Nobody should be carried away by the ratings of an ingrate and opportunist like Nasir el Rufai. He never said it was wrong when he was asked to pay money before he was cleared by the Senate as a Minister in 2003. As a principled person he should have declined the appointment to prove that he was better than those Senators in question but he didn’t because he saw an opportunity to be a Minister and use the position for personal aggrandisement. His accusations of corruption against Atiku Abubakar are lies of which he, rather than the Turaki is guilty of many times over.
His tenure as Minister of FCT was full of controversies, duplicity and impunity especially his controversial land allocations and sale of government properties both of which turned out to be shady and self serving adventures. Personalbenefits to his friends, family and cronies was foremost to him rather than national service as accusations and evidences against him have proven. The misadventures he perpetrated while in office are still fresh in the minds of people especially those that have suffered injustices and injuries on account of his recklessness and impunity.
His biography, The Accidental Public Servant, is a lie from its name and all through its contents. It is full of pomposity, falsehood, shameless self adulation and insults to all those who have helped him at one time or the other on his rise to the top. Itis a testimony and glaring evidence of who Nasir el-Rufai is by his own account. Everything is always about him. He spared no one of his venom, not even President Buhari that he now claims as his role model. The President back then was recipient of his severest attacks and insults from him on several occasions particularly when he was a serving Minister in Obasanjo’s government and was therefore ready to do his biddings to curry favour. President Buhari and CPC were useful and convenient to him only after having lost out in the PDP and not because of his belief in PMB or the principles he stood for. Insulting the Turaki and lying that he is against PMB’s government is Nasir’s typical opportunism of setting one against the other for personal benefits. This time around, it is PMB against Turaki. When he was at the BPE, he was among those who were urging theTuraki to take on Obasanjo in the 2003 party primaries for their selfish personal reasons so that when Atiku becomes President they will appropriate the government. Atiku Abubakar got him the BPE job by the way, but when Obasanjo was re-elected in 2003 and he was made FCT Minister with Turaki’s input, he shamelessly switched sides to OBJ and joined hands with Nuhu Ribadu and co to fight him on trumped up charges of corruption allegations.
In the build up to 2007 elections, he vowed that President Buhari was unelectable and will never rule Nigeria again in his lifetime. When the late Umaru Yar’Adua refused to involve him in his government after becoming President despite desperate lobby for him and Nuhu, he ran into exile to escape possible prosecution of his misdeeds as Minister of the FCT.
He launched the most virulent attack against the government of late Yar’adua from abroad. He returned home only when he knew that President Yar’adua was clinically dead. Goodluck Jonathan who became Acting President and later President after the death of Yar’Adua wasn’t interested in his cases or involving him in his government when he took over. At the same time, he lost out in the PDP and was no longer relevant in the political scheme of things. His political ambitions began to suffer setbacks and he was fast running out of choices so he had no choice than to join CPC, a party he neither believed in its vision nor in its leadership some of whom he insulted in the past.
From the moment he joined CPC, both the National leadership and the Kaduna chapter was mired in crisis induced by him that saw to the severing of relations between PMB and his key lieutenants with whom he built the party at great personal costs. The crisis led to the electoral misfortunes of the party in the 2011 general elections and the eventual exit of some top PMB associates. Nasir having achieved his objective quickly moved in to fill the gap. He and his cohorts thereafter mounted a sustained pressure on PMB to renege on his promise not to contest elections again. They succeeded and he succumbed. Their objective was to latch on to him, use his name and reputation all in a bid to realise their political ambitions. The rest as they say is history. This is the same old trick that Nasir wants to use to set PMB against the party leaders ahead of 2019 to pave the way for himself. But Nasir should know that this trick will not work this time around.
If he is interested in the Presidency in 2019, he should be bold enough to declare his intentions to contest whether PMB is running or not and stop falsely accusing people of working against PMB’s government. It is not a crime to aspire for any political position in Nigeria and the Turakin Adamawa has never hidden his political ambitions before and will certainly not do so now. Claiming to be defending the government in a bid to secure anointment in 2019 elections is too cheap even by Nasir’s standards.
