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By Lawal Ogienagbon

Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, the self-styled accidental public servant, is at it again. Sounding off and drawing attention to himself, as usual. What ails El-Rufai? What is biting him really? El-Rufai is good at blabbing, flapping and flailing, all at the same time. He seems to have lost bearings after missing out on being made a minister in the present administration.

Both in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), where he once held sway as minister, and Kaduna, his home state, where he was a two-term governor from 2015 – 2023, El-Rufai has turned himself into a laughing stock of sorts, the way he is carrying on. Under the guise of speaking ‘truth to power’, that is what his likes always say after their quibbling, he sees nothing good in what President Bola Tinubu, and Governor Uba Sani, his (El-Rufai’s) successor, are doing.

Hardly a day passes without El-Rufai taking potshots at both men. He is hyperactive in the traditional and social media, as he has joined forces with other disgruntled politicians to pick, especially on the President. His hitherto political enemies are now his friends. Those people were not only his political foes, they were also not economically and socially compatible. El-Rufai now finds comfort in their bosom. Not to worry, at the right time, they will be put asunder by what brought them together.

The time is drawing close. And El-Rufai is stepping up his campaign of calumny against Tinubu, pretending to be speaking as a friend. With a friend like him, the President does not need an enemy. His latest outburst was not altruistic. It was, as usual, self-serving. He assumed to be the voice of the North as he thundered over the President’s chances in the 2027 election. The North, he claimed, would ditch the President as the region did to Goodluck Jonathan in 2015 because of “his (Jonathan’s) attitude and that of people around him to the zone”.

In other words, he was saying that for Tinubu to get a second term, he must surround himself with more northerners, give them what is commonly referred to as ‘fat and juicy’ appointments and open up the treasury for them, if need be, so as to appease this northern deity created by him, which cannot be defied. The train has since left El-Rufai behind. If he did not know, he should know now. He is no longer a factor in the nation’s politics. These days, he is just being tolerated, all because of what he was in the past.

El-Rufai no longer has a place in the political future of this country. So, to threaten the President with the loss of the North’s vote in 2027 is mere talk. Grammarians call it gibberish. I will not do that because El-Rufai, as Mark Antony referred to those who killed Julius Caesar, the major character in William Shakespeare’s tragic play of the same title, is an ‘honourable man’. The North knows its own and its own know the North. El-Rufai cannot now pretend to be what he is not to the region that produced great men like Sardauna Ahmadu Bello and Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa.

When those men spoke, the North listened. Who will listen to El-Rufai? Come to think of it, how many soldiers does he have to warrant him to make such a sweeping statement for the North. Lest he forgets, he is no longer a governor nor a minister with favours to dispense. People are no longer at his beck and call. He should stop living in the past. It is not of his making that a Southerner is the President today. It will also not be of his making that a Southerner will remain President in 2027.

The Southern Presidency is an idea whose time did not just come today. It came years ago and El-Rufai was wise enough to join the bandwagon then. All the best, if he wants to jump ship now. I concede that he played a leading role in rallying the All Progressives Congress (APC) governors from the North to support the project. That was then when he, as governor, was on the ground in Kaduna. It is because he is no longer on the ground that he seems not to know the things that the President is doing for the state.

El-Rufai is seeking a return to political reckoning with his recent activities. He speaks glowingly of APC at public forums, but deep down he knows that he is insincere. His statement titled: South West, Tinubu’s supporters playing with fire – Part 1, released on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday was a dead giveaway of his intentions about Tinubu and their party. Is he still in APC? Time will tell. Playing with words, he wrote:

“I have read and heard the arrogant posturing and braggadocio by some people who I refer to as political rabble-rousers… May I remind some persons that, more than the performance or lack thereof, of President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, it was his attitude, and that of people around him, towards the North that ultimately brought him down…” Can you hear that? El-Rufai’s plan to set the North against Tinubu is dead on arrival.

He cannot incite the North and its people against Tinubu at a time that the President is doing all he can for the region. May we remind El-Rufai that he is not the Oracle of the North that speaks and the people will follow. He can only speak for himself and not the region which has had it good under the Tinubu Presidency. God sparing our lives, 2027 is just two years away. It is Tinubu’s achievements and not the bile spewed by a disgruntled politician that will determine his return to office.

Like every other eligible voter, El-Rufai has only one vote. He should cast it for whoever he likes. I bet him, he will be shocked by the outcome of the 2027 Presidential Poll, notwithstanding his statement inciting the North against Tinubu ahead of the election. The second part cannot be more incendiary than the first. The public awaits that installment.

* Source: The Nation.