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You will get it wrong if you take the antics of the Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, on the face value. He acts the good boy when it suits his agenda but hits hard when he considers his interest threatened. For him, scruples are a matter of convenience to be observed when necessary but can be cast aside, if need be.
The other day, he cut a picture of a caring and compassionate leader, when he reported to President Muhammadu Buhari the new strategy by terrorists in his state.
In a memo, the governor narrated how the terrorists have infiltrated and dominated communities in the state and formed a parallel governing authority, exercising control over social and economic activities in some areas.
He expressed worries that the terrorists have advanced in their plans to make Kaduna forest areas their permanent operational base for the North-West region, citing a series of intelligence reports. “Observed movement patterns and intercepted communications of migrating terrorists have shown a clear interest in setting up a base, with the stretches of forest area between Kaduna and Niger states strongly considered,” he wrote.
To draw the message home, El-Rufai added that the insurgents have enacted a law banning all forms of political activity or campaign ahead of the 2023 elections, especially in Madobiya and Kazage villages.
That should be taken as a worrisome development from a governor of any state in the country. For Kaduna and what it represents for the North and Nigerian politics, that should carry some weight. Kaduna was the capital of the defunct Northern Region and the seat of government from where the late Premier, Sir Ahmadu Bello, provided people-oriented governance to the region. Till date, it remains the pride of the North and every northerner of note.
Kaduna has been experiencing serious ordeals in the hands of bandits and terrorists lately. Anything that could further the current level of stress in the state deserves immediate attention. You may in that regard assume that El-Rufai meant well for the people in crying out.
But that is, perhaps, where it ends. In his typical style, he has created the bubble and has moved on. How the bubble bursts may not be his concern. If you take a look at his casual response to a planned ‘two million man’ march for Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi in the state, you would hardly see the composure of a governor whose domain is under serious challenge by terrorists.
Some supporters of Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, on Twitter have been trending a march to solicit votes for the Labour Party candidate in the 2023 presidential election, under #KadunaTwoMillionMarchforPeterObi.
In response to a Peter Obi supporter, El-Rufai tweeted, “I hope you get two hundred persons on the streets, including those ‘imports’ that can’t open their shops on Mondays, and came on overnight bus last night. I jus’ dey laff, wallahi tallahi!”
A reader can only go deeper to understand the mischief in his allusion to the “imports’ that can’t open their shops on Mondays”. That is El-Rufai in his raw form. He is using the Monday sit-at-home situation occasioned by an earlier directive by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) on residents of the South East to stay away from the businesses on Mondays in solidarity with their detained leader, Nnamdi Kanu, to deride Obi and his supporters, who he wrongly assumed comprised the Igbo. IPOB has repeatedly announced that it has lifted the order, but because hoodlums have cashed in on it and have been causing trouble in the region, the people have been staying indoors on Mondays, for their safety.
On the other hand, the Peter Obi phenomenon is not an eastern or Igbo affair. It is rather drawing clout in many parts of the country. El-Rufai and other political elite who have been reaping from the present skewed Nigerian system are quite uncomfortable with it as it portends chances of losing their unmerited privileges. That may be understandable. But to rub it in by reminding the easterners of the unfortunate Monday sit-at-home regime and even the IPOB story, which was brought about in the first instance by the injustice in the Nigerian system, is quite disingenuous of the governor.
Even among court jesters, there are limits to trivialities and clowning. But not for El-Rufai. For him, rather, controversy seems a second name. He courts it and revels in it, even at the cost of public good. A man of brief size and stature, to him, everything is politics and politics is everything. Recall when once, in his usual assumption of importance, he took up the unsolicited task of advising the South East on what its people should do to get the presidency in 2023.
Now, by sheer coincidence and not running on ethnic or religious card, Obi is from the South East and, for El-Rufai, the best way to shut down the project is to make a mockery of the initiative in a dismissive note.
Recall, also, when he threatened international election observers that they would be evacuated in body bags, if they ventured into the country to monitor the 2019 presidential election? Recall, also, when he claimed being asked to offer bribes by senators during his screening for ministerial appointment, during the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency but, when pressed to provide evidence for his claims, he chickened out, saying God was his witness?
These are parts of the reasons why Nigeria has remained in its sorry state. A system with the likes of El-Rufai in the driver’s seat can hardly make progress. That was a governor who, waking from the wrong side of the bed some time last year and acting on brainwave, sent 4,000 Kaduna workers packing on flimsy reasons that the finances of the state had been severely stretched by the high wage bill at a time when the revenues from the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC), had not increased.
That is a governor who in flagrant disregard to the complex cultural and religious sensitivities of Kaduna appointed a fellow Muslim, Hadiza Sabuwa Balarabe, as deputy and has had to contend with the tension occasioned by the senseless action. He has even encouraged the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in the state, Senator Uba Sani to follow the odious step.
El-Rufai is a reflection of Nigeria’s leadership failure. He can remain with that in his badly managed encalve but making insinuations on matters that affect the sensibilities of others amounts to taking frivolities too far.
