Nasir Elrufai and the Rump of the Rooster -By Kene Obiezu

A wild leap of faith has taken him to the Social Democratic Party from the APC. This statement would have been correct or at least uncontroverted by those who know Nasir El-rufai, the former Kaduna State Governor, but for the fact that he is not known to be a man of faith or fortitude. A lot of what he has raked in from Nigeria’s wildly fluctuating harvest of mindless politics he owes to fate. Whenever he has encountered rocks on his political path, rather than attempt to move them, or failing, wring water from them, El-rufai has beaten a hasty retreat, shooting his political rifle wildly, taking cheap potshots.

He was a king during the administration of Olusegun Obasanjo, calling the shots in the FCT, and pulling down house after house. Yet, bitterness was the only thing he took with him when he left office in 2007. He spent the succeeding years criticizing both the administrations of Musa Yar’adua and Goodluck Jonathan before joining the APC and becoming governor of Kaduna State in 2015.

His time as governor of Kaduna State was an unmitigated disaster, especially for sections of the state which terrorists, emboldened by the complacency and complicity of silence, converted to killing fields.

He was whiskers away from becoming a minister. It remains a mystery how some last-minute horse-trading put paid to hid hopes of becoming Minister. The number of cheers that rose from all over the country when it became conclusive that El-rufai would not be part of the ministerial procession bespoke the number of people who found El-rufai’s brand of politics objectionable.

After he cupped up the disappointment of not becoming Minister immediately after the expiration of his tenure as governor, El-rufai did not exactly begin to cough up blood immediately. Rather, he took some time to regroup, and since a biting comeback launched via a blistering interview granted Arise TV, he has since defected to the Social Democratic Party while urging other political gladiators to follow suit.

The monkey on El-rufai’s back is that people do not trust him. Even those he is urging to jump ship and set up camp with him are suspicious of his motives and methods. He seems to be the archetype of the Nigerian politician who induces suspicion in others.

He may have echoed the thoughts of many Nigerians when he lamented that the people he supported into power had become unrecognizable to him, but surely only to the extent that Nigerians did not know that there was nothing to offer in the first place. There was no promise, and whatever pledge was made was anchored on absolutely shaky grounds.

That is the conundrum the El-rufai who was governor of Kaduna State, faces today. The project he proposes is one absolutely barren of promise. In many ways, the El-rufai who was governor of Kaduna State is still the same one who was Minister of the Federal Capital Territory. His activities immediately after leaving office as governor echo what he did after leaving office as Minister in 2007.
Once he is not part of an administration, his resort is often blistering but ultimately blind criticism.
What is new? Absolutely nothing. His anger at his exclusion from the banquet is nothing new; neither is his desperation to claim scalps to soothe his battered ego.

But the movement he is stirring this time around is doomed to fail. This is because he may struggle to convince anyone to back the project, especially among Nigerians many of whom are utterly sick of his eccentric and extremist ways.

Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com