Last week, Kaduna State governor Malam Nasir El-Rufai made a strange incursion into Lagos politics. After a rather forgettable, anodyne presentation before the Bridge Club in Ikoyi, he was fed a question from one of his newest lackeys, Muiz Banire. The question centered on godfatherism in Lagos politics. El-Rufai pontificated that he had the formula to end godfatherism in Lagos. If Lagosians would follow his advice, presumably they would be rewarded with a governor just like him.
Too narcissistic to understand the irony of what he was proposing, El-Rufai left Lagos quite full on himself, not realising Lagosians would consider a governor like him to be a most unjust punishment. If El-Rufai were to ever present himself in Lagos for any elective office, Lagosians would resoundingly reject the offer, sending the self-absorbed man quickly packing.
Here two observations must be stated. One is clearly implied by El-Rufai’s statement; his was an attack on Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the acknowledged national leader of the APC and architect of the APC’s Lagos political structure. The other is less clear but equally pertinent. This scene was contrived. Both the question from Banire and the answer from El-Rufai were premeditated. This was not an organic, spontaneous exchange. The whole thing bears the taint of orchestrated mischief.
The question then becomes why would El-Rufai break the norms of political conduct by coming into the state of a loyal leader of his own party for the sole purpose of criticising that leader who just weeks earlier had supported his hotly contested re-election in Kaduna? The true answer has little to do with the presence or absence of godfatherism in Lagos politics. El-Rufai barely cares for the people of Kaduna let alone for the well-being of Lagos.
Half of the true answer has to do with the short memory of a political ingrate. He remembers nothing done for him which means he owes no political debts. The other half of that answer deals with unbridled presidential ambitions. He wakes every morning and probably several times during the restless night with the taste of the presidency on his mouth; he probably chants it in his sleep. For him, being governor of Kaduna has always been nothing more than a place holder. He took the position because it was the best available platform from which to launch his future presidential aspirations. This is why he does not devote himself to dealing with the nuanced and hard problems affecting his state. He adopts a cavalier attitude to everything except his presidential ambitions which he nurses like a tender flower.
Although we are not yet finished with 2019, El-Rufai is positioning himself for 2023. He sees Asiwaju as the lead contender for 2023 and thus the major obstacle to realising his power lust. Because of this, his prior envy for Tinubu’s political feats has transformed into bristling hatred. He thus sallies into to Lagos to insult Asiwaju and by extension all Lagosians because he cannot contain his anger. That his public attack against a fellow party member contravenes the morals of political conduct and may serve to alienate him from the people of Lagos means nothing to El-Rufai.
El-Rufai’s supposed opposition to godfatherism is another point of irony, as he is nothing but the by-product of political miseducation by his two godfathers, Atiku Abubakar and former president Olusegun Obasanjo. From them, he learned the traits that would characterise his political career. He learned adherence to regressive, elitist politics and policies, disloyalty, greed and the placement of personal ambition above collective well-being. The sad thing is that he learned from this terrible twosome all too well. To be loyal to the wicked craft into which they had baptized him, he had to be disloyal to his former masters.
In all his political travels, El-Rufai has been unencumbered by principle or ideology. The thirst for power is what fuels him. A man who flirts with many parties, is a man who is nothing but a party of one. El-Rufai is no more of the APC than he was of the PDP. He is of and for himself only. When the time comes, he will prove no better than Saraki, Tambuwal and Dogara. This explains why he can publicly attack a leader of the party when that leader has done nothing to him. Thus, he seeks to be the flag-bearer of party by starting fights within the party.
El-Rufai is the last person to coach Lagosians on state governance and how to mobilise the electorate. In the 2015 election, El-Rufai won 1.1 million votes. His opponent gained little over 400,000. He won by roughly 700,000, a landslide. That was before people came to know him. In 2019, after 4 years of seeing the true character of their governor, the people did not engulf him in a tidal wave of adulation. El-Rufai did not gain more supporters. He lost some of what he had. Meanwhile, the vote for his opposition roughly doubled to over 800,000. Nearly 400,000 more people voted in Kaduna in 2019 than in 2015. All of the new votes were cast against El-Rufai. Equipped with the full arsenal of incumbency, he won Kaduna by only 200,000 votes.
El-Rufai’s track record and imperious demeanour actually did mobilise people. The problem was that they mobilised new voters against him. He managed to provoke many who did not vote in 2015 to come out against him this year. By any measure, if El-Rufai is a political magician, he is that rare breed that invokes magic against his very self. His stock has fallen as a natural result of his treatment of his citizens. He has not spurred much development. But he has encouraged division and disunity in his state. Kaduna is a strategically important, demographically diverse state. However, he has ignored its many complexities. He has played rough with his people, bulldozing everything and everyone not paying obeisance to him, even as he brought the state APC chapter to tatters.
Along with Lagos and a few other states, Kaduna should be leading the way regarding peace and harmony. But El-Rufai continues with his crude utterances that inflame rather than moderate the tension and violence. In reality, he is the worst person to ask about political godfathers, as he’s learned politics from two of Nigeria’s worst. Theirs was an education where the elder eats its young or vice versa; in any event, a devouring must take place. He has mastered this game but his mastery of it should not be mistaken for knowledge of democratic good governance. What he has learned are but the pathologies of a medieval court, and not the enlightenment of modern democracy.
Nasheed writes from Abuja.
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