His mistake is that Atiku by nature is not an acrimonious person and cannot start fighting people or government for political or any other reasons now. The former Vice President has never shied away from making his position public on any issue. Theconfusion is therefore all in Nasir’s wild imagination so that he will continue to deceive people, set them against each other and create divisions for his personal benefits. The President and Atiku have always maintained a healthy personal relationship with mutual respect for one another from time. They also have respect for each other’s democratic rights to aspire to any political position as demonstrated in their contest for the APC Presidential ticket in the 2014 primaries which President Buhariwon without any bitterness or rancour among them or their supporters. Thereafter, they worked together for the success of the party in the 2015 general elections. That is why by God’s grace the APC is in power today. There was never a time that one of them spoke ill of the other or let alone insulted one another even when they were rivals in different political parties.However, Nasir has insulted both of them at one time or the other as he does to many other leaders when it suits his interests. People can therefore judge for themselves what Nasir’s motives are or what he intends to achieve by such belligerent attitude.
Atiku on the other hand has been a bridge builder and a force for positive change since his foray into politics way back in the 1980s. He voluntarily conceded to MKO Abiola in the SDP presidential primaries in 1991 and worked for his victory in the inconclusive presidential elections of 1992 as a true democrat. He was forced into exile because of his stance against the military dictatorship of the late General Abacha regime. He returned from exile as the leader of PDM and one of the most formidable groups that formed the PDP. He declined to run for the Presidency at the time and instead offered OBJ the PDM platform within the PDP to contest the party primaries and also went ahead to win the 1999 general elections.
In recognition of Atiku’s contributions to the success of the party from formation, he was elevated to the position of Vice President from the position of Governor of Adamawa State that he had successfully contested and won earlier on. Once Atikubecame the VP, he lived up to his billing by offering the necessary political dexterity and sagacity to consolidate the young and fragile democracy. He had in his capacity mobilised and reconciled a fractured country and embarked on the serious task of nation building from 1999 to date.
Not sooner than when Nasir el-Rufai was appointed FCT Minister in 2003 with the assistance of Atiku, that he along with other mischief makers joined forces to fight him under the guise of fighting corruption but obsessively because of his towering political stature which is a threat to their political ambitions and also for his refusal to support the proposal to amend the constitution and allow for tenure elongation. Atiku refused to join issues with them at that time and did not capitulate to their wicked machinations but rather dared them to expose whatever evidence they have on him. They couldn’t and he did not relent in his opposition to the OBJ’s life time Presidency ambition dubbed as the infamous Third Term at great personal risk to his liberty, comfort, welfare and even life until he successfully stopped it together with other progressive forces. OBJ did everything possible severally and at different times to frustrate or remove him from office as Vice President but failed. He even tried to stop him from contesting the 2007 general elections but failed again because all the court judgments were in Atiku’sfavour. The corruption allegations against him were just meant to divert attention and score cheap political points. The irony is that all of his accusers were at one time or the other either accused or charged with corruption allegations by the subsequent governments except him. From the time Atiku was estranged with OBJ, the government and the ruling PDP plunged into chaos and disarray up until the end of the second term. After using each other, OBJ dumped el-Rufai unceremoniously and for reasons best known to him unilaterally picked and imposed the terminally ill and an unwilling Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan as President and Vice President in the 2007 general elections. Vice President Goodluck Jonathan took over and became the President in 2010 after the demise of President Yar’Adua as expected. OBJ again actively supported and promoted Goodluck Jonathan in the 2011 elections against better judgment in the PDP and the nation. The lot of the nation from then on has been on a free fall in all aspects of the nation’s life up until the 2015 elections. The success of PMB in the 2015 general election with the active support of leaders like Atikusignalled the end of the national drift through divine deliverance.
However ongoing events in Kaduna State where el-Rufai is the Governor is pathetic, full of controversies, conflicts and dissatisfaction on account of his anti people’s policies and stubbornness which is the hallmark of his leadership style. El-Rufai is oblivious of the complexities of running a cosmopolitan state like Kaduna. He is not impacting positively on the lives of the people of Kaduna state such that it may affect the fortunes of APC in future elections in the state. He has so far only succeeded in squandering APC’s goodwill. His legacy of acrimony, controversies and litigations wherever he served in the past is increasingly looking like the fate that may befall Kaduna state under el-Rufai. He is therefore not fit for public trust anymore because he has failed the people on several occasions.
Meanwhile, Atiku has refused to join issues with him in the past and even now. However, it becomes absolutely necessary to put things in their true and proper perspectives so that the unsuspecting public will not be continually deceived by el-Rufai’s outright lies and falsehood against the person of Atiku Abubakar and others.
. Balogun, public affairs analyst, writes from Ibadan, Oyo State.
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