With the appointment by President Goodluck Jonathan of Professor Rufa’i Alkali, as his new Special Adviser on Political Affairs to replace the nearly dormant Ahmed Gulak, observers expect a total turnaround in the president’s political strategy as he mulls his second term ticket
How would the new adviser counsel Mr. President. Perhaps an insight into his position on issues might help: Prof. Alkali, a political scientist and an academia once submitted that Nigerians are right to want change: “they want action, they want government to run faster. And they want social problems to disappear quickly. They want housing problems to be wiped out with a presidential decree or an act of the National Assembly. They want poverty to be eradicated by fiat. They want light and water everywhere and now. We are right to think like this, after all Nigeria has the resources.”
Working from this postulation, it may safe to assume President Jonathans political mantra would be overhauled ahead 2015.
Associates and fellow politician see the former university don whose last full time position was as PDP’s National Publicity Secretary from 2008 – 2012 as an enlightened, intelligent, educationist, administrator and politician whose unassuming mien belie a sharp intuitive and shrewd mind
After the 2011 presidential election, observer predicted Alkali would be among the first set of ministerial nominees if one’s contributions to the PDP was to be a criteria, but alas he was not considered.
Nonetheless, it did not take away from the fact that the cerebral political scientist stoutly defended the President Jonathan’s and PDP mandate given them in the April 2011 General Elections.
He was at his cerebral and technocratic optimum during PDP Presidential Campaign. Thereafter, he manned the publicity machinery of the party warding off vicious propaganda and projecting the party’s vision and the transformational agenda of Jonathan
Perhaps more than any strategy, Alkali’s calm and non-combative approach to issues earned PDP and President Jonathan the much needed public empathy and new friends.
Alkali’s readiness to make compromises and sacrifices for peace, his party and for Nigeria marks him out as an outstanding politician.
For example, though the 2011 gubernatorial primaries of the PDP Gombe was fraught with irregularities and forced all the other contestants to gang up against the eventual candidate Ibrahim Dakwambo, Alkali not only accepted the outcome of the primaries, he wrote a personal letter to Dakwanbo, congratulating him for his victory and assuring him of his support.
He further donated his campaign office and other political infrastructures to the Dakwambo Campaign Organisation, urging his numerous supporters and campaign team to work for the victory of PDP in the State and at all levels.
Besides the dynamic intellectualism, he deployed to shape PDP’s image, associates saw Alkali as a stabilizing factor, as possessing the spirit of give and take , and having the experience, maturity and neutrality required to be PDP National Chairman. However, at the party’s last National Convention, the powers that be preferred Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, whose turbulent tenure has since ended
Alkali describes himself as a social scientist, an optimist and a realist He believes the PDP should take no political development for granted.
There is no doubt he will hit the ground running as he maintains no absolute positions, but rather assumes everything is fluid.
‘’2015 may appear still a distance away, the time to reposition and re-invigorate the party is now’’ he submitted recently
