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Nasir Ahmad
El-Rufai. It is almost impossible to remain neutral at the mention of
this name. Few personalities in Nigeria evoke as much passion and
debate. Mention his name anywhere and you’re likely to get responses
ranging from outright dislike to extreme adulation. One thing is clear
though – he has as many admirers as he has detractors.

El-Rufai stirs up
so much passion that any effort to contextualize him becomes embroiled
in controversy. Any writer voicing an opinion about the man is accused
of either being on his payroll or is branded a hack writer, paid to rub
the man’s name in mud. I am not a praise singer, and obtain no gain
from rubbishing anyone’s reputation. This is just an attempt to
separate Nasir the man, from el-Rufai the myth.

The most invariable
accusation against el-Rufai is that he is arrogant. I almost titled the
piece ‘the criminality of arrogance’, but avoided the distraction.
Being arrogant is not a criminal offence anywhere in the world.

But that aside, how
does one define arrogance? Ask most people why they think el-Rufai is
arrogant and they will be stumped. They have probably never met the man
and are only passing on the myth of el-Rufai.

Nasir, the man
carries his luggage and laptop himself. He would rather be called
‘Nasir’, not any of the multitudes of flattering names and titles that
abound. He is first to extend greetings, mixes with all and quick to
assist even people he has never met.

El-Rufai the myth is arrogant; Nasir the man has no pretensions.

Critics say he has
been indicted in the disappearance of N32 billion from the sale of
government houses. But the FCT itself and the Finance Ministry
confirmed that the money is intact. That explains why the EFCC case
against him is crumbling. In truth, the entire case against el-Rufai
was a vendetta by the Yar’Adua cabal who saw him as a threat. So
hurriedly put together were the allegations that they actually accused
him of breaking laws that had been repealed years earlier!

Those who object to
el-Rufai with a passion will say that he allocated lands to his family.
True, there may be ethical issues, but he broke no laws of the land.
That aside, anyone with something to hide would have used fictitious
names to allocate the lands to his family. That real names and
identities were used, when el-Rufai himself made the process open to
public scrutiny is not indicative of hidden motives.

For objectivity, it
is important to look critically at the nine years he served in the
public sector and do a ‘before’ and ‘after’ analysis. Only those who
lived in Abuja before 2003 would appreciate the level of sanity
el-Rufai brought into the territory. Was he wrong to demolish houses
built on sewage outlets? Was it arrogance to revoke illegal allocations
of lands on public parks?

Did he lack vision
to have banned commercial motorcyclists from the city centre? Ask
commuters what they think of ‘el-Rufai buses. Was it an offence to have
eliminated the mafia around land allocation? What it criminal to
facilitate home ownership for thousands of people and relieve
government of unmanageable burdens?

Criticism of
el-Rufai is not different from that of other achievers in Nigeria. Many
claim to desire positive change, but turn around to demonise change
agents. Consider these examples: Awolowo was one of Nigeria’s most
principled politicians, but some people vilified him till death as an
ethnic jingoist. Gen. Murtala knew development was impossible without a
thorough shake-up of the bureaucracy. Today, some people accuse him of
destroying the civil service. Buhari’s War Against Indiscipline served
to reverse the moral decay and decadence that stifled public conduct
before he became head of state.

Today, people call him a fanatic.

Similarly, for the
first time in Nigeria’s history, we had a public officer that stood his
ground and arrested some of the biggest crooks in the land. Today, some
people accuse Nuhu Ribadu of waging a selective anti-corruption
crusade. So if people call el-Rufai names for executing his various
tasks with vigour, it is in line with a trend.

The freedom of the Internet age makes it possible for us to assume all sorts of aliases to insult and malign others.

This will be no exception. But if we truly want change in Nigeria,
we must recognize agents of change and appreciate their vision, if not
their person. In the case of Nasir el-Rufai, we should start by
dispassionately separating Nasir, the man from el-Rufai, the myth.