El-Rufai - Perhaps The Most Dangerous Fulani Politician Yet

 The race for 2023 is on and one of the top contenders is El-Rufai either as a VP to Tinubu which he has publicly discountenanced or as the presidential candidate himself. 

El-Rufai is of Fulani ancestry and a rare one at that as unlike many of his Fulani brethren he is a first-class graduate of ABU with advanced degrees from Universities in London and from Georgetown and Harvard Universities in the United States respectively. 

However, all his education has not reduced his observed bigotry and tribalism or his penchant for viewing actions from parochial lenses. 

During the height of Boko harem insurgency and during the many army deployments during the reign of Jonathan, he was quoted as saying that the Johnathanian army was being deployed to kill Muslims. 

Another shocking revelation was his disclosure that he paid his relatives Fulani herdsmen aka the Fulani militia tribute to stop killing and he was able to justify his actions in a series of interviews. 

Beforehand he was quoted as saying anyone that kills a Fulani man has taken a debt that must or will be repaid. 

During his first term as Governor he saw that a religious censorship bill in the state granting him power to control religious houses was passed, and with the explosive growth of churches and mosques all over Nigeria it was a move shrouded in nobility, but in practice he has allegedly been accused of using it to target or control Christian houses of worship. 

His tenure as Kaduna State Governor has seen the rise of religious intolerance and massacres allegedly by Fulani herdsmen but he has always craftily been shown or seems to arrive at the scenes of bloodshed while twisting the body counts and apportioning blame to protect or advance the interest and or defend or lessen the culpability of his Fulani people. 

Presently in a bid to wow Nigerians particularly the Igbo who jump on negative news from or about the north he has launched a monologue narrative about the decadence and poor infrastructural development of the north while camouflaging his intentions or those of his ilk to twist the facts. 

As usual Nigerians, particularly Igbo’s, have soaked up the delusion while now perceiving Rufai as a straight shooting smart northern politician. 

However, the evidence does not exactly support his narrative. While it is true there is poverty in the north with a huge number of destitute almajari panhandling across the landscape, the north is prospering infra-structurally with a host of underhanded incentives from the Buhari led administration. 

While it is true that the Boko harem north east is under terrorist assault no one can discount they massive capital that has flooded into the North east capital of Maiduguri with a new airport, a new army division, new schools built with foreign aid, the list is endless. 

Kaduna also like many parts of the north are rail linked to Abuja, with a dry inland port soon to resume operations if it hasn’t already, Kaduna also has an international airport of superior standing and which served as the backup when the Abuja airport was closed. 

Northern states also receive most disbursements and allocations from the federal government and many towns in the north including Kano are wearing new looks despite the endemic poverty. Jigawa State has a brand-new cargo airport, the list goes on. 

Northern based smugglers and illegal gold miners have been virtually left unchecked earning vast sums of money without transmitting taxes or royalties to Abuja. The north and the NE are also beneficiaries of world bank loans obtained by the Buhari administration to rebuild the north and new Air Force bases and barracks have been built in the north infusing cash into the region negated only by rampant over population and lax law enforcement leading to banditry and kidnapping not exactly peculiar to the north. 

Besides this camouflage of the facts, El-Rufai has, despite the heightened religious tensions in the state, picked a female Muslim woman as his running mate in the recent elections breaking with the convention of running with a Christian running mate. his boldness was aided by his knowledge of active marginalization of Christian communities in Kaduna to invalidate their voting power, he won re-election establishing a new imperious precedent in the volatile religious torn state. 

He also sprinkled that calculated action by appointing other tribes’ people into non-strategic positions in the state to appear non tribalistic. 

In public, he is the humblest of people, publicly bowing before superior leaders and afterwards or before stabbing them in the back with some vicious remarks, politicians no less than Atiku, and Buhari have felt the sting of his tongue even as he in the past or present kneels before them. 

In the early days of the Buhari presidency he was reported to be at loggerheads with Osinbajo or refused to accept his authority because he, Osinbajo, was viewed as a puppet of the caliphate, or so the story goes. 

Like all Fulani with a modicum of education, he has been elevated on an expedited track and groomed for progressively higher offices just like Buhari through a series of appointments and protective good press, free of any EFCC witch hunt from any collaborative misdeeds. 

Now his eyes are set on the presidency and it is not an impossibility for him to secure as Nigeria has no codified law on rotation of presidential power and Tinubu May be sabotaged at the last minute along with eastern candidates to make way for El-Rufai to fill the void as the candidate.

Rufai will be difficult if not impossible to beat if he secures a party ticket as he has widespread appeal in the Arewa North west and he has been sold as technocrat despite a history of supervising and or assisting in the sale of government corporations to party men for kobo pittances. 

But Unlike Buhari who operates under cover in securing advantages for his Fulani people, El Rufai has the raw intellect, oratory skills and dare devil boldness to push through a rash of policies that would make the present attempts at RUGA’s and excuses for further fulanization, if you believe in those policy thrusts, seem like child’s play and therein lies the potential danger of an El-Rufai presidency.

By Terhemba Osuji