By Innocent Okon
Truth be told! This is winter in summer for Nasir el-Rufai, a former Director General of Bureau of Public Entreprises (BPE); former Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja; former Governor of Kaduna State! former ranking member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and former stalwart of the ruling All Peoples Congress (APC).
He has gone through a lot of controversies since he became an “Accidental Public Servant” far back in 1999.
He is a stormy petrel, a gadfly, a consistent storm in a tea cup and an unrepentant irredentist! He is an adroit manipulator of both the old and the new media, and only few in the Media industry would not see him as an interviewer’s delight.
He is arguably loquacious largely due to an over exaggerated public rating that he is blessed with more than an average intelligent quotient.
Since he came into national limelight in 1999, his tongue often enjoys more acceleration than his brain.
When he was appointed a Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, he told the nation that the Senators that screened him demanded bribe! When invited to prove his allegation by the Senate, he capitulated! He profusely apologised to keep his job.
El- Rufai has this ignoble track record of engaging his tongue before his brain. He is charitably a regular out patient for chronic verbal diarrhoea.
As a Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, he demolished a lot of structures and revoked many certificates of occupancy. When confronted by the Senate committee led by Senator Smart Adeyemi on allegations that Rufai’s blood relations benefitted from the aftermath of that exercise, he responded with impunity that his relations were Nigerians equally entitled to such right and privilege.
As a Minister, he placed a female Youth Corps member on a monthly allowance denominated in dollars! When queried by the Senate, he retorted that she was a product of an Ivy league Varsity which many of the probing Senators could not be considered for admission.
That’s Mallam Nasir el- Rufai for you. He sees every engagement in public office as an incalculable favour and sacrifice which he should always be appreciated than interrogated!
The chequered political service record of Nigeria is not short on the likes of el-Rufai.
In the second Republic, there was Umaru Dikko, a powerful Minister of Transport in Shagari’s Presidency.
In 1983, in an indecent display of hubris, he told the Senate committee that screened him for a second term ministerial appointment that there was no national hunger as no Nigerian was eating from the dustbin and dumpsites!
In same second Republic, Augustus Meredith Akinloye, the national Chairman of the then ruling Party, National Party of Nigeria (NPN), publicly boasted that only two parties existed in Nigeria – the ruling NPN and the Military!
According to him, opposition parties were electoral participants and not contenders.
When the military struck in 1983, David Mark, a lieutenant Colonel, who emerged as Communications Minister, told the nation that telephone was not for the poor!
Today, same Mark, must be using same facility to communicate with his domestic staff, courtesy of Obasanjo’s unbundling and privatisation of the sub-sector in the life of this millennium.
When PDP ruled and reigned from 1999 to 2015, Vincent Ogbolafor, then national Scribe of PDP arrogantly told the nation that PDP will remain in Aso Rock for 60 years. It never came to pass.
And that Party today is a confirmed political patient on life support in national emergency facility! Time and season. Men and providence.
Mallam Nasir el-Rufai has taken so much for granted since Allah used Ariku Abubakar to bring him into public life.
Impunity has become his second name and what nature denied him in height and size, he consistently strives to make up with infantile and uncouth utterances.
Let’s fact check his file the more. He once posited in his X handle that a lost life of a Fulani man in any conflict is like a bank loan that must be repaid and not written off as bad debt!
He governed Kaduna from 2015 to 2023 with iron fist. He decimated, diminished and decapitated Southern Kaduna, a predominantly Christian belt of the state!
Providence has made Rufai to believe that he is a man for all seasons . But recent developments may disappoint him and some political actors of his ilk.
How can a public figure disclose in an interview on an international news channel that he has a network of hackers who stalks conversations of the National Security Adviser?
Where in the world could that be tolerated and swept under the carpet? This goes beyond politics and quest for political power!
In a country derisively described as a” country of particular concern” due to insecurity, only a timid government will accept el- Rufai’s after-thought defence that he only made a “casual statement”.
el-Rufai only forgot to add like Shakespeare that his satanic satement was was “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”!
Okon, a legal practitioner and public affairs commentator, lives in Uyo.
