El-Rufai:
Between courage and foolhardiness
By Christian Amadi
I FELT happy when sometime in November I read in several
of our newspapers former FCT Minister, Malam Nasir el-Rufai's
letter to his friends and supporters notifying them that
he would be coming back to his fatherland on December 27
to confront his accusers and persecutors.
Because I admire the former minister enormously for his
public virtues and for his sterling performance as minister
in-charge of Abuja, I had readied myself to mobilise thousands
of his other known admirers to line the route of the airport
he was to arrive at to welcome him. I had planned that we
would display placards with the following sentiments: "Welcome,
sojourner! Your country needs you." "We need performers
like el-Rufai." "El-Rufai: speak for us. We need
blunt talkers." I had planned that we would do all this
and more to show our depth of positive feelings for el-Rufai.
It was therefore something of a disappointment when it was
announced by el-Rufai's lawyer, Mr. Bamidele Aturu, that
my hero would not be coming back to the country as planned.
I was disappointed because I will no longer have the chance
to publicly express my solidarity with Mallam el-Rufai. However,
when I read further that the planned return was aborted due
to cogent reasons having to do with the current political
uncertainty and the security situation in the country, I
felt relieved and at the same time happy that el-Rufai had
taken a good decision.
A wise man does not confuse foolhardiness with courage.
It would have been foolhardy for el-Rufai to walk into an
open trap. It is no secret that those who have hijacked this
government from the invalid Yar'Adua do not want el-Rufai
to come back to Nigeria and add his critical voice to those
already existing. This explains why they had issued a warrant
of arrest on el-Rufai to come and face treason charges. Treason
charges are political in nature and it is doubtful if a noted
and hated critic can face such a charge and have justice.
El-Rufai's traducers are aware of the fact that the criminal
charges against him are merely trumped up to smear him and
that he stands no chance of conviction in court which is
why they designed that he should face the more difficult
treason charges. And it is good that he has decided not to
give them joy by walking into a clear judicial ambush.
Although el-Rufai did not specifically name the names of
his friends and supporters to whom he addressed that letter,
I had humbly numbered myself among millions of his supporters
who feel outraged by the undisguised show of hostility by
this administration towards him and his pal, Nuhu Ribadu.
I would like to describe myself as one of millions of Nigerians
who admire el-Rufai unrepentantly for his competence, his
courage, his commitment to the service of the fatherland
and his conviction about certain principles of life.
I particularly admire el-Rufai for his clarity of vision
and his dogged commitment to achieving set goals. It is no
exaggeration to say that since the demise of Chief Obafemi
Awolowo, el-Rufai is one man we have seen in recent times
in our public life who demonstrated a clear idea of what
he wanted to accomplish in office for the greater good of
the greatest number of the people and who pursued that goal
with doggedness until he achieved it.
Many of the public actors on our national stage today appear
as if they are acting a drama consisting of an uncertain
people confronting the unexpected. They do not appear to
have any mission. We sorely miss people like el-Rufai who
are intelligent, self-confident and self-assured. They know
clearly where they are going and know how to mobilise good
people to help them on their journey to reach their destination.
As minister of the FCT for four eventful years, el-Rufai
set for himself a goal: to stop the bastardisation of the
idea of a modern capital for Nigeria and restore Abuja to
the dream of its founding fathers. To help him achieve this
objective, he assembled a team of enormously talented men
and women, infused them with his enthusiasm and uncommon
zeal and in no time Abuja was saved the fate of becoming
an urban jungle like Lagos. He knew exactly what he wanted
to achieve for Abuja and set out to do just that. No amount
of orchestrated campaign and conspiracy to distract and frustrate
him succeeded. That is the kind of man we need in Nigeria
now.
It is unfortunate that in our country we appear to hate
good people and to love flatterers, bootlickers and the inept
and those who are given to evil. It is based on this negative
principle that the Yar'Adua administration has done so much
to destroy el-Rufai's reputation and to rubbish his sterling
performance as the most successful minister the FCT has ever
had since it came into being in 1975.
Some of us are angered that instead of seeking to benefit
from el-Rufai's can-do spirit, this administration that lacks
men and women of competence has chosen to be so antagonistic
to el-Rufai and Nuhu Ribadu. This government has not hidden
its attitude that it regards el-Rufai as one of its prime
enemies. That is why it has come out that the machinery of
government had been put in place to give el-Rufai a maximum
rude welcome; to slam him with treason charges. The plan
is that as soon as he arrives, the police will handcuff him
and lead him away in a blaze of publicity in order to portray
him as no more than a common criminal and an enemy of the
state. Since a majority of discerning Nigerians are aware
of the hostility of this government towards el-Rufai, no
one will think that the courage to come home has deserted
him at the last minute. As we have said earlier, there is
a difference between courage and foolhardiness.
A wise man sees a trap and takes steps to avoid it but a
foolish man sees the same trap and walks blindly into it.
As culled from The Guradian
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