El-Rufai’s 61st birthday and his biggest “thank you” yet -By Tunji Ajibade

The governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir El-Rufai,  marked his birthday this month. Congratulations. Perhaps, based on the title of this piece, where I want to start this narrative is unusual. But the man we mention is himself unusual, so it’s just as well. He stood on the stood on the podium at Shehu Musa Yardua Centre, Abuja, and gave his vote of thanks. It was during the 2012 public presentation of his book, The Accidental Public Servant.  He was talking to how he was overwhelmed by the love and support that Nigerians who filled the hall and still overflowed outside showed him with their attendance. He had to stop at that point. For his voice could hardly sustain the weight of the love and support from Nigerians that he saw on that occasion. As it would happen to anyone in those circumstances, his emotion buckled. He quickly said the rest of his “thank you” as one who was genuinely touched would. He wasn’t fully done when he turned away from the podium and walked to his seat, his emotion plainly there for all to see.

Strangely, it was as I thought of how to approach this piece that I recalled the stated moment at the Yar’adua Centre. It was a powerful one, unforgettable,  a moment when one could feel the sum of what it meant to be an El-Rufai in Nigeria’s governance space and politics. What was in that moment? Again, the summation of who El-rufai is as a person, what he did in the public offices he held up to that moment, as well as what the typical Nigerian politicians or public officials were. I start from the last; majority of Nigerian politicians or public officials are unlike him, he’s  unlike them. Incidentally,  if the reader wants to remind themselves of who the typical Nigerian public officials or politicians are, one simple step to take is read the content of the book that was presented on the occasion mentioned. The reader will see the petty and the mediocre, their shenanigans, the distinguished who are with rotten character, the public official who doesn’t have a sense of private purse and public purse, politicians whose sole aim is to use their position to accumulate rather than work in public interest. He didn’t encourage  that as the Minister of the FCT. Even now that El-Rufai is a state governor and willingly identifies himself as a politician,  he’s still not the typical Nigerian politician. (The first time I heard him say “I am  a politician” was at a political meeting that I covered as a journalist in Kafanchan, Kaduna State, at about this time in 2015).

TUNJI AJIBADE

He’s not the typical Nigerian politician for he doesn’t talk glibly like most Nigerian politicians do, saying so much while saying nothing, everyone trying to be as bland as possible because they want to protect their political future. With the manner he directly talk to issues, I doubt El-Rufai entertains fear about any political future as most political office holders do and end up failing to take the hard but beneficial decisions they ought to take.  One is fairly certain because after he wrote all he did in his book,  some said he would never be permitted by the typical politicians to hold any public office in Nigeria again. But this enigma of a man resurfaced as a state governor, in fact regarded by majority of his people in the 2014-2015 election season as the only messiah for Kaduna state or nothing. The fervor exhibited that time by his people in favour of someone of his type to occupy the Kashim Ibrahim House was so intense that one could tangibly pick it up. The condition of the state had been that appallingly dismal under some past administration, and the masses who bore the  brunt knew where it pained. They were the ones who rose as one and ushered him into office. The wide margin in that 2015 election results stated that much.

The summation of what El-Rufai did while he held public offices pre-2012 was also captured in that moment when he uttered the emotion-laden “thank you” at the book presentation.  I imagine that at that very moment, he had thought to himself, “so some Nigerians appreciated what we did in office this much.”  It was a legitimate thought as what was popular in the press at the time he was the FCT minister was the assassination  of his character,  even as he tried to clean up the city and make it work for all. He was maliciously painted as the worst public official Nigeria ever had; this was mostly prompted by certain characters who found themselves unable to loot and treat the FCT as a cesspool of whatever unprintable things they were doing in that city.

Meanwhile the same characters, whether in or out of government,  celebrated men who had occupied office and what they presided over was nothing but mediocrity, chaos and a long list of corrupt practices.  They presided over what amounted to ‘business as usual’ which had never helped the nation. El-Rufai arrived and presided over the cleaning up of an FCT that was rotting. At the time all of this was going on, I listened to people who had in their minds tagged the  FCT minister as their worst enemy, and the ‘devil’s own brother’. These were people who, in the days of business as usual, had bribed public officials to illegally obtain whatever they obtained and erected structures on it in the FCT. Others bought land from the so called ‘natives’ who had no legal rights to land in some places in the FCT anymore, having been compensated by the government in the past. Many erected structures on such land without the appropriate documentation.

