FeaturesKaduna: Domain Of A Demystified Demagogue

Kaduna: Domain Of A Demystified Demagogue

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BEVERLY HILLS, May 08, (THEWILL) – Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State is having a running battle. The battle is with virtually every group and every ‘sector’ of the territory he superintends. In the midst of killings that have turned Kaduna into a land flowing ceaselessly with blood, the hard-stance, ‘no-nonsense’ el-Rufai appears overwhelmed. Kaduna is under the grip of extreme insecurity, which has not only devastated the state but also worsened under his watch.

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Although, what is happening in Kaduna may not be far from the experiences of many states, especially in the North-East and North-West, el-Rufai’s Kaduna attracts more attention because of his kind of person: A man of extreme wisdom beyond the reach of others. Before he became governor, he criticized former President Goodluck Jonathan in the most arrogant manner and in the worst insulting language that he could muster.

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For him, the Peoples Democratic Party, the springboard whose forebears elevated him into real limelight, was the den of thieves, vandals and terrorists. He spoke like one with the magic wand to subdue Boko Haram terrorists, tackle banditry, destroy rampaging gunmen and put an end to kidnapping.

But his election as governor seems to have demystified him greatly. He is disrobed of the emperor’s garment of pride and know-it-all. In the midst of the turmoil underpinning the volatile state, el-Rufai is ‘merciless’ on government workers. According to the Nigeria Labour Congress president, Ayuba Wabba, el-Rufai has sacked 30,000 workers since he became governor of the state in 2015. While this might be considered a step in the ‘right’ direction, considering the dwindling revenue of the states, the security and economic consequences are dire.

The sacked workers are the parents and guardians of students of the state-owned institutions of learning where tuition fees have been hiked astronomically. Recently, the governor approved the increase in fees paid at the state’s institutions of higher learning. The Commissioner for Education, Shehu Makarfi, said the Kaduna State University was directed to increase the fees from N24, 000 to a minimum consolidated sum of N150,000. The government pegged the fees for National Diploma and Higher National Diploma at a minimum of N75,000 and N100,000, respectively, while the fee for the National Certificate in Education programmes at the College of Education, Gidan Waya was raised to N75,000.

Gov. el-Rufai said the increment in school fees was aimed at repositioning tertiary institutions in the state to deliver quality skills and training to tackle 21st-century challenges. But how parents, who are grappling with high level insecurity, unemployment and a declining standard of living, are going to achieve this is better imagined than explained. Kaduna’s record of out-of-school children, no doubt, is going to worsen. The hard stance on the ‘Almajari’ may not achieve much because of the historic religious sentiments and economic link to it.

El-rufai’s disclosure that the state had steadily increased its internally generated revenue from N13bn in 2015 to N44bn in 2019 without hiking tax rates is a quantum leap in public finance management. How the state was able to record such a feat, amid high level of insecurity where lives are lost almost on a daily basis, needs some interrogation. The farmers, who have deserted their farms for fear of being attacked by armed herdsmen, cannot contribute to the state’s Gross Domestic Product. They cannot be in the tax net either, because they have been dislodged from the platform of human existence.

Gov. el-Rufai had ordered that all public servants on level 14 and above and those from 50 years and above in the 23 local councils be relieved of their positions. The Nigeria Labour Congress has asked him to immediately rescind his decision to sack civil servants in 23 local councils, as criticisms by stakeholders trailed the order.

NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, in a protest letter addressed to the governor recently, said the decision to lay off workers at this period of great national challenges was insensitive and morally wrong, adding that labour would use available machinery at its disposal to ensure that the workers were recalled. This is another battle front for the ‘strongman’ of Kaduna.

Kaduna, like most states, is in trouble. It brews with insecurity that leads to loss of lives virtually on a daily basis. While the state is not a stranger to communal and other crises, the level of killings in Kaduna since the coming of the APC-led government under Nasir el-Rufai as governor, appears unmatched.

The killing spree that has become the second nature in Kaduna seems to have overwhelmed Governor el-Rufai who is known for his hard stance as a “no-nonsense” reformer. He wears the toga of one who would not share neighbourhood with bad governance, corruption or any behaviour on the wrong side of life.

In 2008, el-Rufai went into self-imposed exile and became a vocal critic of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua administration. On return from exile after 23 months away from the shores of Nigeria, he urged Goodluck Jonathan to contest the 2011 presidential election. He also advised Nigerians not to vote for those who had led the country before. He later became the most acidic critic of the Goodluck Jonathan administration.

Earlier, in his public life, el-Rufai had declared that Muhammadu Buhari was perpetually unelectable. When confronted with this position after Buhari had become president, he said he did not have sufficient knowledge of the man at the time he made the declaration.

He is known for his “all-knowing” stance in any aspect of the nation’s affairs. “He makes arrogance and pig-headedness look like something to delight. His body language in public matters is that of one who cannot be faulted in any way because he would create the image of a man who has returned from the orbit of a superior world” said a state government official, on the condition of anonymity.

But Kaduna is in a dire situation. Yes, other states are not faring better. But el-Rufai’s body language is that of a demagogue who cannot be faulted. Under his watch, Kaduna has become a killing field without control. While the North-East states are under the attack of terrorists of the Boko Haram and ISWA stock, Kaduna is undergoing bloodletting created by internal bandits, gunmen and herdsmen who have turned the state into a battle ground.

In his column in The Guardian newspaper of October 7, 2020 entitled, “Kaduna: Diminishing status, looming atrophy”, Alade Rotimi-John wrote:

“It is disheartening to observe that the once flourishing and bustling environment of Kaduna is today a poor shadow of itself, no thanks to the internecine crises of its outlying parts and to a previously insidious or unobtrusive but now brazen official siding with a particular party to the conflicts.

“Home to the mythical Kaduna Mafia and herself the symbolic headquarters of the romantic idea of Northern Nigeria as “a land flowing with milk and honey,” Kaduna has fallen into pre-mature antiquity.

“So long as she has continued to ignore some very uncomfortable truths about herself e.g. plurality, diversity, respective distinctive identity, hegemony and the absence of homogeneity, so long will she be haunted by the ogre of the requirement to retrace her steps back to her “glorious” antiquity.

“The unresolved Southern Kaduna question has further compounded the woes of Kaduna. The abject lack of official will to confront the bugbear of a settler/indigene matrix is a factor that is festering the unequal inter-communal relations paradigm regarding the apparently un-ending internecine imbroglio.”

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About the Author

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Sam Diala is a Bloomberg Certified Financial Journalist with over a decade of experience in reporting Business and Economy. He is Business Editor at THEWILL Newspaper, and believes that work, not wishes, creates wealth.

Sam Diala, THEWILLhttps://thewillnews.com
Sam Diala is a Bloomberg Certified Financial Journalist with over a decade of experience in reporting Business and Economy. He is Business Editor at THEWILL Newspaper, and believes that work, not wishes, creates wealth.

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