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Mallam Nasir El'Rufai, the Governor of Kaduna state is a man who courts controversy like a hobby.
He does not only attract undue attention to himself, he enjoys throwing tanctrums at any point in time to make himself relevant in contemporary political discourse.
From the day he was discovered by General Abdulsalami Abubakar, to the time when Alhaji Atiku Abubakar facilitated his participation in public service, El'Rufai has become an attention unto himself. He loves criticizing people but abhors people criticizing him.
He gets easily paranoid when people take him up on issues.
Each time he steps into the arena, he unleashes diatribe that controversially underpins his true state of mind. He does not run away from contradiction. His political excursions are dictated by his penchant for controversy to sustain his relevance.
He can switch loyalty at the speed of light once he discovers that the political pendulum moves in the opposite direction.
A man who once reportedly demonised General Buhari as not fit for president, is today one of the factorisers of president Buhari's complex leadership equation.
No doubt, El'Rufai is brilliant and bold in taking decisions no matter how unpopular. He tries to be the gadfly in a government that has remained perpetually underperforming.
Were El'rufai to be the Chief of Staff to President Buhari, he would have been the alternate president.
He does not only love power, he knows how to cultivate power.
Having lost out in his quest and permutations to succeed Chief Obasanjo in 2007, he went on self exile to avoid late Yar'dua's long stick.
As a Minister of the Federal Capital Territory during Chief Obasanjo's administration, he wielded enormous power that made him stepped on many toes in trying to restore the Abuja Master Plan.
He ended up being accused of flouting what he set out to correct.
A lot of his friends and cronies were accused for profiting from his land bazaar. But typical of a dinosaur that he is, he enjoys such attention grabbing engagements.
And he often comes with such messianic posture that can easily make the unsuspecting members of the public to think that ice cannot melt in his mouth. Their informal association has grown in the country; Adams Oshiomhole, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, Dr. Chris Ngige, and Frank Kokori amidst a host of other vertically and horizontally challenged Nigerians. No pun intended.
From being an "accidental public servant", he contested for Governor of Kaduna state and rode on his record of performance in the FCT to be elected in 2015. He exported his controversies from Abuja to Kaduna state, from one trouble to another, and has succeeded in brazenly altering the political calculations in the state for his own good. From teachers sack that generated too much hoopla, to the law recently passed which attempts to ban public preaching in the state, Governor El'rufai has become one controversy too many.
Only recently, he reportedly gave a speech in an event in Lagos, where he told his audience how to dislodge political godfathers ostensibly making reference to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu's octopoidal grip on the political pond of Lagos state.
He stirred the hornet's nest and that became another ding-dong. Before the elections of 2019, El'rufai threatened observers with "body bags" if they dared interfere with the process of elections.
That was one statement too many.
It was a threat that was meant to prevent any foreign observer from making incisive comments of an election that later became massively flawed both in Kaduna and some other states in the North.
Only last week, he told a befuddled nation that Nigeria lives in two worlds; one is the North that is endemically backward and poor, and a Southern Nigeria that is educationally advantageous and wealthy.
It is a statement of fact except that he has been part of the problems in the North rather than being the solution.
In his native Kaduna state, I am yet to be fully educated on what he has put in place in the last 4 years to alter this ugly narrative.
Aside from recruiting teachers to replace some moribund teachers who have refused to meet up with the compelling upgrade of knowledge, many of those recruited have been allegedly working without being paid.
The program is as haphazard as the man who is promoting it. Schools in Kaduna state are still in their discrepit state.
Road infrastructure are still in their parlous state. Rather than devote so much time in addressing insecurity in the state, his utterances are part of the reasons why the state appears to be under siege.
Killings and communal clashes are routine in a state that once represented the capital of the North.
Those who expected to see Governor El'rufai repeat his FCT performance in Kaduna are taken aback that the man plays more of Aso Rock politics than governing the state. From Southern Kaduna through to Birnin-Gwari in the state, it is one killing after another.
