But for the recent declaration of state of emergency on Rivers state, the defection of Mallam Nasir El-Rufai from the All Progressives Congress (APC) would have been embraced by Nigerians as the most unavoidable political discourse of the moment. When he announced his defection from the political organization that provided him with the platform to become the governor of Kaduna state in 2015, he gave President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s poor performance as the president of Nigeria as one of the reasons behind his action.
In the course of further justifying his action, the former Minister of the federal capital territory confessed that he, along with other persons he did not mention their names were aware of Tinubu’s Chicago certificate confusions but had to down play on it for the man to secure victory, both at the party primary election level and at the general presidential polls.
Speaking in similar vein, El-Rufai was bold to tell Nigerians that he was one the few Governors that went to court to challenge the former President Muhammadu Buhari and the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele to rescind their decision to change the design of the country’s currency – a move many Nigerians had hailed as a good measure towards ensuring that vote buying during the 2023 elections was curtailed. They won the case and got the Supreme Court of Nigeria to suspend the exercise.
Meanwhile, the first class graduate of Quantity Surveying started his political career in 1999 when former Vice President Atiku Abubakar influenced his appointment as the Director-general of the Bureau for Public Enterprise (BPE). Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the president of Nigeria (199-2007) was perhaps so impressed with Rufai’s performance that he appointed him as the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
However, when the Surveyor-turned politician failed to gain favour from Alhaji Umaru Yar’dua and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan’s presidential eras, he left the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for CPC (Congress for Progressive Change) where Buhari held sway as the favoured next president of Nigeria at the time. When they failed in this bid, Rufai and his cohorts joined hands with Tinubu to ensure that power was ‘snatched’ from the then ruling party. This yielded result in 2015 and Buhari became president while he got elected as the governor of Kaduna state.
Therefore, in plain language, El-Rufai contributed so much towards Nigeria’s political and economic woes which he is now complaining of. In addition to this, admitting that he helped to cover up Tinubu’s certificate saga is an indictment on himself. His action and confession portray him as one who have conspired with others to deceive Nigerians into believing that Tinubu was the best qualified candidate for the job of leading Nigeria as a president.
The former governor was proud of being part of the team that foisted Tinubu on Nigerians until it became obvious that the president had made up his mind in line with the negative security reports against the ex-governor not to be part of his cabinet.
The report portrayed El-Rufai as one of the masterminds behind insecurity in the Northern part of Nigeria, especially his home state of Kaduna. He is yet to properly address this report purportedly given by the DSS under the watch his former ally, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu who is the National Security Adviser to Nigeria’s president.
The Kaduna state-born politician did not just stop at dumping the APC for SDP. He has equally beckoned on notable politicians like Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Rotimi Amaechi, Rauf Aregbesola and many other serving and former governors such as Sule Lamido, the former governor of Jigawa state to join APC. The former governor was one of the first politicians to react to El-Rufai’s call. He plainly told the former APC chieftain; “the PDP, which we built, is the foundation of El-Rufai’s political journey. You cannot persuade us to abandon it”.
With the information available to Nigerians about Mallam Nasir El-Rufai and his (El-Rufai) recent comments about the roles he played in Tinubu’s presidential victory, he owes the citizens of the country an unreserved apology.
These parts he played have helped in no small measure in bringing the country to her economic knees before the international monetary agencies and this is assuming that his assessment of Tinubu is also correct.
This self-indicting burden of guilt must be addressed by El-Rufai before any politician worth being a member of the elite class can genuinely join him in what appears to be a personal fight with president Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
