GOING by his generalised views and shifting positions on key national and state issues, particularly the controversial ones, it is doubtful whether Kaduna State governor Nasir el-Rufai has any friends left in the state he has governed since 2015, friends he could invite for heart-to-heart discussions, those who could tell him he is wrong on certain issues dear to his heart. With each passing day, his enemies multiply while his friends get depleted. This of course is speaking hyperbolically. But increasingly, the governor makes it difficult for even his friends to rush to his defence. His principles are too elastic, his views too fluid, and his style too abrasive for anyone to rush to his defence or to stick with him for a long time. Those who have sympathies for him step gingerly around him lest they get the full measure of his waspish tongue.
His latest position on the Kajuru killings both underscores and illustrates how insensitive his government has become, and how inconsistent and unwise he also has become as a person. The Kajuru killings refer to the murderous spree that recently inundated some communities in Kajuru local government area of Kaduna State where essentially the ethnic Adara people live in proximity to some Fulani settlements. Last October, Maiwada Galadima, the traditional ruler of Adara Chiefdom, was abducted and murdered, provoking violent unrest in the state. For decades, Kaduna State itself has been ill at ease, prompting indigenes to desire governors and leaders gifted at consensus building, compromise and reconciliation. They have not always got their preferences, but Kaduna people have never given up on that seemingly forlorn hope, particularly the people of Southern Kaduna, among which are the Adara, who feel increasingly beleaguered as a result of the unequal struggle between them and Fulani pastoralists.
On February 15, Mallam el-Rufai had broken the news to the media that some 66 Fulani were murdered in some communities in Adara Chiefdom. It was portentous, said critics, that he broke the news on the eve of the February 16, 2019 presidential election before that election was postponed to yesterday. It was even more ominous, they said, that he chose to identify the ethnicity of the supposed victims in a way that was insensitive and provocative. He defended himself, but few were persuaded by his logic or sense of history. Worse, the indigenes of the communities in question wondered why the governor made the announcement of the killings almost a week after they took place, but failed to indicate that they happened much earlier, specifically on February 10 and 11. In addition, the indigenes asserted that they were aware only of the killing of 11 people, not 66, and that the victims were all Adara, not Fulani. They challenged the governor to show proof of the killings, since the Adara did not embark on reprisal attacks. Furthermore, they insisted that the governor even visited some of the hospitalised victims of the February 10 killings, though he refused to mention that fact in any of his statements.
Instead of shedding light on these grey areas and dispelling the assertions of the Adara people, the governor, on Thursday, indicated that the death toll had risen to 130, all Fulani. He also visited the troubled communities in company with police and military officers, commiserated with the people, and spoken to the media near where he said a mass grave was located. But responding to the controversy over casualty figures and the ethnic make-up of victims, the police have studiously and boldly said that they were not willing to commit themselves to any figure because investigations were still in progress. Clearly, there is something wrong with governance in Kaduna, and the governor seems quite unable to discharge his responsibilities with the fairness and temperament required of his exalted office. If, as some observers have said, the governor visited some injured victims of the killings in hospital before he visited the troubled communities in Adara and before he announced the disputed casualty figures, why did he not mention his hospital visits? Who confirmed to him that casualty figures had doubled when the police did not have a figure to work with? In a clash of such magnitude between two ethnic groups, where, according to him, about 130 people lost their lives, could there be no casualty on the other side? And for a governor who had accused critics and the media of ethnic profiling, why did he readily identify the victims of the Adara killings as Fulani on February 15?
The Adara argue that the casualty figures are overblown, and that in any case, even the Fulani leaders of some of the communities visited by the governor paid a reconciliation visit to them after the February 10 and 11 attacks. To settle the controversy, the governor may have to authorise exhumation of the corpses, for after all, fresh corpses are not hard to identify, and they are in any case allegedly interred in one or two mass graves. Settling the controversy over casualty figures will of course not bring peace to the troubled and hardly accessible villages, but they will probably shed light on the nature and course of the killings that took place in Adara Chiefdom days ago. More importantly, they will indicate to some extent whether the governor has been fair to both sides in the conflict. He has had a difficult relationship with Southern Kaduna where the Adara come from, and he has even acknowledged that that relationship cannot be salvaged, prompting him to defy the delicate political equilibrium that has sustained the state for decades.
But nothing excuses Mallam el-Rufai’s strident remarks about the killings, his seeming lack of empathy and neutrality, his abundant self-conceit, and his self-righteousness. He is not infallible, yet he seldom acknowledges his mistakes, not to talk of applying wisdom, despite his fabled intelligence, to issues of governance and interpersonal relationships. More, as a politician who craves a following, regardless of his own inconsistencies and failings as a follower of his mentors, it is shocking to hear him advocate for votes he has done little to attract and said so much to repel. Kaduna needs a conciliator, a true progressive, a humanist. Mallam el-Rufai is none of these. If he is returned to office on March 9, Kaduna State will have indicated beyond a shadow of doubt that they are inspired by values that leave a majority of Nigerians befuddled.
