The El-Rufai Hurdle

Comfort Obi

I am a fan of Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory. I first noticed him when he was the Director-General of the Bureau for Public Enterprises, BPE. He loved his job. And he did it with a passion.
When El-Rufai talks, he pulls no punches. His bluntness is legendary. He has a good command of the English language. If in doubt, ask Deputy Senate President, Ibrahim Mantu, or Senator Jonathan Zwingina. Ask former Aviation Minister, Dr. (Mrs) Kema Chikwe. Or even Vice President Atiku Abubakar. It was El-Rufai who shocked the nation by revealing that Mantu and Zwingina had asked him for a bribe, to the tune of N54 million, before he could be cleared as a Minister. Even though El-Rufai had no proof, or witness, except the Almighty Allah, not a few Nigerians believed he spoke the truth.
When President Olusegun Obasanjo gave him the FCT portfolio, I knew he couldn’t have appointed a better man for the job. You may not agree with his methods, but nobody can deny the fact that El-Rufai has made Nigeria proud with what he has done in the FCT. He brutally marched on toes. He made some people lose hundreds of millions of naira. He rendered some homeless. Some lost their means of livelihood. He touched the high and mighty. It was a nightmare. But it was worth it. For, look at what we have got in Abuja now. Suddenly, we have a capital city we can all be proud of. Abuja is clean. It is organised. And it is devoid of the madness in Lagos and other state capitals and cities. The icing on the cake, painful as it is to the masses, is the ban on Okada in the capital city. So, we have a capital city which can compare with some of the best in Africa.
Because of El-Rufai’s efficiency, hard-work, courage, brilliance, and intelligence, he became a member of President Obasanjo’s kitchen cabinet. He is also a member of the President’s economic team – that team which shattered, hidden dream was to instal one of its own as Obasanjo's successor. Like other members of that team, El-Rufai is taken seriously. Whatever he says carries a lot of weight. When he speaks, it is taken for granted that it is the stand of the presidency.
He knows that. So, when he speaks, he speaks with authority. He speaks with confidence. In the heat of the presidential spat, which has unfortunately turned into a major scandal between Mr President and Vice President Abubakar Atiku, El-Rufai issued a statement stating the facts as they are. It was a shocked Atiku who fired a reply, calling El-Rufai names. But El-Rafai's points had been made, and taken.
Because El-Rufai is taken seriously it is expected that, at all times, he should be mindful of what he says. Until now, he has managed his utterances well. Until now, he has been quite cautious, even if blunt. But penultimate week, El-Rufai crossed the border-line.
Speaking in America, where, incidentally, he was part of a Federal Government image laundering team, the FCT Minister made a statement which I think was improper. And a tar on the image of the country. Asked about the likely profile of the Nigerian president as from May 29, 2007, El-Rufai committed a blunder. He told his audience that the president would be within the age bracket of 44 and 55 years. Ordinarily, there should be no problem with that. But I wonder if El-Rufai took into consideration President Obasanjo’s age.
Officially, Obasanjo is 69 years old. So, is El-Rufai telling us that President Obasanjo is a menopaused president and so, too old to know what he is doing? I assume, and I apologise if it is not true, that El-Rufai was one of those angling for a third term in office for Obasanjo. If that plot had succeeded, how old would Obasanjo have been during his third term? But more important, how old was Obasanjo when he became a President in 1999? Surely, he was well above El-Rufai’s presidential age bracket. So, what is El-Rufai saying? Is he saying that because Obasanjo is well above that age bracket, we have a problem with him? I don’t agree. There is wisdom in old age. And surely a President within the age bracket of 60 and 65 years is not very old. But there is more.
If we forgive El-Rufai for the age bracket blunder, it is difficult to forgive him for a worse blunder committed at the same occasion. He told his audience that he knows who the next president will be. Questions: How? Indeed, is El-Rufai God? Beyond all that, El-Rufai’s statement has a deeper implication than the questions. For instance, if El-Rufai knows who would be the next president, why are we conducting elections? Why are political parties, including El-Rufai’s PDP, deceiving us by their congresses and screening exercises? Why are we spending money on voters registration? Why are we spending money on elections? What then is Professor Maurice Iwu doing? Why doesn’t El-Rufai just crown the new president and swear him in?
I don’t know what pushed El-Rufai to say what he said. But it is such careless, thoughtless statements that over-heat the polity. El-Rufai’s statement was one of the reasons why there was so much tension during the PDP screening exercise. And I felt that was very unfair. I felt it deal a blow to our fledging democracy. My interpretation was: everything, anything, will be done, even rigging, to make El-Rufai’s anointed candidate win.
In the past two months, this is the second time I have heard this same statement, about knowing who would be the President. The first person to say that was Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu, the Ibadan politician. He claimed Obasanjo told him. True? But we can excuse Adedibu. He is, well, illiterate. His politics is jankara politics. But to hear the same jankara statement from a technocrat like El-Rufai? Nigeria, I bow!