By Simon Imobo-Tswam

Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, the immediate-past governor of Kaduna state, is in the news, again. His criticism of the Bola Tinubu government has triggered royal groans and not so royal moans.

I wish to state, upfront, and boldly too, that he is not an accidental critic.

For sure, the man excites our emotions for reasons sublime, and reasons, bizarre.

Yes, he is a small-statured man; and not many big-bodied people believe that small-framed men should be loud or should dare to hog headlines for weeks on end in their presence.

Plus, el-Rufai has an ascerbic tongue which, when trained on opponents, leaves them with damaging political, emotional and psychological lacerations. And loud wailing and cacophony become the natural outcomes in such camps!

Furthermore, he has a very sharp intellect. And he has honed that to a point where he has become a suave, articulate and persuasive speaker, with a potential for even demagoguery.

el-Rufai is, therefore, not one to shy away from deploying his awesome intellectual endowments to advance his causes, promote his viewpoints or to blunt opposing voices.

When he talks, marshalling his points so clearly and so compellingly, the juggernaut leaves many of us overwhelmed, stupefied and even stranded. That’s when, in exasperation, some of us call him a “midget” or “dwarf”!

But such a pejorative characterisation only makes our nightmare more nightmarish: for the life of this nimble “midget” is still the dream of many shuffling giants!

Look at the roll-call: Special Adviser to a military head of state, director-general of a first-grade Federal parastatal, cabinet minister, a brain-box of President Obasanjo’s reform agenda, co-founder of a consequential political party, two-term governor of Kaduna state and now, the enfant terrible of the ruling APC.

So, clearly, what el-Rufai lacks in physique, God has superfluously compensated him with an overflowing intellect. But this is both a liability and asset.

When the APC juggernaut airs his opinions with his inimitably forceful candour, profound erudition and insightful analyses, his critics want to shout him down. When he holds his peace, his admirers wonder why he is quiet, and goad him to say something.

So, in talking, he stirs the hornets’ nest; and in his silence, he becomes the object of our intense curiosity. It’s something of a dilemma.

In our secondary school days (those of my generation can relate or recall), we read/had a text entitled: The Dilemma of a Ghost.” We can modify that title to fit our context thus: “The Dilemma of a Critic.”

But we don’t pity el-Rufai or query the critics of the critic – after all, the critic himself spares none when he sees the need to. But we should avoid tagging him “the Accidental Critic.” He has paid his dues in the public space. So, while he may style himself as “the Accidental Public Servant,” he is, by no means an “Accidental Critic.”

First, when you are a stickler for excellence, you naturally model criticism by default; you automatically become a critic of mediocrity, inefficiency, slothfulness and tardiness.

But in practical terms, in the Obasanjo dispensation when el-Rufai came to national limelight, he criticised the chronic lethargy of the bureaucracy, the sloppiness in the Federal cabinet, and the then budding corruption in hallowed places.

He was also a vociferous critic of both the Yar’adua and the Goodluck Jonathan administrations, accusing both of incapacity, insincerity and inefficiency.

And in the Buhari government during which he served as governor, el-Rufai wrote about three memos to the president, expressing his unease with the slow-pace of social change.

Additionally, Nasir el-Rufai was among the governors who sued the Buhari presidency over its currency re-design policy, faulting both the need and the timing! He also opposed Buhari’s bid to have another Northerner succeed him after his eight-year tenure in Aso Rock.

That’s el-Rufai for you. He is a critic who doesn’t even respect table manners: he talks at the table, with a fork in hand and between mouthfuls.

He may not be a career-critic, a social media warrior or a dyed-in-the-wool critic, but he is no accident to criticism or in talking truth to power.

And that brings us to the present. If the man has a history of criticism – why are some people trying to pin his dissatisfactions with this government on his failed ministerial quest? When he criticised the Yar’adua, Jonathan and Buhari governments – was it because of missed ministerial opportunities too?

We must outgrow this penchant for importing trivia into serious conversations with the aim of obfuscating the flow and diverting attention. It is beneath us.

But even this ministerial thing – let’s talk about it, briefly. We are all witnesses to history or the backstory. In the race to 2023, there were promises, dissuasions and persuasions.

With 2023 sealed and delivered, were the promises kept?
If so, is the joke really on the former governor or on those to whom trust also means trash?

So, is el-Rufai’s criticism of Tinubu’s nepotism (he prefers cronyism) justified? A look at all those in control of the commanding heights of the Nigerian economy, including the Armed Services, makes countering the charge a most embarrassing venture.

Hailers may see it as “merit,” but that can only be true if merit is a plant that only flourishes in the South-West, and particularly Lagos!

What the rest of us see is micro-nationalism, the inauguration of a Golden Age, not for Nigeria, but for one of the over 300 ethnicities that comprise her. It’s, indeed, a Golden Age that’s not altogether golden.

It may be tempting to refer el-Rufai to the eight years of Buhari’s nepotism and his silence. But dare we now compare the unschooled Buhari, with the cosmopolitan Tinubu who schooled in America, worked with multinational corporations across the globe and built Lagos, vAfrica’s biggest economic megapolis?

Dare we suggest that Lagos, the Centre of Excellence, now copies from Katsina, and that the Renewed Hope Agenda was merely Next Level politics?

And it’s not that the nepotism and the cronyism are delivering results. As Suleiman A. Suleiman has put it: “Fat people are becoming slim; and slim people are dying.” And if people cannot eat, can they save or live with hope?

These are the issues. This is the ugly reality.

But they are not new issues. They are only enjoying prime discussion and raising adrenaline levels because el-Rufai has added his voice to it.

That’s the midget’s influence. Even outside the power loop, he stands today as one of the North’s most consequential, most magnetic and most sophisticated politicians. This is why what he says – whether casually or seriously – carries weight. The less perceptive may dismiss the small man, but not the serious power-players.

And let no one be deceived by the lie that el-Rufai is a liar. Doesn’t being a liar make him a family member? And doesn’t that burnish his political credentials and make him a very important member of the political class? Aren’t some of us (or our heroes) thieves, witches, cultists, murderers, perjurers, con-artists, addicts and all?

And, by the way, since when have the masses been averse to lies on the campaign trail?

This is why I believe it is in his party’s interest to listen to him, and take remedial measures. Already, he is a presidential material, and he may graduate into a presidential candidate. It can complicate things.

If the party and the government go on with the dismissive attitude, I fear that el-Rufai may double up on forging strategic alliances and renewing friendships, all geared towards harnessing the general discontent in the land, turning the pervasive anger into revolutionary energy and, possibly, weaponising same for as much political capital as possible, Come 2027.

Imobo-Tswam, a retired newspaper editor, writes from Abuja. He can be reached at simonpita2008@gmail.com