The Viper That Eats Fellow Snakes

Nasir El-Rufai may not be a cobra-eating king cobra, but he does display all the attributes of a saw-scaled viper. Judge it by its petite size at your own peril. It packs as much potent venom as any self-respecting limbless reptile. It scans the horizon regularly for danger in its search for prey, taking care to avoid becoming the meal of fellow hunters. This viper eats fellow snakes at the slightest opportunity. Its eating habit is the very definition of opportunism.

Not Personal

I have nothing personal against El-Rufai. As I did say in another newspaper several years ago, I thought he was doing a good job as Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) until I had cause to deal with him on behalf of the then octogenarian world-renown writer, Chief Cyprian Ekwensi, whose only plot of land had been seized during El-Rufai’s revalidation exercise.

In my presence, El-Rufai respectfully squatted before Ekwensi, pleading that he could never have intentionally deprived the old man of his only landed property in the capital city. “I read your books in primary and secondary school, sir”, he said. “You’re a literary hero. There must have been a computer mix-up. Leave everything to me, sir.” He promised to restore the ownership of the land in two weeks. I volunteered to check back on behalf of Chief Ekwensi.

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The restoration never happened until the death of the great literary giant. The story of how I pursued the case was an epic stuff fit for another book. An acquaintance who had warned me that El-Rufai was not a man to be trusted laughed me to scorn when I finally had to painfully admit that I had been embarking on a wild goose chase.

Nigeria has been good to El-Rufai. The ABU-trained quantity surveyor who also holds a master’s degree in business administration, came to national attention around November 1999 when he was appointed as the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises and the Secretary of the National Council of Privatisation where he spearheaded the privatisation of many government-owned companies under the wings of his political mentor, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who was then Nigeria’s vice president.

A literature review of the editorial coverage of the BPE and its operations at the time would reveal that there were allegedly many sweetheart deals and outright criminal asset offloads, but, in fairness, more blame went to his mentor than Nasir himself. Four years later, he was appointed Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), after which he came onto his own and contested the Kaduna State governorship, which he won.

Bloody Tenure

It was in Kaduna that the biggest self-demystification of El-Rufai was to happen. Having sniffed the narcotic of power, he allegedly pitted the northern Muslim part of his state against the southern parts, tampered with the traditional institution of the non-Muslim areas and starved them of government presence. Indeed, he departed from the traditional power-sharing arrangement in which the governorship and deputy governorship posts were shared between Muslims and Christians.

He ran a Muslim/Muslim administration and even boasted about it during a valedictory meeting with Islamic scholars, which went viral on social media. Also, his claim that in the interest of his state, he had traced and compensated killer herdsmen who were responsible for killings and mayhem in southern Kaduna raised eyebrows about an elected governor being in bed with terrorists. Until the advent of the incumbent Governor Uba Sani, blood flowed freely in southern Kaduna.

Never trust anyone’s claims to fair-mindedness until he assumes a position where he’s holding both the knife and the yam and can cut the tuber wherever and however he wants without any fear of retribution.

I think Nigerians now have a fairly good idea of who the real El-Rufai is.

He trended last week for the interview he had with Arise Television in which he carpeted the Tinubu administration as corrupt, inept and evil. I am one for separating the messenger from the message. As a citizen, El-Rufai is totally in order to evaluate the performance of the current administration. He is also entitled to his opinion.

My worry, however, is that in a country with a shortage of good examples in public life, our young people may start thinking that the El-Rufais of this world are role models. Far from it! El-Rufai’s record shows that he is as guilty as the people he accuses of various kinds of impropriety and he also has a history of ingratitude and duplicity. If his attempt to become a minister had succeeded, he wouldn’t be singing the apocalyptic song he has composed for the Tinubu government today.

Re-Invention

El-Rufai is convinced that a reinvention of the coalition that led to the formation of the ruling APC in 2015 and the subsequent ouster of former President Goodluck Jonathan can be replicated by his group. As an observer perched at a vantage angle of Nigeria’s spectators’ gallery, I look forward to the epic confrontation in less than two years.

If it’s any help, I’ll also like to share, for free, a pinch of wisdom from the calabash of our ancestral homestead: “Ije tí  e je tètè, e má je dágunró, dágunró ò sé je.” Translation: Don’t eat Dagunro vegetable as you would eat Tete, because whereas Tete is edible spinach, Dagunro is full of poison.

Without doubt, Nigeria needs a vibrant, pro-people opposition party as a counterpoise to the numerous peccadilloes of the current administration. It has even been suggested that the PDP merge with Labour Party, SDP, NNPP, APGA and other major parties, and fashion out a manifesto detailing how they intend to navigate Nigeria out of these treacherous economic waters, to have a fighting chance. That takes honest political engineering, which characters like El-Rufai can’t deliver. Conspiracy is completely different from social engineering.

Nigerians will do well to remember Dele Farotimi’s admonition: “Do not die in their wars!”

Characterisation

Reading former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s characterisation of Nasir El-Rufai in his book, “My Watch”, all over again, I am constrained to conclude that the political viper reeking of crass opportunism cannot be my hero. Of course, Obasanjo has his own baggage, but on this matter, I yield the floor to him:

“Nasir’s penchant for reputation savaging is almost pathological. Why does he do it? Very early in my interaction with him, I appreciated his talent. At the same time, I recognised his weaknesses; the worst being his inability to be loyal to anybody or any issue consistently for long, but only to Nasir El-Rufai. He lied brazenly, which he did to me, against his colleagues and so-called friends…

“My vivid recollection of him is a penchant for lying, for unfair embellishment of stories and his inability to sustain loyalty for long… I believe that he can still be used in public service, but under guidance and sufficient oversight, making allowance for the psychology of “his petite size and his elephantine brain”…

“He’s always playing himself up to give himself more ‘height’ than he has. Whichever way, he has my sympathy. It was characteristic of him. Unfortunately, his character could also be seen as a reflection of his upbringing, which may spread the blame beyond him….”

Nigerians won’t fall for El-Rufai’s theatrics. They know that he is no better than those he is criticising. We have his bloody tenure in Kaduna to prove it.