{"id":93304,"date":"2025-03-16T14:40:21","date_gmt":"2025-03-16T14:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=93304"},"modified":"2025-03-16T14:40:48","modified_gmt":"2025-03-16T14:40:48","slug":"nasir-el-rufai-the-bloodlust-of-a-presidential-wannabe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=93304","title":{"rendered":"Nasir el Rufai: The bloodlust of a presidential wannabe"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu<\/b><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

In the week in which former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai\u00a0abandoned the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC)\u00a0to chart a different political trajectory with the Social Democratic Party (SDP), his son, Bashir, characteristically\u00a0made it known\u00a0that \u201cSouthern Kaduna residents will keep seeing\u00a0<\/span>sheghe<\/i><\/span>\u00a0if they continue to attack indigenous Fulani herdsmen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Three things about this, among many, were chilling. One is the absence of any interest in addressing the underlying problem of coexistence between communities. The second is the enthusiastic investment in violence. The third is the indiscriminate nature of the promised violence. This was not the first time that an outburst of candour from the el-rufai clan was laced with unconcealed thirst for human blood.<\/span><\/p>\n

In January 2019, as the country prepared to go to the polls in a presidential election the following month, the administration of Nasir el-Rufai\u2019s political benefactor, Muhammadu Buhari, guillotined then Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen. The manner and timing of the decision drew very sharp international rebuke. In response, Governor el-Rufai went on national television to warn that any foreign observers perceived as meddling in the elections \u201cwill go back in body bags.\u201d As influential continental news magazine,\u00a0<\/span>Africa Report<\/i><\/span>, delicately put it, these were the words of a man who had \u201cprevious on the \u2018anti-meddling\u2019 approach to diplomacy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This \u201c\u2018anti-meddling\u2019 approach to diplomacy\u201d appears to be a family investment. Abubakar Idris was a committed supporter of former Kano State Governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, who lived in Barnawa, in Kaduna South Local Government Area of Kaduna State. From there Mr. Idris, who was better known as \u201cDadiyata\u201d, engaged in vigorous criticism of the ruling APC, one of whose founders happened to be Nasir el-Rufai.<\/span><\/p>\n

On or about 2 August 2019, Dadiyata vanished. He has not been seen since then. A digital visibility campaign to help locate his whereabouts continues under the hashtag #WhereIsDadiyata. Four and a half months after Dadiyata disappeared, on 23 December 2019, Bashir el-Rufai\u00a0ominously tweeted: \u201cThe same clowns who encouraged him when he was creating false stories and capitalizing on lies that could endanger lives solely for political ends are the same individuals trending hashtags asking #WhereisDadiyata. Dangerous lies in the public space have consequences.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Less than three months later, on 11 March 2020, Bashir\u2019s brother, Bello, currently a member of the House of Representatives,\u00a0went one better\u00a0with an even more chilling gloat in poor verse: \u201cThe things that we\u2019ve done to protect the name are unsettling. But no regrets though, the name\u2019ll echo. Years later, none greater. Death to a coward and a traitor, that\u2019s just in my nature!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

At his inauguration as Kaduna State governor in May 2015, Nasir el-Rufai\u00a0identified insecurity\u00a0as \u201can obstacle to progress\u201d and promised to \u201cwork with law enforcement officials to drastically reduce violent crime\u201d and\u00a0 \u201cinsure safety of life and limb.\u201d By the time he left office eight years later, he had achieved the exact opposite.<\/span><\/p>\n

Forgetting this promise, Nasir el-Rufai as Governor brooked no criticism or opposition. No cruelty was considered beyond the pale for them. For daring to disagree with him, el-Rufai demolished the homes of the Zonal vice-chair of his party, Inuwa Abdulkadir; and of his Senator for Kaduna North, Suleiman Hunkuyi.<\/span><\/p>\n

He was only just beginning. His regime compiled a\u00a0jaw-dropping list\u00a0of body bags. Some, like Dadiyata, disappeared, never to be seen again. Others, like Maiwada Raphael Galadima,\u00a0Agwam Adara III, paramount ruler in Kajuru, turned up dead or decapitated. The Agwam Adara was ostensibly returning home from a consultation with the state government on a crisis in his domain when he was abducted. Abducted with him, his wife was released after\u00a0the abductors murdered\u00a0her husband. The Governor was missing from his funeral. After his burial, Nasir el-Rufai swiftly abolished his kingdom and purported to divide it up into emirates.<\/span><\/p>\n

Under Nasir el-Rufai and by appointment of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Kaduna State\u00a0attained\u00a0\u201cnotoriety as the deadliest state for Journalists in Nigeria to operate.\u201d They were not the only endangered species. The strategic research group, SBM Intelligence,\u00a0concluded also that\u00a0\u201cKaduna was the most dangerous state for priests, who were often kidnapped during services.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

