The recent defection by the former Governor of Kaduna, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai has stirred a lot of controversy in our polity; this is largely because of his role in bringing the current government to power. I have expressed in several forums my deep, unapologetic respect for Mallam with regards to his brilliance and performance-driven style of governance over the years. I was a young 100-level student some time in 2012 when I visited my dad while he was on a senior executive course at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) in Jos and stumbled on Mallam’s book Accidental Public Servant, which was 627 pages.
As a young man, that was the largest book I came across, and I spent my short break at NIPSS reading the book. After I read Mallam’s book, I fell in love with his idea of governance, and I have over the years followed his track record in service, most recently as Governor of Kaduna.
I have consistently been thrilled by his ability to get the most difficult jobs done regardless of whose ox will be gored; he has always proven to have an unusual ability to assemble the best team to get the job done. His track records at BPE, FCT, and Kaduna are available for anyone to verify.
Regardless of my admiration for Mallam, I have never hidden my reservation about his brash methodology and sheer arrogance in engaging with people who disagree with him; like his records for result-driven leadership, these other attributes are out there in public to verify. During the 2023 elections, he has made several inflammatory remarks, all in a bid to support the Muslim-Muslim ticket of President Tinubu, which many saw as fanatical tendencies, especially with his Muslim-Muslim track record in Kaduna State. However, as fate will have it, President Tinubu, in what appeared like a last-minute change of mind, dropped Mallam from his ministerial list after he went through the screening, citing issues of security as the reason for dropping him. In his usual, Peacock-like manner, Mallam told the president he was no longer interested in the ministerial nomination even before the issue was resolved like that of his other colleagues; I guess at that point he thought he might have seen the worst until his friend, the current governor of Kaduna, Sen. Uba Sani, turned his back on him.
Mallam, as a politician, is one team player every party should have. I remembered his role leading up to the 2015 elections in the then APC and how they weaponized the media to deal with the government in power then. He has an unusual talent to challenge the status quo in any system without fear of anything.
In the last two years, having faced a lot of persecution from his friend in Kaduna and the government at the center, he finally tendered his resignation from the APC after giving the party several hints he was going to leave through several comments suggesting so. He immediately announced his defection to the SDP, which many people welcomed, and thousands of people have followed him to the new party, with many already calling President Tinubu a one-term president.
I have followed through the series of events before and after his defection; having witnessed what the APC did between 2013 and 2014, I have maintained there is nothing Mallam has done that should give the president a sleepless night. While I admit that his defection from SDP has further strengthened the opposition, their steam is nothing to write home about as it is now.
I have also maintained that challenging a big political weight like Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who has spent all his years wielding power, requires a very solid merger backed by incumbent politicians from the national assembly to state governors and state houses of assemblies; a coalition will never do the magic because it is not united enough. As it is now, the opposition is more divided than it was before the 2023 elections.
With all the parties running one battle or the other in court in the last 2 years, there seems to be no sense of direction for most of them, with most of them—the key parties amongst them—barely even having proper party meetings or press conferences. The recent passage by the national assembly of the request of the president to confirm his imposition of a state of emergency and suspension of the governor and his deputy further proved that the APC controls even the opposition members of the National Assembly seamlessly. The opposition seems to be very comfortable being an opposition so far; they can get one favor or the other from the ruling government.
Mallam somehow believes he is another Buhari in the making, and it seems like somewhere in his calculation he believes he will inherit Buhari’s popular 12 million votes should he contest for president of Nigeria, and I won’t be surprised if he thinks this way. Beyond his rhetoric of retiring the president in 2027, one would have thought that by now half of the Uba Sani’s cabinet would have resigned from APC to join him in SDP, or even majority members of the Kaduna House of Assembly would have also resigned from APC to SDP, or better still, local government chairmen and members of the National Assembly would have resigned to align with him; this, in my opinion, would have demonstrated his political influence like we have seen Kwankwaso demonstrate so in Kano state. At best what we have seen in Kaduna has been a few former political aides and unknown names resigning from the APC to join the SDP.
Outside of the state, most of the people that have joined the SDP so far have been former political office holders and activists looking for a new political platform to breathe. I have consistently thought and asked, what in the world will make a sitting governor or NASS member resign from the APC or PDP to join the SDP—not even his son, Hon. Bello Elrufai? What is the catch? This is a party without a single state governor or NASS member. Again and again, the 2014 APC political dexterity has given us a template of what an opposition that should give the sitting president sleepless nights should look like.
