufai, rather than as a revolutionary. Well, for clarity sake, hagiography is about fawning praise-singing about a subject. The difference here is that the praise song, in the case of El-Rufai is about sell–autobiographical
Why? Adebanwi observed that El-Rufai gave a pictorial evidence of his reformist bent; he hung, prominently, only the photograph of the late ‘prominent leader of the North, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto’. El-Rufai found this ‘obviously a far more significant photograph for the head of a federal agency, Bureau of Public Enterprises, than that of the president of the country;; which set up the federal agency and appointed him into that office and many more de facto and de jure national positions to further enhance his ubiquity, unbridled loquacity, and larger than life prescience, spurned/churned  in evocative and provocative garrulity.
Adebanwi’s verbal painting of El-Rufai is also one of a daring achiever – in capitals—THE CEREBRAL, ARTICULATE AND WORLDLY -WISE. The author’s raison d’être is his envisioned and Daring response to the ‘innocent’ and humble request of Nuhu Ribadu for a take-off grant of the EFCC—a key establishment that was set up more for political and pragmatic exegesis than from strategic and enduring envisioning of an anti-graft, anti-corruption crusade in the country. We shall come back to this standpoint much later, if this column subsists. 
    Persuaded of the importance of the EFCC, El-Rufai was said to have provided the first seed grant, unorthodoxly, to Nuhu Ribadu to commence the work of anti-Graft crusade, for which the government appointed him Chairman with neither office nor working capital. What is interesting is the revelation which Adebanwi made in this book of the role of Abubakar Atiku in securing the direly needed fund for EFCC to take off.
 El-Rufai was quoted as saying: I went to Atiku [Abubakar], the Vice President who was Chairman of the Bureau for Privatization Enterprise (BPE) Board to explain things to him. I told him that we could give the EFCC a loan  from the privatization proceeds. He reminded me that only the board could approve and that there was not going to be a meeting until next month. I said ‘’that is why I am here, sir. I need anticipatory approval’’. I told him Nuhu needed N300m. I said I would write a memo to him for N200m.’
What is most revealing in this is the accounting prudence of Atiku in what follows. El-Rufai was aware that Atiku ‘loved to cut any official request as evidence of his authority and oversight function’. He requested for N300m, expected N200m approval and finally got N100m. (Adebanwi,; 39).
What does this reveal on the negative statements of meddlesomeness of Atiku in El-Rufai’s raging, controversial wide fire selling book, The Accidental  Public Servant ? at least with regard to the personage of the former Vice-President, whom we know was, once-upon-a-time a revered benefactor of our famous author?
To be continued next week

By the way, Atiku is certainly not one of my few heroes in this country—even if he has proved quite relevant on a number of occasions during my tenure as ANA President, without duress or pressure, offering a major Prize, which is still extant and a token financial help, judging from what we now know he is capable of giving, if h was persuaded that the offering was vantageous and rewarding.. Again, that is a matter for another narrative tenure.
The unstoppable dare, gift of rare courage, eloquence, industry and enterprise that are undeniable features of vintage El-Rufai have been graphically captured in this book on Nuhu Ribadu ( I hope I am not yet reviewing the Adebanwi’s book on Ribadu?) as elsewhere, including the comments by his (El-Rufai’s) new political boss, General Muhammadu Buhari, who said that El-Rufai could have ordered the demolition of his house if he had not acted promptly when he did.
Now, what are the instructive lessons to be taken from this provocatively controversial book, beyond the established positive elements of ubiquitous El-Rufai, and the less edifying idiosyncrasy of the man—his eloquence laced with scandalous garrulity and loquacity (anyway what is the difference beyond differing emphasis?); his capacity to offer comments in a manner that betrays the accidental nature( how inspired self couching) of his service as a public servant—wanton and reckless offer of confidentialities, irresistible self-aggrandisement at the expense of the name, value and character of just anybody in power whom he has related with, opportune by and benefitted from in uncommon and favoured ways.  But there is also a startling audacity to pinpoint the character of political power wielding that has characterized governance in Nigeria, especially under the PDP democratic polity since Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Atiku Abubakar, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and the current  President Goodluck Jonathan. We may need to elaborate, stingily, on each of these.
