By John Austin Yaro
It is two months to Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s first anniversary as Nigeria’s president. This indicates that there are 36 more months to enjoy his administration. But, politicians are re-aligning and plotting the graph on how to wrest power from him. This is where forces around the former governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, are playing their cards.
El-Rufai, who, but for divine providence would have been President Tinubu’s Minister of Power, is seen as the trump card that some All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) actors in the north want to play against Tinubu.
While it is within the former governor’s constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights to aspire to any office from councillorship or the presidency, he, however, seems to carry several self-created obstacles which may work to ensure that the ambition collapses like a pack of badly arranged cards. This is because, as some say, the El-Rufai brand is damaged beyond redemption. So far, only his former commissioners led by Bashir Saidu, whose circumstances under which he left NIMASA remains unclear, Jafaru Isa, who El-Rufai nominated as replacement when he was rejected by the Senate and Hafsat Baba, who has a pending petition with the EFCC, are his prime cheerleaders in the project. This makes it doubtful if the project is designed to fly. However, nothing is as certain as certain itself.
But there are indications that El-Rufai might have bought into the project going by the meeting he was said to have hosted recently in a North African country with some members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and some disenchanted members of the All Progressives Congress who, like himself, have not found accommodation in the Tinubu administration. Like they say, birds of identical feathers flock. So El-Rufai seems to have some disaffected politicians, including former officials of the Muhammadu Buhari administration, who are under gathering under his new platform.
At that meeting in the North African country, the former Kaduna State, reportedly unfolded his political objectives which include -the defeat of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who unceremoniously dropped him as his minister after promising openly promising to work with him. But it seems that details of the clandestine meeting had blown open given that posters alleging subversive moves against the Tinubu government by El-Rufai recently flooded Abuja. They were signed by Asiwaju Support Group.
El-Rufai ought to know that the battle-tested Tinubu, a NADECO chieftain, is built in the same mold as former President Goodluck Jonathan, who for political naivety, allowed the formation and eventual registration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) which ousted him from office. It is necessary to remind El-Rufai and his power-chasers that in case they are living in the past, they must know that the script and the circumstances that led to the defeat of Jonathan are different today. Furthermore, Tinubu, who was the brain behind the successful APC merger in 2014, is unlike Jonathan. He is politically too smart to allow the registration of a political party being allegedly planned by those now in the new El-Rufai camp. The consensus is that it was the merger that marked the beginning of Jonathan’s defeat, and the election only confirmed it. It’s public knowledge that without Tinubu the merger of the Congress Peoples Party (CPC), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) would not have been possible. Again, unlike 2015, there is no Buhari to build his attempt to humiliate Tinubu around.
In El-Rufai’s alleged desperation, he has gone crawling back to the likes of Buhari, who he severally took to the cleaners, including instituting a court action against his currency redesign policy. He also has re-established link with Prof. Ango Abdullahi, who he disrespectfully removed as District Head, and many other northern leaders he took delight in insulting at the height of his power. The question is how on earth can any of these men trust El-Rufai, whose interest is usually the motivating factor in any project. When it comes to achieving his quest for power, El-Rufai takes no prisoners. He will toy around with his options.
El-Rufai had savaged Buhari as not only unelectable, but also as brain dead. He equally derided Buhari’s economic policies, especially the counter trade as “stone age”. He said: “Mallam El-Rufai wishes to remind General Buhari that he has remained perpetually unelectable because his record as military head of state, and afterwards, is a warning that many Nigerians have wisely heeded. His insensitivity to Nigeria’s diversity and his parochial focus are already well-known”.
The genesis of the faceoff between El-Rufai and Buhari was El-Rufai’s advice to then 70 years old Buhari to retire from politics. But once he saw Buhari as a platform to achieve his dream of governing Kaduna state, he crawled back to Buhari and began attacking his former benefactors. That is typically El-Rufai. While he had urged the much younger Buhari to retire on the account of his age, he saw nothing wrong in supporting the much older Buhari to power.
I believe it is my civic duty to remind El-Rufai that whatever was left of his already battered reputation was buried by that infamous video where he was caught on the microphone boasting of an Islamic agenda, which he had experimented in Kaduna State where he foisted a Muslim/Muslim ticket. At the right moment, all that the supporters of President Tinubu would do is the mass production of the video and the rest will be history.
And while he is reaching out to the likes of Buhari and Ango, El- Rufai needs to be reminded that some of his statements directed at them would certainly be exhumed, so they would not forget. El-Rufai, in an interview he granted the BBC Hausa Service on February 7th, 2023, had described the Northern elders as mere paperweights who cannot swing votes in anyone’s favour. When reminded by the interviewer that the Northern elders he had criticised might be his undoing whenever he decides to run for the presidency, El-Rufai had replied;” I will only seek favour from God and ordinary Nigerians when the time comes”.
Some of his blanket condemnation of reputable elders of the North is repeated here for the benefit of my readers. “Leave those people they call elders. I am 62 year-old now, I will be 63 later this month. That was the same age Prophet Muhammad (SAW) finished his work and passed away. I am also an elder; nobody will tell me he is an elder.” Not satisfied, he continued “I am 63 too, I have children and grandchildren, I am also an elder. So, who are the Northern elders? They should come out and contest for elections. I was elected twice. Those claiming to be elders, ask them if they had ever contested for any election even councillorship position”.
The Arewa Progressive Youths League who had condemned El-Rufai’s diatribe against the elders of northern Nigeria, are also waiting whenever he declares his intention to remind him of his uncomplimentary, insulting disparaging and denigrating statements. Thunder like they say doesn’t strike the same object twice. Nasir El-Rufai clearly doesn’t believe in the saying, as he continues to network towards forming the mega party that would be used to defeat Tinubu. Who would trust El-Rufai to work with him against President Tinubu, considering his antecedent in politics and how he has constantly betrayed all his benefactors in the past?