Now looking at the dynamics that might play out in 2027, the president is likely to even earn more votes than he did in 2023, while I acknowledge that in terms of governance the president has not performed optimally, but politically you have to give it to him because he is mending bridges across all divides. He has tried to unify all the southern states through capital projects and appointments into important government portfolios. He has consistently in the last 2 years reached out to oppressed minorities in the North, especially the Christian demographics like the people of southern Kaduna, where he established a federal university and federal medical center and appointed a native of that area as chief of defense staff. Now this same group of people has suffered marginalization and a spree of killing under Mallam Nasiru El-Rufai, who consistently disregarded them and has never hidden his disdain for them. In 2023, Peter Obi had over 6 million votes, and he won most of the Christian votes in the north, who were strongly against a same-faith ticket of the APC due to fear of further marginalization, but President Tinubu has diffused all the fears as he has consistently shown inclusion in the polity. Minorities across the north see what the president is doing to the southern Kaduna people as doing it unto them, and several of them have already expressed support for the president in 2027, which further makes the chances of Peter Obi being elected slimmer.
In fact, many of them have expressed strong reservations about joining any political coalition with El-Rufai because of his past utterances against them in the past, especially in the build-up to the 2023 elections. Unfortunately, Mallam’s statement on never joining the PDP in his last interview on Arise TV affects the chances of the coalition working together, especially with many members seeing that comment as Mallam’s consistent attitude of looking down on the PDP.
Again, during the 2023 gubernatorial court judgments, many opposition state governors like those in Plateau, Bauchi, Taraba, Kano, etc., who feared being removed by the courts, came up clearly to appreciate the president for not interfering in the court judgment, and many of them have signaled their support for the president in 2027.
Still within the PDP, people like Bala Muhammed are already gearing up to contest for the presidency under the platform of the PDP, and I doubt Bala will want to be a part of any coalition. All these factors further weaken the possibility of any coalition at the end. Again, I have asked what the plans of the SDP are in terms of building stronger grassroots political structures that will enable them to make any significant political statement; where will the resources come from? Surprisingly, in the last 2 weeks, several northern leaders in the north have come up to distance themselves from Imam’s political movement, largely referring to him as acting out of his selfishness, not in the interest of the north.
This came as a surprise because Mallam has consistently relied on such antics as a tool to achieve his political objective, but it seems it won’t work again as the people have woken up. Again, human rights activists like Chidi Odinkalu have launched several attacks on Mallam, reminding him of the several human rights abuses he carried out while in government and the spree of killings that occurred under his leadership in Kaduna state, which has further weakened his political dexterity.
Building up to 2027, Mallam and his newly found bride, the SDP, are yet to strike any political cord that will give the president a sleepless night. Until we see current political office holders decamp to the party, the party or those it is planning to enter a coalition with can rarely make any statement come 2027. I am glad that Mallam has been part of an opposition that defeated a sitting government in 2015; at least he can be honest with himself to know if they can defeat the president in 2027.
Mallam’s joining of the opposition has given them a new steam to wake up and challenge the ruling party; unfortunately, the opposition is more interested in media optics than working hard at the grassroots.
On a closing note, Mallam, at 65, in my opinion, should retire from party politics and do a follow-up with his initiative of the Kashim Ibrahim Fellowship (KIF) program, which, in my opinion, is the greatest legacy of his administration in Kaduna. No Nigerian political leader in recent times has been very deliberate with raising the next generation of leaders like Mallam. I have followed the KIF program for years; unfortunately, the year I finished NYSC was the year he exited office and the program died a natural death. The only similar program currently ongoing of which I am a cohort is the School of Politics, Policy, and Governance (SPPG) run by Dr. Oby, a long-term ally of Mallam. I have met several fellows of the KIF, and I can tell you for free that Mallam did an excellent job on them; most of them are doing very well in both the private and public sectors. People like Mallam and Sanusi Lamido need to put hands together and run more leadership fellowships like the KIF to raise the next generation of public and private leaders. This is the best time for Mallam to retire and pour his life and experience in public service into the next generation.
He has consistently demonstrated his passion to see young people and women succeed in public service, which he demonstrated during his time as governor with instances of a 28-year-old heading a state agency and a 39-year-old as his chief of staff. Mallam El-Rufai has made his mark in our polity, and there is no better time to exit than now. The remaining part of his life can be used in raising the next generation of leaders because the current political tides are strongly in favor of the current president, except Mallam and the neonate coalition have a magic wand or strategy that will change the tides in the coming months.