He never planned for public office. It was, perhaps, at the point of digging in his feet in the world of business that he was, on the recommendation of former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, accidentally brought into government. Malam Nasir el-Rufai wrote an autobiography titled: “The Accidental Public Servant”, which is a fitting description of his public service voyage.
Had he not ventured into the political power game, his essential character might have been, forever, hidden from public appreciation. I am sure that his benefactor, Atiku Abubakar, did not quite know the capacity of el-Rufai for “positive mischief” when he got him appointed into office as director general of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE).
Having settled into office, he was restlessly looking for an opportunity to unravel and define his eon. el-Rufai’s allegation that some senators demanded N50-million-bribe from him to secure confirmation as minister in 2003 marked the beginning of his manifestation as a rebel in government. All gloves were off.
He took some rash decisions and actions that were well considered while in office many of which he is said to have explained in his book. Going by media reports, the narratives ruffled feathers, most especially Atiku Abubakar’s. He also gave former President Olusegun Obasanjo some side swipes. Perhaps, el-Rufai should have maintained a dignifying silence rather than break what, in the Mafia world, is Omerta.
el-Rufai cuts the picture of a glib public servant. He is temperamentally unsuited for elite conspiracy of silence. Restless and always daring to toe the solitary path of dissonance in government, he becomes a curious avant-garde in a setting where such disposition is an anathema. He relishes controversies. He courts it, as a matter of fact. Such bravado is the stuff that this unapologetic non-conformist is made of.
There is a popular saying that short people are troublesome. el-Rufai is not only short but also diminutive. Please permit this scant reference to his physiology. This is an unintended argumentum ad-hominem. So what he lacks in stature, he makes up for with his audaciousness. He speaks truth to power like someone who is ready to commit suicide.
I have not read his book to appreciate the extent he has gone to pull the trigger on issues he was privileged to take decisions in his capacities as director general of the BPE and minister of the FCT. The one action he took that is still rankling Nigerians in Abuja was the infamous massive demolition of houses in his bid to restore the capital city to its original master plan.
el-Rufai’s popularity did not get him into Kaduna Government House in 2015. He profited from the political correctness of the APC that he belonged to, which benefitted so much from the cult-like following the party’s presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, enjoyed in the northern part of the country. Otherwise, he could not have defeated the incumbent governor.
In the saddle, the stormy petrel of APC has directly and indirectly stoked so many crises in the state. Southern Kaduna is devastated through the failure of his leadership. Fulani herdsmen have, with impunity, maimed and killed indigenes of southern Kaduna who are mostly Christians over cattle grazing issues. The Shiite Muslim group has also been battered and he is one of those to whom finger of guilt is being pointed for failing to protect the constitutional citizenship and religious worship by members of the group.
His running battle with Senator Shehu Sani has, at best, been ludicrous. Having failed to match Sani’s superior arguments about his leadership failure and incompetence, el-Rufai resorted to instigating the suspension of the senator from the APC. But the senator remains very popular among his constituents. Interestingly, el-Rufai has refused to take up Sani’s gauntlet to declare his assets publicly after the senator made his assets declaration public.
Although, his memo to Buhari was a case of a positive mischief maker being beaten to his game, the real intention underpinning the memo that was secretly sent to the president was self-serving: to become a darling and the Khalifa to the number one citizen. But the gambit has turned awry, boomeranging right in his political face.
I learnt that el-Rufai met with the president and expressed his concerns that the government needed to up its ante in different areas. The president was said to have asked him to reduce his positions to a memo since he might not remember all that he had said. He did and gave the memo to the president, who was said to have handed it to his chief of staff to go through and reduce it to an executive summary for him.
The chief of staff, whose name, purportedly featured negatively in the memo, was said to have, out of anger, leaked it to the press in order to paint el-Rufai as an ambitious politician, jostling to succeed Buhari as president in 2019. Those who are not el-Rufai’s fans are not sympathetic to him. For all they care, the fox has been beaten to his game.
That matter was still lingering when he chose to open up another battle flank. He took on the National Assembly on the issues of its opaque budget and non-cooperation with the executive arm in the fight against graft. Dateline was Kaduna, at the closing of the recent National Assembly management retreat.
el-Rufai was at his best, openly slamming the Legislature, pontificating like the Pope and trying to occupy a moral high ground. The good thing, however, was that he got an instant riposte from the speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, who was the highest-ranked presiding officer at the event.
Dogara’s counter punches have resulted in a series of official actions on both sides, to wit: publication of their respective monthly salary/pay slips, details of which have reinforced the belief all this while that these public officers have a myriad of ways of taking care of themselves with our commonwealth. Who is deceived that el-Rufai’s salary of about N470, 000 or Dogara’s net pay of about N267, 000 per month underpins their livelihoods?
But el-Rufai’s nuisance value must be appreciated for triggering off this kind of conversation in a system where management of public finance has been shrouded in secrecy. Transparency, openness, accountability and probity are anathema. And, these are the key elements of democracy and good governance. These are the demands el-Rufai was placing on the federal legislature. The message was, no doubt, very good. However, the messenger was problematic.
Dogara only needed to tap state governors, including el-Rufai, on their salaries, security votes and management of the local government joint account, which the governors have hijacked and dubiously managed without recourse to local government chairmen. In many states, local government elections have not been held. Governors have only emplaced caretaker committees who are their prefects to do their biddings.
Whatever el-Rufai publishes as security votes and management of local government joint account should be subjected to thorough scrutiny and verification in order to find justification and explication within the ambit of propriety. Other governors should follow suit. The same thing should happen to National Assembly budget. Nigerians have the right to know how their commonwealth and taxes are spent.
It is in this context that I consider el-Rufai’s characteristic outbursts, no matter how irritating they could sometimes be, healthy for public administration. He has excited the polity. The conspiracy of silence by the ruling elite is collapsing like a pack of cards. The conversation should continue at a faster pace, without restraints. Kudos to el-Rufai and Dogara!
- Mr Ojeifo contributed this piece from Abuja via ojwonderngr@yahoo.com