Column: The hypocrite called Nasir el-Rufai

Posted by admin Headlines Saturday, July 16th, 2011

The arrest of former Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister and chieftain of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, has, expectedly, elicited very trenchant condemnations from well-meaning Nigerians.

El-Rufai was arrested in the early hours of Saturday by State Security Service (SSS) operatives at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, on arrival from the United Kingdom where he was part of the CPC team, including General Muhammadu Buhari, Presidential candidate of the party in the April elections, and his running-mate, Pastor Tunde Bakare, that made a formal presentation on the disputed presidential poll at the Chattam House, London.

The SSS, in a statement by its Assistant Director, Public Relations, Marilyn Ogar, claimed the arrest became necessary because of “el-Rufai’s recent articles in the cyber and print media which have been considered to be inciting, inflammatory and grossly misleading.”

One of such articles was the one he wrote on the back page of Thisday newspaper on Friday titled “What Nigerians pay FG.” It was a very biting rebuke of the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan over the high cost of governance. I will come back to the article shortly.

Buhari said el-Rufai’s arrest was a flagrant violation of his fundamental human right which “only casts the administration in the mould of a vindictive regime that is launching a wave of political repression because it is jittery.” General Ibrahim Babangida agrees, calling the arrest a “deliberate distraction” which Jonathan should run away from if he wants people to take him serious.

The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) wondered why “a government that pledged a new dawn for Nigerians on May 29, under a President who promised to ‘seek fresh ideas that will enrich our national consensus,’ has now resorted to a tactic that was so cruelly employed by anti-democratic forces in the country’s not too-distant past,” asking if “this is the transformation that Jonathan promised all Nigerians.”

As I noted earlier, every well-meaning Nigerian ought to be outraged by this senseless and utterly needless arrest. It shows how clueless and jittery the government is. Unfortunately, the dimwitted officials who contrived this were not smart enough to appreciate that the only person who will benefit from the saga is el-Rufai himself. The government should have known that he was deliberately drawing it out for a fight in the court of public opinion.

I will be surprised if the former Minister did not anticipate the reaction of the SSS operatives. If I know him well, the text message he sent to journalists immediately he was arrested, which read, “Good morning, I have been detained at the airport on arrival by the SSS. Thanks,” was ready even before he boarded the flight at Heathrow Airport in London.

Being somebody who knows how to make use of the media, el-Rufai would have made mincemeat of Jonathan and his ineffectual regime by the time the dust settles. Sooner than later, Nigerians will realize that if this country is to be salvaged, considerations other that religion and ethnicity should be the criteria for leadership recruitment. Those who voted for Jonathan because he is a Southerner and a Christian will soon realize that none of the two issues will revamp the economy, create jobs and provide employment, secure the lives and property of the citizens and stamp out corruption.

But inasmuch as I would fight for his rights just like that of every other Nigerian, I have no sympathy whatsoever for el-Rufai because he was part of the fiendish cabal (apologies to Professor Dora Akunyili) that muddled the political waters in 2007 and presented us with the fait accompli that was the Umaru Yar’Adua/Goodluck Jonathan Presidency.

Whatever is happening to him today is a deserved comeuppance. Just like his now estranged political soul mate, Nuhu Ribadu, former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), el-Rufai, who became the de facto Vice President to President Olusegun Obasanjo after working hard to rubbish his political benefactor, Atiku Abubakar, was a member of the former President’s inner cabinet that contrived the political debacle we are yet to recover from.

It is curious that el-Rufai has become a champion of democracy and apostle of one man, one vote. But it is good that he now realizes that Nigerians have the inalienable right to choose their leaders. He now appreciates that it is undemocratic when a sitting President uses state machinery to either rig himself back to power or foist a successor on hapless citizens. I can recall el-Rufai boasting in 2007 that they (cabal) know those who would succeed Obasanjo. That was in far away United States.

If the likes of el-Rufai had allowed democracy to blossom when they were in power, we may not have had the mess we have on our hands now.

Now, back to the article that offended the new Lords of the Manor. El-Rufai brilliantly analyzed the cost of governance and wondered if government’s 2011 N4.485 trillion budget will make life any better or even provide security for Nigerians. He further asked if the cost of governance is justified. The answer is simply no because the budget was not intended to address the problems of the people. Neither the Jonathan-led executive that drafted the Appropriation Bill nor the David Mark-led National Assembly that approved it had the people in mind.

But that is as true today as it was when Obasanjo and el-Rufai were in power. The Obasanjo government, perhaps, earned more money in eight years than any other government before it and recovered billions of naira stolen by the late General Sani Abacha. How many kilometers of roads were tarred in the eight years? The regime spent almost $15 billion to add less than 1,000 Megawatts of electricity. That can only happen in Nigeria.

Jonathan’s administration cannot by any stretch of imagination rival the impunity of the Obasanjo era. Have we forgotten the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) scandal, the sheer looting of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the sale of government properties without accountability, the sale of Abuja land without remittance of funds to national till? Have we forgotten how Obasanjo made Adolphus Wabara Senate President even before he became a Senator?

El-Rufai is complaining about the National Assembly, whose character has been defined by Mark’s Senate Presidency and chairmanship of the Assembly but he knows how Mark became President. What has happened is that Mark, the wily soldier turned politician, has used four years to consolidate his power by ensuring that Nigerian Senators earn more than American presidents.

Obviously smarter than Jonathan, Mark will continue to run rings round the President and we will continue to have budgets that are not implementable. The foundation of all these problems were laid by the regime that el-Rufai played a prominent role in.

I totally agree with him when he says “if we do not have the courage to ask these questions, we will be doing ourselves a disservice and endangering our people’s future.” But I also think that those who only become critics when they lose out in power struggle are hypocrites. And that is what Nasir el-Rufai is.

-Daily Independentwp_posts