From Kaduna to Abuja highway, the kidnapping became so notorious and ubiquitous that El'rufai was shown in an amateurish video, assisting his security aides to go after bandits and kidnappers who laid siege to the road.
Agreed that the North is educationally backward, a fact which is incontestable, what has Governor El'rufai done to change the ugly narrative?
Beggars are still roaming the streets in Kaduna. Street urchins are a regular feature in the state that once enjoyed the cognomen of being the headquarters of Northern Mafia. Infrastructure is still a huge challenge.
Poverty walks on the streets in Kaduna state. Joblessness has converted able-bodied men to become loiters and roamers along road pavements across the state. Rather than settle down to confront the huge challenges confronting the state, El'rufai prefers to roam the corridors of Aso Rock looking for presidential attention and trying to be one of the inelegant members of the cabal that has held Nigeria by the jugular.
The public is swathed with whispers of his 2023 presidential ambition to succeed President Buhari amid a growing concern that the North are not going to relinquish power without a fight.
We are surely going to witness a litany of political horse-tradings, gerrymandering, and movements as we inch towards 2021 when the countdown begins.
The historical and political leadership of Nigeria favours a Northern domination from 1960 till date, when put into proper perspective.
It is a contradiction that despite this domination, what has dominated the North are a plethoral of unsavoury realities that tend to promote hero-worship at the expense of clear-headed governance essentials. What has the North done for the North? What has been their roadmap to recover the region from its self-inflicted malady?
What has President Buhari brought to the table to help the North recover itself from its debilitating realities in the last 4 years?
What has President Buhari put forward as governmental framework to address the precarious situation the region finds itself despite the fact that it has had more presidents than other regions of the country? Drug abuse is rife. Insecurity is perennial.
Armed banditry has become the order of the day.
But it favours the leaders to keep its growing youth population in poverty so that they can continuously remain politically subservience for opportunistic use.
For example, what has been the response of the Northern Governors nay El'rufai to the open threat by the Northern youths led by one Azeez Suleiman that handed down a 30-day ultimatum to the Federal Government on the RUGA stalemate? Some Northern political leaders, for want of cultivating the support and patronage of the youths, would prefer to maintain a conspiratorial silence in the face of such threats than to deliver an open condemnation of statement that touches on the very soul of the nation.
He made reference to the "demographic superiority" which according to him is a powerful tool for political negotiation in the country, except that time and time again, those 80% of the youths are largely uninformed, illiterate and unemployed, despite Northern political hegemony.
While El'rufai failed to chart a roadmap for the teeming youths in the North who have now taken to open threat, he also failed to inform them of what he has been able to do in the last four years to address their plights. Beyond mouthing empty platitudes of saying the Northern youths are not involved in "yahoo-yahoo", he also credited the North as being the home of the richest Nigerian in Aliko Dangote, even though he failed to state how much of Dangote's investment is in the North.
What El'rufai should have told his army of Northern youths is how to recover them from tramadol and codine.
Some of the Northern youths have grown to become time-bomb at a time when there is national disarray and disconnections by a government that has shown minimal impact in its set objective.
Aside from growing dissent across the country, the body language of the presidency on the vexed issue of Fulani settlements in the country has assumed another time-bomb waiting to explode. Drug abuse is worse than "yahoo-yahoo".
Armed banditry and kidnappings are worse than yahoo-yahoo. Modern day slavery and mindless killings cannot be a recipe for development.
Rather than uttering threats in a boastful manner, the Northern youths should learn to appreciate the delicate balance in the country as well as its ethnic configurations.
History has shown that Nigeria has become a theory of contradiction. Out of our contradictions, we have been able to sustain this unholy marriage for over 100 years.
To openly threaten a people is to open old wounds which will not augur well for a country in search of result-driven leadership.
El'rufai may have outlined some of the ills in the North, he has failed to provide a roadmap. He has simply played to the gallery, a stuff that he is made of.
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