The Mallam Nasir el-Rufai as President speculation has refused to die. He recently denied that he had the ambition, just as he did in an August 2020 BBC Hausa Service interview. Then, El-Rufai called it baseless. If El-Rufai had left it at that, perhaps, this piece would never have been written. He said in that interview: “It has been said that I have loved the presidency since I was a minister in the FCT. This is nonsense. I do not want the Nigerian presidency. God gives power, whether you like it or not, if He wants it, He will give it to you, but I have never sought the presidency of Nigeria, no one can say I have ever sought it.”
Is inference allowed in elevated discourse? If so, it is truly easy to infer that the El-Rufai-for-Presidency scheme was on, and I would expect El-Rufai to have known about it.
To advance my evidence, I will call Mallam Nasir el-Rufai himself as my only witness. I ask El-Rufai to please bring his book, The Accidental Public Servant to this court of public discourse.
I know that many people will argue that even if the fact that Ribadu wanted El-Rufai to succeed Obasanjo was proved beyond reasonable doubt, it still does not prove the speculation that El-Rufai himself was part of the scheme.
So, did El-Rufai know about the “El-Rufai-as-president-by-all-means-possible” project? Well, I will still have to call in my witness to the stand again, and so El-Rufai should open to page 359 of that same book, The Accidental Public Servant. He will find this: “It took some time before Nuhu figured out Obasanjo’s games and what was really happening. Nuhu’s instinctive reaction was that of a typical policeman – dust of EFCC’s files and comb for petitions against Umaru. Nuhu did not realize it at that time, but he was the one in trouble, not Obasanjo or Umaru. He dusted off all the files against Umaru and launched investigations. He was clearly trying to take Yar’Adua out of the race and narrow all options to zero except for El-Rufai.” (You now know why Yar’Adua removed Ribadu from his EFCC Chairman’s post so as to stop unjust arrests, arrest of political opponents, and the hypocrisy of claiming to be fighting corruption when the claimant was neck deep in the worst corruption – maligning others just because of politics. But liars told you it was because Ribadu arraigned Ibori in court. And many people still believe that nonsense.
Ah Ha! So, El-Rufai knew what scheme Ribadu was actually neck-deep into for El-Rufai’s sake. Yet, anyone could still argue that awareness alone would not mean that El-Rufai was in support of the plan, let alone the ploy and subterfuge involved which in some luckier countries could have qualified as a thorough going abuse of office – to help land the official’s bosom friend into the President’s office.
Here, I would tender a document that would make Nicolo Machiavelli’s The Prince sound like a kindergarten book; Machiavelli was not as unscrupulous and outright immoral as the authors of that document that argued that a member of Obasanjo’s Economic Team should succeed Obasanjo in office for two reasons. One; that only such a person would continue with the Obasanjo administration’s policies. Two; that the members of the Economic Team would be hunted down and punished if power eluded them.
The document recommended for an unbridled dictatorship; that security and anti-graft agencies should be used to ensure only Economic Team members succeeded Obasanjo and that only vetted and approved members of the public should be allowed into political offices from LGA Councilor to states Houses of Assembly, to Governorships and the National Assembly.
So, Ribadu wasn’t just going rogue when he insisted on stopping Yar’ Adua from becoming President. Before then, and perhaps as an example to the Military, the Police and other security agencies, Ribadu, addressing the Senate, pronounced 33 state governors tainted or as Ribadu said, had cases to answer. They had not been tried in any court … but Nigerians understood the speech and the nuances, termed them corrupt and clapped. Even lawyers and Civil Rights Organisations applauded. It was all part of that ploy to make someone President. And I know Ribadu didn’t write that paper. A plan was on, an audacious plan. Did El-Rufai know of that plan? Oh, he mentioned a certain document in his book but left the contents all alone. So has Nasir el-Rufai ever nursed a presidential ambition? Could the ambition still be there? Let’s just say the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.
Credit:Independent
