Nasir el-Rufai: From FCT to Kaduna (1) -By Ebere Wabara

Mallam Nasir El-rufai, Governor of Kaduna State

In 2003, the then Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and now the governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, in a rare display of courage and profundity of sterling character, named two members of the docile Senate leadership as having demanded N54 million gratification from him to facilitate his ministerial screening and clearance.
The unprecedented disclosure shook the country beyond imagination. So much dust was kicked up that it took almost the tenure of that National Assembly session to settle down.

Ever since that revelation, which was hastily and perfunctorily dismissed by the Senate and its two indicted members exculpated, the sour relationship between el-Rufai and the rubberstamp Senate leadership kept on degenerating, as the upper legislative chamber unabatedly continued to hound el-Rufai with the sledge-hammer at the slightest opportunity even after he became the FCT Minister. If not for the robust confidence ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo had in this member of his six-man kitchen cabinet, it was possible that the vindictive Senate could have insisted on his being moved to one of those sleepy ministries just before they started the fiasco of derobing him as FCT Minister.

As part of the trajectory, the Senate in its asininity harshly criticised el-Rufai for the eyepopping salaries and emoluments he paid two of his critical employees (special assistants) and directed the permanent secretary in the FCT Ministry to recover the N19 million already paid out. In a dignified response shorn of senatorial imbecility, el-Rufai declared that the best way to deal with the combative senators was to ignore them! His words: “I have not read about it (indictment). Somebody just told me as I went out that the Senate had indicted me. I do not care. Silence is the best answer for a fool.

“I will not be accountable to anyone but the President and I will keep on doing my job. Since my first engagement with the Senate, I know that for the next few years they will be trying to find something wrong with me. It is okay for them to try to write their English. But nobody can intimidate Nasir el-Rufai. I have not even received the written details of the indictment, but quite frankly I don’t give a damn.” (Former President Goodluck Jonathan should pay royalty for this 2004 copyright).

Your Excellency, I take off my hat to you for your audacity in handling the obstreperous senators whose bizarre effronteries are unparallelled in legislative history either here or elsewhere. This columnist is not astounded by el-Rufai’s current brave stance on national issues amid impolitic pockets of oppositional disgruntlement. I am being economical with words to say that Nigerian senators are brazenly rascally. Here is a young man motivated by patriotic fervour to contribute to the redemption of our country, bu who must be hamstrung out of inferiority complex by a bunch of garrulous and unserious senators. His inimitable antecedents in the headship of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) and pedigree of controversies are still reference points in national economic reengineering.

The two indicted senators knew in their hearts and before God, as el-Rufai once asserted at his official residence during a parley with award-winning journalists, that their victim had an irrefutable point. When this rascality was going on, most Nigerians were not deceived by the legislative closing of ranks and complicitous exoneration of two of their own.
It was not only el-Rufai that had great contempt for the Senate—most other Nigerians did. Candidly, the upper legislative chamber never comported itself in a manner deserving of respect. Its greatest tragedy was that it was an appendage of the Executive. The blatancy of this senatorial bohemianism was such that they themselves knew that they were laughing stocks in the public space. This explained why an el-Rufai could look them in the face and mouth their crass irresponsibility. It was so bad that the Senate President then, Chief Adolphus Wabara, who I share cousinship with, declared, to the bewilderment of everyone, that he was ex-President Obasanjo’s stooge! Much later, Baba would go to Abeokuta on the occasion of the conferment of a chieftaincy title on my egbon and affirm that my cousin was his son in whom he was well pleased. Shortly thereafter, the bubble burst and the rest, as they say, is now history. This was a clear testament to the kind of legislature we had in those heady years. Effectively, there was no separation of powers, which is integral to democracy.

In this kind of melieu, it was easy for the FCT Minister to make scathing remarks and justifiably get away with them. The Senate was so much in disarray as to have time for the like of el-Rufai and his copious “troubles” that were better avoided than mismanaged because oftheir combustible backlash.

The issues that bother senators are furniture allowance, retreat grants and the sharing formula, foreign trips at state expense, contract awards, choice of official automobile, non-release of their budgetary allocation by the Executive, who presides over which committee and who becomes the next Senate President if there is any impeachment, among other inanities. With this characterization, el-Rufai was on a good stead to diminish the senators. We continue the story next week as we pause for a special tribute.

For DSP Alams

WE met only once at his official residence during the National Media Tour under Prof. Jerry Gana in 2001.  I recollect it all as if it were yesterday. He humourously foreclosed our team going upstairs so that we would not see his “spousal workshop”! Shortly thereafter, he sent someone to represent him at my second book presentation at the Airport Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos. He made the second highest donation after Aremo Olusegun Osoba, then governor of Ogun State. May the soul of 62-year-old Chief Diepreye Solomon Peter Alamieyeseigha, ex-governor of Bayelsa State, rest in peace. All the theories about the circumstances of his death are unnecessary, of no effect, null and void. Except the lessons of his exit…. Adieu, the Governor-General of the Ijaw Nation!