Malami and the threats to democracy
IGERIANS may already have taken note that most appointees of the Muhammadu Buhari presidency, like their principal, have said and done nothing inspiring about democracy. They have neither promoted nor defended democratic principles. Those among them who have not kept quiet about democracy have in fact taken deliberate steps to undermine it. The Justice minister, who is also the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, leads the pack among those sworn to discomfiting democracy and the rule of law, contrary to his claims and pretensions.
He played active part in 2015 of subverting democracy and electoral fidelity in Kogi State when he offered an unsolicited interpretation of the electoral law to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in that year’s governorship poll won by Abubakar Audu shortly before he died. The electoral body had its own legal department, and had not indicated that the country’s electoral law had become incomprehensible. Yet, Mr Malami wrote a letter to INEC drawing attention to constitutional provisions and electoral law he said justified candidate substitution in the Kogi poll. The letter was used to justify aspirant Yahaya Bello’s participation in an election he was neither registered to vote in or be voted for, especially considering that he did not even possess a valid permanent voter card (PVC), and also enabled an unscrupulous manipulation of the constitution regarding when an election was won and lost.
Once again, Mr Malami is needlessly meddling in a forthcoming election, this time in Zamfara State, by writing a letter to INEC to restore the barred All Progressives Congress (APC) candidates in the 2019 elections. Citing the Appeal Court judgement dated February 13, 2019 in the case between Hon. Aminu Sani Jaji versus 182 others, the Justice minister, on the same day the judgement was given, virtually instructed INEC to “comply with judgment of the Court of Appeal by admitting the results of the APC Zamfara state primaries, and to also comply with the provisions of Section 38 of the Electoral Act which empowers INEC to postpone the election of the governorship, National Assembly and House of Assembly elections.” He suggested that by so doing, INEC would be fair to all the contestants in the Zamfara polls. He neither indicated why he should pick interest in the Zamfara polls nor did he show why he was interested in the Court of Appeal judgement to the shocking point of writing a letter to INEC on the same day the judgement was delivered.
Initially, last week, while still battling with other electoral demons of their own, INEC failed to respond positively to the Justice minister’s demands. The APC candidates in the Zamfara polls were not reinstated on the ballot nor given hope they would be. A lot of pressure was expected to be brought to bear on INEC, especially considering that the APC chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, had also written to INEC on the same February 13, 2019 demanding the same reliefs as Mr Malami. By mid-week, it was unclear whether INEC would succumb to the pressures, for the Zamfara polls were at the time still many days away. But on February 21, 2019, the Court of Appeal, going by the interpretation of its judgement accepted by INEC, surprised everyone by ordering the reinstatement of APC candidates on the ballot. Indeed, a day later, the INEC chairman announced that the electoral body would abide by the judgement and accept the result of the disputed primaries allegedly conducted by the APC in Zamfara. In Kogi State in November 2015, INEC had also bowed, just as the election tribunal, Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court had all meekly acquiesced. There is already the suspicion that, going by the latest judgement of the Court of Appeal in the Zamfara case, the appellate court may not be applying itself strictly to the juridical elements of the election cases the Justice minister happened to be interested in.
Put inelegantly but very clearly, the Justice minister may be unwittingly threatening democracy rather than working to uphold the rule of law and the sanctity of the courts. Anchoring his position on a ruling made by the acting chief justice, Ibrahim Muhammad, years ago, Mr Malami in July 2018 argued that the rule of law should be subordinated to national security. He deployed that argument to justify the Buhari presidency’s abhorrent and selective flouting of court orders, relying on the connivance of a grieving but indulgent populace sickened by rampant corruption in the country. The Justice minister was also virtually responsible for inspiring the Kogi tragedy that led to the installation of the misfit Mr Bello as governor. And now, working in synchrony with the APC chairman, he hopes to corral INEC into embracing the disputed judgement of the Court of Appeal in the case decided on February 13, three days before the general election was originally scheduled to start. He cared little that fretting Nigerians could read his letter to INEC as justification for a supposed government-inspired postponement of the polls and a call for staggered election, such as he advocated for Zamfara.
Nigerians have an obligation to guard their democracy. But to fulfil that obligation, they must watch the propagandists in government, put a leash on INEC, eye the Court of Appeal in particular warily, and give the fecund and inventive Mr Malami little elbow room. These persons and institutions do not appear to be finicky about public opinion or democracy. They will continue to pile pressure on institutions, defy public perceptions of their errant ways, and do everything in their power to subvert, contort and constrict the system in furtherance of their antidemocratic goals. Fortunately for their schemes but unfortunate for the country, these schemers have sympathisers in the presidency whose icy detachment enables them to prosper in their illicit ways.