His signal accomplishment was to displace Boko Haram from the top of the league of atrocities. This was no easy feat. In May 2014, the United Nations Security Council\u00a0listed\u00a0the\u00a0<\/span>Jama\u2019atu Ahlis-Sunna Lidda\u2019Awati Wal-Jihad<\/i><\/span>, (the Islamist insurgency better known as Boko Haram)\u00a0as a terrorist organization. Three years earlier, the\u00a0Gaji Galtimari Presidential Committee on the Security Challenges in the North-East Zone of Nigeria\u00a0had reported that the group \u201cstarted as an innocuous non-violent group\u201d around 2003.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since then, Borno State, the epicentre of Boko Haram\u2019s atrocities habitually topped the national league table of mass-casualty killings in Nigeria. The monitoring coalition,\u00a0Nigeria Mourns, reported a peak of 6,138 atrocity casualties in Borno State in 2015. Over the next five years, casualty count in Borno State appeared to drop off quite significantly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Over 760 kilometres away from the Borno State capital, Maiduguri, in Kaduna, the historical capital of northern Nigeria, it almost appeared as if the State government led by Nasir el-Rufai was envious of Borno\u2019s position. In 2015, when Borno State hit the peak in atrocity killings, Nigeria Mourns recorded 411 casualties in Kaduna State. By 2020, this had risen to 628. In Borno State in the same year, the count was 1,176 killed.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2021, el-Rufai\u2019s Kaduna State overhauled Borno to take over the top position in the national body-count of mass-casualty atrocities. That year, Nigeria Mourns recorded 587 killed and 119 abducted in Borno State. In Kaduna State, it counted 1,114 killed and 1,225 abducted. In 2022, at least 1,346 were abducted in Kaduna State. The comparable figure for Borno State was 77.<\/span><\/p>\n

To be sure, Kaduna State had a well-advertised history of chronic violence dating back to the 1980s and accounting for tens of thousands killed over the period. Under Nasir el-Rufai however, virulent executive bigotry drove the state beyond the edge through methodical segregation. Leena Hoffman\u00a0captured the depth\u00a0of Kaduna\u2019s crisis of sectarian segregation under him: \u201cthe river that runs through the city of Kaduna, the state capital, highlights the starkness of the divide: the northern half is unofficially called Mecca; the south, Jerusalem.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The most intense site of chronic mass-casualty atrocities in Kaduna State was Southern Kaduna, which is characterised by linguistic and ethnic diversity coexisting with a high concentration of the State\u2019s non-Muslim populations. For many people, there was only one explanation for the exponential spike in mass-casualty atrocities in Kaduna State \u2013 the State governor, Nasir el-Rufai. His administration was widely \u201caccused of a conspiracy of silence\u201d in support of the murderous campaign of extermination in Southern Kaduna.<\/span><\/p>\n

In one of his earliest acts as governor, Nasir el-Rufai\u00a0sought exculpation\u00a0for bandit pastoralists from the chronic massacre in Southern Kaduna, claiming that he had already \u201cspent government money to pay Fulani herdsmen to stop violence in southern Kaduna.\u201d About the armed \u201cbandits\u201d who were to emerge as the fall guys for the violence, Governor el-Rufai\u00a0later described them\u00a0as \u201cjust collections of independent criminals. It is a business for them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When Mr. el-Rufai stepped down from office in 2023, mass-casualty atrocities in Kaduna crashed spectacularly. Nigeria Mourns recorded 413 atrocity killings in Kaduna and 393 abductions. The only thing that appears to have occurred to bring about this transformation was a change in the occupant of the office of Governor.<\/span><\/p>\n

In January 2017, an audio\u00a0emerged\u00a0in which he gloated over the untimely death in 2010 of former President, Umaru Musa Yar\u2019Adua, his high school contemporary at Barewa College, Zaria on whom he had also visited unrestrained bile in his\u00a0memoirs. Columnist, Farooq Kperogi,\u00a0observes\u00a0that Nasir-El-Rufai \u201cembodies one of the most morbidly toxic strains of political intolerance in Nigeria. He exteriorises his discomfort with opposition by literally wishing death upon his opponents or claiming credit for their death.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Bloodlust such as this can never be slaked. Out of power today, el-Rufai seeks to re-brand himself as an ecumenical politician invested in pluralism. Those who make the mistake of jumping into political bed with him will have themselves to blame.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25cf <\/i><\/span>Odinkalu, a university teacher and lawyer, can be reached at <\/span>chidi.odinkalu@tufts.edu<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu In the week in which former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai\u00a0abandoned the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC)\u00a0to chart a different political trajectory with the Social Democratic Party (SDP), his son, Bashir, characteristically\u00a0made it known\u00a0that \u201cSouthern Kaduna residents will keep seeing\u00a0sheghe\u00a0if they continue to attack indigenous Fulani herdsmen.\u201d Three things about this, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":92926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5782],"tags":[7037,25,7038],"class_list":["post-93304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-opinion","tag-bloodlust","tag-el-rufai","tag-wannabe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/92926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}