Nasir El-Rufai’s scorched-earth one-man opposition, By Farooq Kperogi

Like a stranded mariner gasping on the shores of irrelevance, former Kaduna State governor Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai writhes in the uneasy throes of power’s withdrawal. His disquiet, however, is less the quiet lament of a fallen statesman and more the tempestuous fury of a Shakespearean woman scorned.

He has become fiery, irascible, indignant, and unrelenting in his public expressions of rage towards his former friends in power who have isolated him. He is throwing the kitchen sink at the power structures in Kaduna and Abuja in an all-out effort to extract vengeance and to ward off potential ensnarement.

The former cushy, self-satisfied, and illiberal denizen of power who was the scourge of dissenters railing against tyranny, now finds himself wielding the very defiance he once crushed with arrogance and malevolent glee. He has become an accidental insurgent (a la “accidental public servant”) forged in the crucible of his own contradictions.

There is a part of me that loves this new insurrectionary, rebellious, activist, and intensely irate one-man band opposition that El-Rufai has opportunistically transmogrified into.

For one, he is providing the first real opposition to the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration. Every democracy needs the well-aimed slings and well-informed counsel of a sharp-witted opposition to keep its leaders from sinking into the depths of self-satisfaction and insouciance.

Say what you will about El-Rufai, but his intellect, erudition, and rhetorical dexterity are top-notch and undeniable. Imagine if figures of his political stature, institutional access, and strategic acumen had chosen to be thorns in the current corridors of power. Perhaps, the Tinubu administration would have thought twice before treating Nigerians with the cavalier disregard that has become its trademark in the last two years.

For another, he has an opportunity to experience what his critics went through when he was a governor for eight years. He abducted critics, caused opponents to be tortured, bragged about reducing politicians he has displaced to mere “bloggers,” instrumentalized the courts to squelch dissent, etc.

Now, he posts social media updates about his former commissioners being “abducted,” about the judiciary being weaponized against his supporters and his past administration, about the “misuse of federal security agencies in the persecution of opposition leaders,” etc.

Not only has El-Rufai become a “blogger,” once his favorite pejorative for social-media-active politicians he has dislocated in Kaduna, he has now plunged deeper into a lowly “content creator.” With the launch of a TikTok account, he’s gone from being a mere “blogger” to a digital hustler, complete with the undignified ritual of soliciting Nigerians to subscribe to his channel.

Yet, I am delighted that El-Rufai has joined our ranks. Professional “wailing wailers” like me (to use former presidential spokesman Femi Adesina’s agonizingly asinine and illiterate insult for government critics) welcome him to the club.

Nonetheless, my joy that he is inadvertently rendering a democratic service by the constancy and stridency of his strictures against the government has not blunted the acuteness of my awareness that he is an unbearably devious, self-seeking, hateful scoundrel who is only on a mission to avenge what he perceives as a personal affront to him.

As most people have already observed, had El-Rufai secured the minister of power position he was promised, his current antagonism toward the government would be as unimaginable as a cat lobbying for the rights of rats.

Not only would he have been a staunch defender of every government action, but he would have also directed his trademark vitriol at ordinary Nigerians suffocating under economic hardship. He would dismiss their grievances with characteristic scorn and cruelty.

Indeed, the same northern establishment he now courts and seeks to mobilize as a political cudgel would have been his favorite punching bag—just as it was in 2023, when he enthusiastically championed Bola Tinubu’s candidacy.

It takes an unnatural degree of slow-wittedness not to see that El-Rufai’s newfound disillusionment with the governments in Kaduna and Abuja reeks less of principle and more of a bruised ego nursing its wounds.

In my July 27, 2019, column titled, “How Political Power Damages the Brain—and How to Reverse it,” I called attention to (temporarily) politically displaced whores of power like El-Rufai who pretend to identify with ordinary people in their moments of political trauma.

“Also look at previously arrogant, narcissistic, power-drunk prigs who have been kicked out of the orbit of power for any number of reasons. You’ll discover that they are suddenly normal again.

“They share our pains, make pious noises, condemn abuse of power, and identify with popular causes. The legendary amnesia of Nigerians causes the past misdeeds of these previous monsters of power to be explained away, lessened, forgiven, and ultimately forgotten. But when they get back to power again, they become the same insensitive beasts of power that they once were.”

Get El-Rufai back into power now or in 2017, he would be the same villainous backstabber he has always been. He would be the same annihilator of the homes of poor people. He would be the same horrid tormentor of critics.

In a September 20, 2019, article, I described him as “straight-up Nigeria’s most bigoted and most dangerous public official alive.”

El-Rufai’s latest political metamorphosis is less a transformation than a temporary realignment born of personal grievance rather than ideological conviction. His brand-new zeal for opposition, while inadvertently serving the democratic process, is unmistakably fueled by wounded pride and thwarted ambition.

The same man who once ruled with an iron fist, silencing critics with impunity, now fashions himself as the voice of the oppressed, railing against the very structures of power he once upheld with ruthless enthusiasm. His current posture as an anti-establishment crusader is not the product of principle but of exclusion, making his activism less an act of courage than an elaborate act of self-preservation.

Yet, even as he momentarily aligns with the forces of resistance, history warns against mistaking his opportunistic dissent for genuine reform. Should fortune return him to the corridors of power, El-Rufai would waste no time reverting to the autocratic instincts that have long defined him. He would crush opposition, weaponize state institutions, and wield power with the same reckless abandon that now makes him a pariah.

Today’s dissenter is often tomorrow’s despot. To embrace him uncritically is to risk aiding yet another cycle of tyranny dressed in the fleeting garb of rebellion.

Farooq Kperogi is a renowned columnist and United States-based Professor of journalism.

Note : The views expressed in this opinion are personal and do not reflect the thoughts of Abujapress or its owners.