{"id":71013,"date":"2019-12-20T15:24:53","date_gmt":"2019-12-20T14:24:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/?p=71013"},"modified":"2019-12-20T15:24:53","modified_gmt":"2019-12-20T14:24:53","slug":"obasanjos-visit-to-el-rufai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/articles-opinions\/obasanjos-visit-to-el-rufai\/","title":{"rendered":"Obasanjo\u2019s Visit to El Rufai"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jideofor Adibe<\/strong><\/p>\n

Obasanjo\u2019s \u00a0recent visit to the Governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir El Rufai, has dominated the media the past one week.\u00a0 During the visit, the former President reportedly reflected on the Kaduna state governor\u2019s spat with the Senate when he was Federal Capital Territory (FCT) minister and his refusal to apologise to the red chamber when he fell out with them during his confirmation hearing. Following from these Obasanjo concluded: \u00a0\u00a0\u201cWe need a character like this; a man that you know where you stand with him. Any job given to him will be well done,\u201d the former president added. \u00a0Obasanjo was further quoted as saying that El Rufai, who was also at one time the DG of the Bureau of Public Enterprises during the Obasanjo administration, \u00a0was\u201cone of the best persons to work with. He is a near genius.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI made women matter in my government. He has done the same in Kaduna. He is a very good learner,\u201d Obasanjo, who is often criticized for wanting to take credit for achievements of persons or institutions remotely connected with him, was equally\u00a0 reported \u00a0to have said. \u00a0On his own, El Rufai credited a substantial part of whatever skills he learnt in public service to his tutelage under the Ota farmer. He was quoted as saying: \u201cObasanjo is a mentor; I learnt many public service skills from him while I served as a minister under his government.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are a number of speculations surrounding the visit:<\/p>\n

One, photos of El Rufai and Obasanjo during the visit showed them in ear-to-ear grin. \u00a0But those photos and wide grins masked an ugly feud from the past. \u00a0For instance in his book, The Accidental Public Servant (2013), El Rufai sought to belittle Obasanjo by claiming \u00a0that he went on bended knees to beg Atiku to support his re-election bid\u00a0 in 2003 because\u00a0 Obasanjo knew that without Atiku\u2019s support it would have been over for him politically. He also argued that Obasanjo foisted a sick Yaradua and a largely incompetent Jonathan on the country not out of patriotism but as revenge against Nigerians for denying him a third term. Obasanjo, in his own book,\u00a0 My Watch (2015) disparaged El Rufai as a pathological liar whose only loyalty is to himself, and not to anyone else.\u00a0 While quarrelling and making up may be part of the fluid alliance system that underpins our politics,\u00a0 (which is said to be driven primarily by personal \u00a0interest),\u00a0 it may be tempting to speculate on the interest that both Obasanjo and El Rufai now share in common.<\/p>\n

Two, \u00a0why was it necessary for Obasanjo to visit El Rufai in Kaduna, rather than El Rufai visiting \u00a0Obasanjo at his \u00a0presidential library in Ota or any other of his residences? Given El Rufai\u2019s rumoured presidential \u00a0ambition\u00a0 in 2023, the traditional pattern is that those seeking for political offices pay homage to the political godfathers, not the other way round. \u00a0Many of Obasanjo\u2019s private visits to Governors in the past have been in the context of either commissioning a project in the state or as a sideline of another major event. Following from this, \u00a0Obasanjo visiting El Rufai to support his presidential ambition by innuendo\u00a0 opened\u00a0 a vista for several speculations: Is Obasanjo in a sort of crisis over the extent of his influence such that he now had to go to support a putative candidate\u2019s presidential aspirations\u00a0 when such support has apparently \u00a0not been requested?\u00a0 Is Obasanjo feeling that El Rufai is the anointed candidate of a certain power bloc and he wants to ingratiate himself to that bloc?\u00a0 Could it be that Obasanjo is trying to align himself with what some people regard as \u201cthe progress made so far in Kaduna State\u201d?\u00a0 Given the disastrous outing of the African Democratic Congress which Obasanjo supported during the last election, and having failed to stop the re-election of President Buhari, is Obasanjo simply seeking for continued relevance?<\/p>\n

Three,\u00a0 Obasanjo is often said to be a master of timing. While his voices or moves are rarely anything out of the ordinary, however given his networks and connections, his moves quite often accentuate the trajectory of a particular conversation. El Rufai has been dropping hints of his ambition to run for the presidency. As a Nigerian, he has the right to aspire for any office in the land. This means that the visit will most likely boost his putative ambition. But I also feel that making himself a front runner or major candidate so early in the game carries enormous risks that outweigh the benefits. Yes, it may guarantee him good media space and invitations to public engagements but \u00a0it will equally attract distractions, including from fortune hunters \u00a0– not to talk of making the \u00a0work of opposition researchers \u00a0easier.<\/p>\n

Four, if Obasanjo\u2019s visit to El Rufai has remotely anything to do with the Kaduna Governor\u2019s rumoured political ambition, then Obasanjo, at this stage of the game, will have to find a very creative argument for supporting that ambition – \u00a0at a time when many people from the South, Obasanjo\u2019s home constituency, expect power\u00a0 to be rotated to that zone. \u00a0It should be recalled that the 2015 election was fought and won \u00a0on the shadows of the 2011 zoning controversy. \u00a0At that time, many people from the North felt that given the power rotation agreement between the North and the South, that Jonathan, who became president after the death of Umaru Yaradua, should simply serve out Yaradua\u2019s remaining term and allow the North to complete their turn of eight years. The feeling of being cheated in 2011 was therefore one of the most potent drivers of the 2015 election in the Northern part of the country. During the zoning controversy of 2011, Obasanjo backed Jonathan largely on the premise that\u00a0 it was important for an ethnic minority, especially one from the Niger Delta that lays the country\u2019s golden eggs, \u00a0to be given a sense of belonging. \u00a0So what argument would Obasanjo use to support the retention of power in the North in 2023 \u2013 when power rotation and restructuring are likely to be important drivers of the politics of 2023?<\/p>\n

Five, if Obasanjo\u2019s visit was meant to express his political preference for 2023, it also behoves on the electorate to interrogate the quality of candidates Obasanjo endorsed or supported in the past. From Shehu Shagari in 1979, Yaradua in 2007, Jonathan in 2011 and Buhari, in 2015, Obasanjo turned into a rabid critic of all these candidates he had passionately supported, accusing each of incompetence and sundry malfeasances. This raises an important question: if Obasanjo has a way of turning again his own candidates, can we trust his judgment or are we better off turning against anyone he anoints? This was the strategy of Alan Greenspan, \u00a0 who famously attributed his successes as Chair of the Federal Reserve of the United States from 1987 to 2006 to the fact that he always did the opposite of the advice received from the two Bretton Woods institutions \u2013 the World Bank and the IMF. Perhaps it may be time for the country to take such an approach towards Obasanjo\u2019s anointed candidates for any political office.<\/p>\n

___________
\nEmail: pcjadibe@yahoo.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Twitter: @JideoforAdibe<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

By Jideofor Adibe Obasanjo\u2019s \u00a0recent visit to the Governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir El Rufai, has dominated the media the past one week.\u00a0 During the visit, the former President…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\nObasanjo\u2019s Visit to El Rufai - Pointblank News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/articles-opinions\/obasanjos-visit-to-el-rufai\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Obasanjo\u2019s Visit to El Rufai - 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