I recall listening at a meeting where majority of the main participants demonized the FCT minister for taking down  structures that they erected in places where such were not meant to be. After the gathering dispersed, two of the participants  walked up to me and said, “But we warned them at the time  they were buying from the natives that land the belonged to the government, but they did not heed the warning.” Sometimes, I’m perplexed how difficult it is for Nigerians to admit they took the wrong step, that what they did was not in line with the law. As for the person who corrected them and executed the letter and the spirit of the law though, he’s to blame for everything. The public official who wanted things done right was something else;  they who had  engaged in illegal acts just to get what they wanted at the expense of public good were the angels. In spite of the effort to cast him in the image that he wasn’t, many Nigerians still appreciated the Minister’s effort to bring sanity to the nation’s capital. A cross-section of that appreciation was what he saw in the hall where the 2012 book presentation took place.

Also summed up in that moment when El-Rufai was saying “thank you” was the person he was.  With the kind of noise made and the manner he was painted by those who were prejudiced against him at the time he was in office, El-Rufai wouldn’t have known that so many Nigerians believed otherwise. He saw this in that hall during the presentation. His public comments have always indicted he sees himself as a person who simply wants to do what is right and in the public interest. But, perhaps, he had had moments post 2007 when he wondered if many Nigerians thought he was what he said he was – a man who wanted to ensure the public office works for every Nigerian, big or small, high or low. He had always maintained that politicians such as the late Sardaunan Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello,  and the public officials around him made the public system to work such that someone like him had quality public education. He said if that hadn’t been the case, he probably wouldn’t have been educated. He said this was one factor that informed his determination to make public institutions work for all, so that many, not a few, would  have the opportunity to fulfill their potentials. But did this message about his person and the best which he had in mind for Nigeria and Nigerians between 2003 and 2007  get across to many? He got the answer in that hall too, and for this he said an emotion-laden  big “thank you.”

 In essence, this former Minister of the FCT was surprised on that occasion. He had to be. In Nigeria, the impression one got at the time he was in office, based on the unrelenting attacks on his character,  was that no Nigerian would ever want to see him after his principled performance as the Minister of the FCT. But the 2012 event showed this not to be the case. Meanwhile, it was the same negative impression some tried to make the public have barely three years into El-Rufai’s  first term in office as the Kaduna State governor. As usual, the typical politicians and public officials drove it. There was a way they wanted Kaduna State to be run, there was a way he, not being the typical politician, wanted to run it. He has acknowledged in his public comments that the typical politicians didn’t like his style and wanted him out, but the masses wanted him, and so they massively voted him in 2019 for a second term in office.

But this is not the space where one can catalogue what he has been able to do for his people in his more than five years in office. But one can suppose that from the reforms in public service, to education, health, urban renewal programmes, and the breathing of life back into the economy of the state, the minister-turned governor is continuing in the manner he is known to have acted in previous public offices that he held. It sure takes more than the typical politician to engage in these major reforms and many more. It takes more than the usual kind of office holder to aspire to make his state boast of the best economy in the country. It takes a person of his kind to want to have as teachers in public schools university graduates.  I want to imagine that if he continues on this path that has always set him apart from the typical politicians, he might discover that he hasn’t said his biggest “thank you” yet. For one day, the same masses that his reform policies in Kaduna State give a chance to amount to something in life shall show him much appreciation.  For me,  it’s in regard to how so many lives have been positively impacted that the birthday of any politician or public official is worth commenting on,  or even celebrated.  As a beneficiary of the positive public policies of that era, El-Rufai has severally praised and celebrated the  Sardauna. With the usual undeterred manner he goes  about his task, I think he’s next in line to receive the same in the same coin.

Tunji Ajibade; 08036683657