El-Rufai: Governor General of Golgotha
By Emeka Obasi
Kaduna is fast becoming our river of blood, competing with such countries as Afghanistan, Yemen and Iraq in an unprecedented orgy of violence. The roads to this important Northern town are paved with skulls while Governor Nasir Ahmad El –Rufai sits comfortably.
El-Rufai
The brainy El-Rufai has indeed, shown that he may not have the capacity to function as a leader. With a chain of degrees spanning from the Ahmadu Bello, to London and Harvard Universities, the man who should turn Kaduna to paradise could drive sanity out of the town.
One strange trait of the governor is that he is an expert in diverting attention from crucial matters. The world woke up to behold the abduction and eventual murder of the Agwom of Adara, Dr. Maiwada Raphael Galadima, on the Kaduna –Abuja Expressway.
The traditional ruler was said to be on his way to a meeting initiated by the governor following yet another crisis in Kajuru Local Government Area. The attackers killed his police orderly, murdered four accompanying palace guards before whisking him away with his wife.
El-Rufai chose that moment to descend on the Vice Presidential candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party [PDP], Peter Obi, whom he described as ‘a tribal bigot.’
As governor of Anambra State, Obi had cause to silence El-Rufai who appeared in Awka while elections were going on. The intruder was neither accredited as a monitor nor party agent thus creating doubt over his role since he wanted freedom to move around the voting centres.
El-Rufai has not forgotten that restriction and threw up this ethnic card to keep people away from prying into the circumstances surrounding the gruesome elimination of Dr. Galadima and his security details.
And predictably that aim seems to be paying the Kaduna governor. All over the media, it is now Obi versus El-Rufai and some are extending it to be a ‘war’ between the Fulani and the Igbo.
The former Anambra governor has come out strongly to put El-Rufai down on the turf. As boss, Obi’s Aide de Camp [ADC] was a Northerner, from Kano. His orderly, hailed from Taraba.
All six police commissioners in Anambra between 2006 and 2014, when Obi held sway were from the North, four muslims and two Christians: late John Haruna and Philemon Leha.
El-Rufai should make out time to find out what Peter Obi did to calm nerves when some young men from the North asked South –Easterners living there to leave before October 1, 2015.
It is possible that the Kaduna governor was part of the plot because most of the meetings took place in his state. For a man who is Chief Security Officer, he cannot claim not to know what went on behind the scene and publicly.
It is also to the eternal credit of, Allen Onyema, Chief Executive Officer of Air Peace that peace was achieved at a time the Kaduna governor will be remembered as the man who did nothing.
Young Nigerians are growing wiser. This ethnic card been bandied by some of our politicians will consume those who fall for it. It is commendable, that neo-Biafrans and Fulani Herdsmen sat and dined together in Lagos and Abuja respectively while killings continued in El-Rufai’s domain.
Nnamdi Kanu received Mohammed Danjuma, President Arewa Transformation Empowerment Initiative[ATEI] in Umuahia and kolanut was broken signifying a new dawn.
The Secretary General of Miyetti Allah, Saleh Kuba, rallied round Kanu’s younger brother, Prince, in a Lagos hotel while Nigerian soldiers invaded his father’s palace in Umuahia .
El- Rufai needs to restore peace to Kaduna. The crocodiles in Kada River from which the name of the state is derived have not fed on human beings as much as the El-Rufai government is counting bodies since May 2015.
If the governor does not have problem with Christians, he has disagreement with workers. All three senators representing Kaduna State are not on the same page with El-Rufai.
It got so nasty that the governor ordered the demolition of a house owned by Senator Othman Hunkuyi, El-Rufai’s Campaign Manager in 2015. Senator Shehu Sani has been forced out of the ruling party.
There is no easy road to Kaduna. Tension continues to mount around Gomin Gora, a largely Christian community on the Kaduna –Abuja Highway. The governor is threatening to move the settlers.
There are road blocks in Nasarawa, Ango, Badiko, Mando and Mazu. In the metropolis, Narayi, Barnawa and even Kawo are not safe. The killing fields continue to grow.
It is remarkable that before ascending the throne, El-Rufai criticized a previous government for imposing partial curfew. Recently, he imposed a 24-hour curfew in Kaduna following blood letting in Kasuwan Magani.
There are side talks that El-Rufai does not mean well for Kaduna, apparently because he was born in Daudawa, Faskari in Katsina State. Some of his predecessors are worried that without peace, unity will continue to elude the state.
The governor is not a stranger in any way. After losing his father at eight, he moved in with an uncle in Kaduna and passed out in flying colours from Barewa College, Zaria.
President Umar Yaradua was not only El-Rufai’s senior, the former president was House Captain of Mallam Smith House, the abode of Mr. Governor.
It sounded strange that El-Rufai could rise against Yar’adua in later years. His grouse could have been invitation to the Senate to answer for his role in demolishing and acquiring property as minister of the Federal Capital Territory.
El –Rufai also rose against Vice President Atiku Abubakar in 2006. The former headed the probe panel that indicted the latter. Atiku was the one who brought El-Rufai into government .
It appears El–Rufai is afraid of the coming together of Atiku and Obi. Should this pair articulate their way into Aso Villa, there is every possibility that El–Rufai’s bloody record in Kaduna will not be obliterated.
Today, Malam El-Rufai, ‘Mr. Demolition,’ is the hunter. This brief man, a lawyer, Quantity Surveyor, Public Administrator and enemy Number One of the NLC and Kaduna Teachers whose other nickname is ‘Giant,’ may become hunter hunted.
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