Mallam Nasir El-Rufai and the self destructive nature of APC politics {COMMENT}
By UCHE DIALA
If I May …
It smacks of deliberate mischief and wickednesses for anyone, talk less an APC member or PBAT supporter to attempt to paint Mallam Nasir El-Rufai as anything but the victim in the shenanigans that have played out before our eyes since after the February 2023 Presidential election.
Mallam El-rufai was treated in the most callous, ungrateful and disgraceful of manner that any APC member or PBAT supporter with even a tinge of conscience ought to just keep quiet, if one does not know the right thing to say.
Especially for those who drummed betrayal to the highest pitch before, during and after the APC Primaries. There are probably fewer greater betrayals in recent Nigerian political history than what was done to Mallam Nasir El-Rufai. The least we should do, if we can’t be honourable, is to keep quiet.
The public invitation of El-rufai to come and serve by the President and the equally public humiliation of El-rufai in the way and manner his (unsolicited) ministerial nomination was handled and ended is one that should sobre up any sincere PBAT supporter and weigh heavily on the conscience of every bona-fide and conscientious APC member.
The President (not presidency) has not as much as explained what transpired with El-rufai’s nomination as minister and subsequent public humiliation.
Some might think it is not neccesary, but it is something that the President neccesarily ought to do and publicly too, except there’s something to hide or the ifPresident has counted him out as a political ally and associate. Then we should also be made to know.
Whether we like it or not, the El-rufai case stands out as an inconvenient but inevitable key litmus test for the integrity, honour, and loyalty of the President as well as his reward of loyalty. No other example and no one else’s case come closer.
It is mischievous or maybe naive for anyone to suggest that the President bears no responsibility for the El-rufai situation simply because it is the responsibility of the Senate to screen and clear ministerial nominees. Such a suggestion is an insult to the collective intelligence of intelligent Nigerians.
Indeed, it is a disrespect to the acclaimed political sagacity of President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to even suggest that he could not get the confirmation of one of, if not, his most consequential ministerial nominees through a majority APC Senate led by a deliberately picked Senate President in the person Distinguished Senator Godswill Akpabio.
Even President Donald Trump is getting all manners of characters as secretaries (ministers) through the Republican led US Senate
Before anyone would spin anything about security or intelligence report, because competence, experience and loyalty obviously didn’t play any part, let me remind us that Mallam El-rufai has been moving around freely without even a single invitation by the Civil Defence, Police, DSS or EFCC or ICPC.
I can understand that my party the APC has perfected the art of killing its prophets, and humiliating its soldiers while embracing, celebrating, elevating and rewarding strangers and enemy combatants, but the case of Mallam Nasir El-Rufai ought be make every honourable and serious minded APC member pause and think.
We must do so, or we risk our party self destructing. At least let us pretend like we are intelligent, have a conscience and some sense of shame, honour and decorum.
Those, especially those driven by ethnic motivation, who are trying to emotionally blackmail and portray El-rufai as the villain, need to stop.
Such people are political novices who neither mean well for the party nor for the President. Mallam El-rufai is not the villain here. On the contrary, he is, by every ramification and consideration, the victim.
May God grant us sincerity and wisdom.
©️ Uche Diala
