Men like Mallam Nasir el Rufai fit the experiment that added the phrase “Pavlov’s dog” to the lexicon. Ivan Pavlov, a Russian neurologist, rang a bell and fed a dog, and each time the dog heard a bell ring, it salivated. Bell ring was a synonym for drools of joy.
He demonstrated that the human species can respond in a certain way to external stimuli. The former Kaduna State governor was not born when Pavlov and his dog invented an idea. But if you follow the man who almost became power minister, you will know that he has a Pavlov dog’s feature. He does not salivate for food. He drools for trouble. Trouble is his bone and raw meat in the cage.
We saw it when he was in BPE and what he called an accidental public servant. When as FCT helmsman it was revealed he gave lands and deals to his family and he reveled in the storm. As a man who turned his back on his first mentor, who was not really worthy of that name. Atiku Abubakar, that is. As traitor to Obj. As turncoat to Yar’Adua, the former president.
A man with a quicksand temperament like Mallam, as he is often called, may veer by accident of self-interest into the right cause as he did in the last polling season when he tackled former president Muhammadu Buhari and his cabal up to the Supreme Court for asphyxiating the naira. He is amoral, egotist, and inevitably a hunter. He has no qualms since he loves to quarrel and he is never calm. He loves the art of the manoeuvre, to hop from person to issues and back, the turbulence of a restless soul.
But such persons develop the delusion of invincibility, like the words of Shakespeare’s character who boasts, “I am Caesar, fear, fear Caesar.” The former Kaduna State helmsman sees himself as an epic invention of fate, like Nietzsche’s superman. They think laws are for all, but they are a special breed exempted by a discriminating providence. But at last, they have to answer some questions. While he may be bellyaching over why no one made him minister, he may have to address the rumblings in Kaduna State when he was its first citizen.
In an over 5000-word report for the Sunday version of The Nation, I addressed a pile of concerns about how he spent the state’s money. Why did he, barely a month to the end of his tenure, take a loan of N20 billion. Terrible as it was, he tied it to the state’s internally generated revenue. To be fair, he raised the IGR from about N11 billion to about N50 billion a month. So, what did he do with that money, lawmakers and his party members and elders as well as labour unions want to know. He borrowed the N20 billion to pay contractors who performed work under the $350 million loan.
Now, the man has a certain trait we in the Warri waterside of the Niger Delta call gra gra. Or “bol’ face.” The Yoruba call it ogboju. In his novel Nostromo, Joseph Conrad calls it “an adventurer’s easy morality, the bravado of guilt.” That was why he announced in his farewell speech that he was bequeathing a debt of $587 million dollars and N85 billion. He made it appear he was transparent. But he was only being crafty. He did not say he drew down all the $350 million loan in 2021, whereas the job has not been completed. Not being completed, the contractors confronted the new man in the saddle, Governor Uba Sani with a certificate of completion that el Rufai gave them, and they are demanding N115 billion. That money was part of the $350 million. According to a top lawmaker, the figure is conservative and the money is about N120 billion.
The project was for urban renewal. A source told me that the work yet undone amounts to another N160 billion. So, what did Mallam do with the money?
Governor Sani held a townhall meeting to lay bare his frustrations. The el Rufai camp says it is all politics. Indeed, it is. They wouldn’t respond to my queries, though. But what sort of politics is it? Is it that the former governor is trying to beguile his people by claiming he is the good guy while the man in the saddle who inherits this is the bad guy?
There is a lot he has to account for. He has a friend called Jimi Lawal. Jimi Who? A former banker with a familiar pedigree… The same man he wanted to partner when fate tantalized him with power minister. But this man has been accused by members of the new exco of having served as head of economic council with commissioners serving under him and, contrary to law, making the governor endorse its recommendations.
El Rufai wanted, for his power project, to corral a 215 megawatts plant that Babatunde Raji Fashola SAN spurned as minister. He took a CBN loan of about N8.5 billion, and picked up a used plant from Dubai. Lawal was part of the deal using his special purpose vehicle (SPV) called Skipper, an Indian firm. With only N1 billion investments, Skipper owns 52 percent while Kaduna with over 80 percent of the money has 48 percent. How come? There is still no power from that plant in Kaduna.
Again, he obtained a $26 million Indian Exim Bank loan to partner with a food firm to build a ranch to trap nomads on about 2,000 acre land. Arla Foods, a European firm, was to milk the cows for dairy products. There is no cow, no nomads, no $26 million, and no Arla. But there is Skipper, a company known for transformer, was also involved here. What of the $51m loan to build a 300-bed hospital now abandoned? The inexcusable thing was that he secured a moratorium on all the loans until he left office.
So this is the task before Mallam. He has given another Sani, his foe and nemesis, Shehu Sani a reason to gloat. He now says he is vindicated because, as senator, he railed against it. His son, Mohammed Bello, who is a member of the House of Representatives, would not say anything about the questions I asked. Give it to Bello, he lacks the father’s impetuosity and unguard diction. He will be a better politician. For now, he is caught between Governor Uba Sani, who he calls his boss, and his father the former governor.
But his brother tweeted a nasty line about the governor. Bello restrained him. There is sibling tension, but oedipal harmony bustles between father and sons.
The last has not been heard about this. From the lawmakers I spoke with, the matter may be escalated into a more formal inquiry, although the governor is restraining them. How long that will last remains to be seen.
Governor Sani came out when NLC and TUC threatened to down tools. He would none of that. For his part, he says no new vehicles for himself and officials for now. He abolished N800k el Rufai added to political appointees while restoring a N500 million revolving loan for workers first introduced by Governor Ahmed Makarfi.
We want audacity, not bravado, from el Rufai in answering the queries. Rather than pursue a charade about security report, he should report to his people who he misgoverned about how he managed their money. By the way, what of the N3.5 billion loan he obtained to buy gadgets? Maybe no bandits would have taken students on a desert trek if those gadgets were in state’s armory.
But he could act like Prophet Samuel in the Bible who laid bare the accounts and asked anyone who had anything to say about any misconduct to say so. He came to equity with a holy hand. Let Mallam do same.
