People and Politics By Mohammed Haruna

El-Rufa’i’s “arrogance”

Malam Nasir el-Rufa’i, the former minister of the Federal Capital Territory and, until recently, a fugitive from the law, was part of a government delegation from Kaduna State which visited President Goodluck Jonathan, penultimate Tuesday, to condole him over the death, May 5, of President Umaru Shehu Yar’adua.

The inclusion of el-Rufa’i on that delegation was unwise and improper, to say the least. But even more unwise and improper was the reception he – and the former EFCC boss, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, who was also a fugitive from the law until government recently withdrew its charges against him – got from the president while he was in the United States last month at the invitation of President Barack Obama. The reception was unwise and improper for the obvious reason that the two former public officers were fugitives from the law. And it did not matter whether or not the charges against them were politically motivated, as they and their supporters have argued.

It also did not matter that, based on the doctrine of fairness, they were possibly innocent until proven guilty. A country’s president is the executor-in-chief of its laws and for that reason alone he should never keep the company of those the State has accused of breaking its laws before they have been cleared of the charges against them.

As if to justify his dubious visit to Aso Villa, el-Rufa’i, never one to shy away from self-promotion, launched a tirade of sorts against those who have been objecting to putative plans by President Jonathan to contest next year’s presidential elections against existing agreement of the ruling PDP that had reserved, wrongly in my view, the presidential candidature of the party to the North until 2015.

“I don’t believe in presidency by allocation,” he told press correspondents in the Villa. “Everybody is free to contest any election anywhere.” Earlier in an interview in The Guardian of April 14, he had expressed pretty much the same sentiment. “You cannot,” he said, “honestly have a democracy where certain groups are excluded from contesting because of their religion or geographical area.”

The former FCT minister is right that zoning is undemocratic because it restricts choice on grounds that are illogical. Problem is, like his godfather, President Olusegun Obasanjo, he, at least on this matter, has been preaching one thing and practising the opposite.

In case he has forgotten he ought to be reminded that back in December 2006 ahead of the 2007 elections he told the world in far away Washington DC that the PDP’s presidential candidate would be between 44 and 55 years of age. At that time everyone knew he had his eyes on the job. And when eventually it became clear to him that he would not get it he, by his own admission, supported Yar’adua who was in that obviously arbitrary age bracket.

That amounted to zoning by age. Surely this was no less discriminatory than zoning by creed or by geography which he says he is against. Yet it seems the man still believes the nonsense about the imperative of the Newbreed completely taking charge of our politics if Nigeria is to prosper, as if the will, competence and integrity needed for such prosperity is a matter of age.

“I am 50 years old,” he said in The Guardian interview in question, “and I prefer to support and promote younger people to run for public office and be appointed to senior government positions.”

However, his apparent belief in zoning by age seems to be just that – more apparent than real. For, almost in the same breath that he expressed his faith in the so-called Newbreed, he talked about the possibility of contesting for elective office. “And if,” he said, “I decide to return to public service, I would prefer an elective office rather than appointive office.”

There is, in other words, something basically dishonest about el-Rufa’i’s position on zoning as there is about so many other things he has often pontificated on. First, on zoning itself it is obvious that his position is based less on principles that on a desire to curry favour with the president. Otherwise he would not condemn zoning by geography and support it by age.

Second on the issue of his political ambitions he knows that the question is not if he wants to return to public office, elective or otherwise, but when. An evidence of this is that, unlike his good friend, Nuhu Ribadu, who has been quiet since his return from self-exile, el-Rufa’i has kept delight in talking to the press since his own return from self-exile.

Not only has he been talking so much to the press, articles canvassing for him to get a top job in the new dispensation are begging to appear in newspapers. Only the other day Leadership, beginning from May 17, published a two-part article by one M. Dooba entitled “The Power Crisis: Three Reasons Why El-Rufa’i Can Solve It.” The article painted the man in superlative colours. El-Rufa’i, the author said, will bring our energy crisis to an end because, first, his previous record is excellent, second, because “it is difficult to find a Nigerian who equals his fearlessness,” and, third, because of “his arrogance.”

Without going in to the merit of these reasons, it is obvious from the man’s numerous press interviews that he truly believes he has the personal integrity, competence and self-will to solve all the problems of this country. For example, in an interview in The Guardian of December 12, last year before his return from self-exile, he castigated the Yar’adua regime for trying to discredit his past record.

“They,” he said, “are clueless, self-serving, corrupt and incompetent - debilitating conditions that have made them desperate to reduce us to their pathetic level by shredding our reputations and belittling our record of performance.”

His record as a minister may be one of the best among his colleagues – which, come to think of it, is not saying much, giving the generally poor performance of our public officers - but these harsh words about Yar’adua was truly rich coming from someone who could not, for example, defend his administration of land in the Federal Capital Territory or defend his highly questionable privatization of NITEL beyond arrogantly telling the world that he owed no one any apology for doing the things he did as a result of which he has since become fabulously wealthy – at least wealthy enough to afford expensive international lawyers who publish pamphlets extolling his virtues and dismissing all accusations against him as the machinations of envious political opponents.