Eclipse Of Nasir el-Rufai

 By Andy Ezeani

“Without death penalty, 90% of Nigerians will continue to see corruption as God’s blessings. The anti-corruption campaign will be a huge waste of time. We are already heavily populated, why can’t we sacrifice the top criminals to save the country’s future?” – Nasir el-Rufai 

Now, the House of Assembly in Kaduna State, the state Nasir el-Rufai governed until May 29, 2023, says the former governor is corrupt. 

*El-Rufai 

Any report of the political demise of el-Rufai may not just be exaggerated, to call up that legendary construction by Mark Twain, it may also be premature.

Even at that, there is no doubt that the Kaduna State House of Assembly has dealt the former governor a heavy blow. Perception may, after all, not be everything, but it counts for a lot. El-Rufai’s present travails in Kaduna are more than a matter of perception. It is a weighty formal indictment by the state legislature, laced with facts and figures.

The Kaduna State House of Assembly cannot easily be accused of being hasty in arriving at its indictment of el-Rufai. The report of the ad hoc committee of the assembly, which found the former governor culpable of acts of corruption, is a culmination of investigations of the finances and economic activities of the government of the state between 2015 and 2023 when el-Rufai held sway as governor. At the plenary of the assembly on Wednesday, June 5, when the ad hoc committee presented its findings and report, chairman of the committee, Henry Zecharia, spoke with a heavy heart. 

The committee said it established that el-Rufai and his government siphoned N423 billion belonging to the state. According to Hon. Zecharia, his committee found out that huge loans obtained by the el-Rufai government on behalf of the state were not used for the very purposes they were obtained. In the same vein, contracts awarded by his administration did not follow due process. For instance, of N510 billion contracts awarded by the el-Rufai’s government, only N128 was paid for, the report said. That leaves a whopping N382 billion outstanding as liabilities for the succeeding governments. 

The import of the financial malfeasance, which the Kaduna State Assembly levelled against el-Rufai and his associates in government is that Kaduna State has been saddled with a heavy debt burden, resulting in difficulties in meeting basic responsibilities, such as payment of salaries of workers of the state. Speaker of the Kaduna State House of Assembly, Hon. Yusuf Liman, in receiving the report of the ad hoc committee, conferred ownership of the document by the state legislature. The House subsequently called on anti-corruption agencies to step in to further investigate the charges and then do the needful.

The decision by the state legislature to examine the books of the government of Kaduna State in the eight years preceding the present administration must have been triggered by the persistent groaning of the incumbent governor, Senator Uba Sani. The governor has complained bitterly, almost since he assumed office, that the finances of the state, as he met them, were in a mess. The situation rendered him almost incapable of meeting the obligations of the state. Governor Sani stopped short of declaring the Kaduna State he inherited from el-Rufai bankrupt. 

Curiously, the only noted response that seemed to have come from the side of the former governor to his successor’s complaint was a truculent riposte from his son to the effect that Governor Sani and his lieutenants lack creativity and are often in Abuja, instead of sitting back at their post in Kaduna. That, of course, cannot be a cogent defence to weighty charges of financial indiscretion against an administration. Mike Ozekhome, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, last weekend, called for fair hearing for the former Kaduna State governor in the charges against him. Fair deal. Nasir el-Rufai is not known for being mute, or being restrained. He has the floor. This indeed, is the time for him to talk.

One man who will not be impressed with any explanation by el-Rufai is Senator Shehu Sani, the human rights activist and former senator representing Kaduna Central district at the Senate. For him, while the report of the State House of Assembly committee vindicates him, the House did not really find anything he did not know, or has not been saying over the years.

Senator Sani has, indeed, been a trenchant critic of el-Rufai through his years as governor. Reacting to the indictment of the former governor by the Kaduna State legislature, the former senator was no less caustic. In his words, “They wrecked the economy of the state, enriched themselves and their families, destroyed the lives and livelihood of millions of people and used religion to divide our state.”

El-Rufai’s temperament and proclivities may not be anybody’s reference in moderation and accommodation, especially in a plural society, but he has strived assiduously to present himself to the public as a man dedicated to efficiency, with the courage and character to do the right thing. His indictment for indiscretion in the management of the finances and economy of Kaduna State is, therefore, a big disappointment. And to imagine that the Kaduna State House of Assembly is still under the control of the same All Progressives Congress (APC) with him. That is to say, the work of the House is not a hatchet job by some political enemies, as politicians are quick to allege.

Of course, Senator Shehu Sani holds stoutly that el-Rufai is not what he presents himself to be before the public. In the words of the Senator, el-Rufai deployed “aesthetics and industrial-scale propaganda” to hoodwink many, while he wrecked Kaduna. That may be heavy.

The indictment of Nasir el-Rufai by the Kaduna State House of Assembly, following on the heels of the still-running drama featuring Yahaya Bello, the immediate past governor of Kogi State, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), beams further light on the station of state governors, which has become something of a bubble hemisphere.

Many of their excellencies, as the governors are reverentially referred to over here, seem to have a big problem, coming to terms with the reality that sooner or later, their tenure will end and their immunity from prosecution will elapse. The body of governors need to undertake a retreat, for a collective introspection on their attitude and approach to governance, with particular attention to financial management. The prospect of an excellency of today transforming into a villain tomorrow, on exist from office, has become a major defect in Nigeria’s democracy. Moving from the State house into some hiding bunker, or into the embrace of the EFCC, cannot be what the designers of Nigeria’s democracy envisaged.

The imperial bearing of many state governors obviously impedes their appreciating the marked distinction between their personal pocket and the purse of the state. Continued failure, or refusal, to always recognize this distinction, almost always leads to such grief as El Rufai is presently contending with, and Yahaya Bello is futilely running from. Sadly, there is every reason to believe that many others among the corps of serving governors of the moment, will still come to the same pass.

*Ezeani is a commentator on public issues