Olusegun Obasanjo— we  gain insight from El-Rufai’s book instruction on power vendetta, disproportionate allocation of power to favoured ones, especially El-Rufai (may be to others not subject of discourse here—Oby Ezekwesili, Nuhu Ribadu, Okonjo-Iweala, later vociferous Fani Kayode—members of his bedroom cabinet). Who else in Nigeria has both the propensity and insensitive flair to reveal the way in which power was bequeathed to him by OBJ in excess of his official portfolio—powers disproportionately  disbursed to the outrageous level of making  El-Rufai perceive himself as a de facto Vice-President, and the inadvertent relegation of the de jure vice-President, Atiku Abubakar? Motive(lessness)?; that is contrary to his own personal, what he said is the perception of his colleagues in the OBJ cabinet—that he was being groomed to succeed OBJ. However, probably to his utmost chagrin, the President had no such intention, nor known character history (plain-ness.) to prepare anybody with such ingenuity, intellect and inordinate ambition, obviously demonstrated in the power- dispensed propensity/notoriety/ famousness of El-Rufai, especially as the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory  for succession into the most powerful dais of power in Africa.
Nasiru El-Rufai is never a motiveless personage in the nation’s political firmament, let’s face it, from the hindsight of knowledge and experience. And let nobody be under any illusion that one is insinuating that El-Rufai is exceptional in motive/motif drive and, well, if you like , opportunistic perception f those who default, wilfully or otherwise I  the execution of is ‘time-table of power ascendancy. It is a major vernacular vocabulary of power search, subtly or covertly in this country or elsewhere, where the corruptibility of power is voicelessly loud. The underlining motivation of El-Rufai, in this instance, is his disappointment that the ‘use-and-dump-‘cavalier character of OBJ would not let him groom El-Rufai, hence El-Rufai’s the bean-spilling, with prodigal carefree-ness. What does this say about the character of El-Rufai himself? And who says anything about motives?
What is the intended motive in El-Rufai’s disclosure on the ascendancy to power of the present governing structure in Nigeria? —the first and only source of this information to date—that OBJ, conscient of the leadership incompetence of Goodluck Jonathan, had mapped out plans to produce a Buhari-Okonjo-Iweala ticket? Mum, still, is the word from this ‘couple.’ Greater mum comes from Chief Obasanjo himself. What is the expected reaction from Goodluck Jonathan whom we have all known and seen as OBJ’s groomed prodigy inflicted on the leadership of the giant nation/party of Africa?
On Umaru Musa Yar’Adua—what is the fresh motive of such characterization of one who suffered from a sense of insecurity, lack of self-confidence and incompetence—a character-fickleness which  made him distance himself from valuable and skilled man-power. Here are    brilliant minds whom Musa Yar’Adua  was considered and feared that, being of superior intellect, would disagree with him. That, once he discovered that their outspokenness, intelligence and fierce independence of mind threatened posed a challenge, he would terminate their association with him. All these were done just to establish El-Rufai’s non-acceptance of any position of responsibility from Yar’Adua, albeit not to damage their age-old cordial association. ’ Knowing Umaru better overtime and longer than most people that worked with him as President, I was convinced that working with him will damage our cordial relationship’’ El-Rufai projected Yar’Adua’s adjudged irrationality on his feeling of insecurity—a factor, also of his failure in power as President; his inability to stand disagreement from his cabinet Ministers and associates, which made Yar’Adua  deny them access to power, hence the failure of his government after the first 100 days. What motivates this posthumous character-depiction of Yar’Adua? This was meant to o explain away his non-inclusion in the President’s cabinet and non-appointment into any position during the aegis of Yar’Adua. I am yet to read anywhere that El-Rufai was offered an appointment by Yar’ Adua, not to mention his turning down such as appointment as he boastfully claimed in his memoir.
What, if we may ask, Is responsible for this mindless bean-spinning by man who we must regard as exceptionally intelligent, politically favoured, intellectually endowed individual to go out of his way to offer these obviously in discretionary expose on top-ranking Nigerians, especially those who have benefitted him tremendously while the going was good and while it was their privilege to offer—and they offered it to Mallam Nasir El-Rufai? It certainly cannot be motiveless malignment of character for its own sake. As we have insinuated above, anybody who favoured him with power and privilege but who did not carry it conclusively to its logical end, vide help him to ultimate power must end up as a product of mindless vilification. The only gain in this respect is for the nation, who are exposed, most incredulously to the rabid display of power for self-actualization.