Malam Nasir El-Rufai ‘s coup and President Bola Tinubu’s counter coup

What many Nigerians may not know, is that President Bola Tinubu and former Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, had parted ways long before the 2023 presidential election.
Whatever political relationship that existed between two, hit the hard rocks shortly after Muhammadu Buhari emerged president in the 2015 presidential election. Watchers of the power circle were quick to observe, that Buhari openly displayed his fascination with Tinubu’s strategic moves that paved the way for his emergence as the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Buhari acknowledged the fact that without Tinubu’s mastery of the game, there was no way he could have beaten heavyweights like Atiku Abubakar, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Aminu Tambuwal who contested the APC ticket with him. From beating the presidential primary hurdles, to clinching the APC ticket and capping it with a resounding victory in the 2015 presidential election, Buhari more or less elevated Tinubu to the status of his political god.

At his swearing-in ceremony on May 29, 2015, Buhari could hardly conceal his admiration for Tinubu. He kept pumping the hand of the former Lagos State governor in numerous hand shakes and gave him several pats in the back at every close encounter. It became obvious to the public that Buhari had found a benefactor and political godfather in Tinubu. What with his previous three failed attempts at the presidency in 2003, 2007 and 2011.

However, the camaraderie was short lived. Along the line, Buhari started giving Tinubu the cold shoulder a few months into the first leg of his presidency. And for a man not given to much restraint, Buhari continued to drive a wedge between Tinubu and his presidency. It wasn’t long before the content of a leaked memo to Buhari, authored by El-Rufai, revealed that Tinubu’s contribution to Buhari’s emergence as president was being “exaggerated.”

At that point, Tinubu got to understand why his initial chummy relationship with Buhari suddenly grew tepid. The thinly veiled rejection from the then president kept growing. The one-sided cold war became so pronounced that Tinubu’s wife, Remi, then a serving senator, was forced to voice her observation right on the floor of the Senate. She openly accused Buhari of ditching her husband after helping him to win the presidency.

But Buhari’s unprovoked indignation towards his benefactor continued unabated. Credible sources within the ruling APC at the time, observed that Tinubu was not allowed to make input into Buhari’s cabinet picks and other strategic appointments.

Right from his first tenure, a handful of power grabbers within and outside Buhari’s kitchen cabinet, were the ones running the government. They formed a cabal that ran rings around the stubbornly insular ex-president.

Members of the cabal had very little electoral value. They were sufficiently disdainful of Tinubu. They used their domineering influence to keep the Lagos Boy far away from their Aso Villa captive. They created the false impression of holding the joker for Buhari’s re-election in 2019. They started treating Tinubu as an expendable commodity as they kept widening the growing chasm between the Daura born ex-Army General and his political benefactor.

Then EI-Rufai came out in the open. He took upon himself the task of “demystifying” Tinubu by rallying some of the man’s political associates for “insurrection” against their leader. From his base in Kaduna, he became a regular visitor in Lagos, which is the nucleus of Tinubu’s political base in the Southwest. He spared no expense as he openly canvased an end to the era of political godfathers. It was during one of his numerous “missionary journeys” that he asked an incumbent Lagos governor: “When are you going to retire your godfather from politics?” And the then first term governor replied: “Second tenure.” And this was a young man who, against all odds, rode on the godfather’s shoulders to the Lagos government house.

The phrase was a wrap for the godfather’s retirement when the governor gets his anticipated second tenure. He must have forgotten that Tinubu has several pairs of wide ear lobes spread across the state. So the voice note of the governor’s “second tenure” echoed through the walls of Bourdillon. If a governor you installed planned to retire you in his tenure, you can only put him back there at your own peril. That’s how that governor lost a potential re-election ticket in 2019. It was a political death. The man has since taken his seat on the reserve bench, watching events from the sidelines.

But the movie to push Tinubu off the cliff ahead of the 2023 race did not stop. Three other former Southwest governors, who the godfather fought tooth and nail to enthrone in their respective states, joined the fray. With goading by El-Rufai, the former Ekiti governor, Kayode Fayemi, took steps that culminated in challenging Tinubu for the 2023 presidential ticket of the APC. And on the prodding of the Buhari cabal, his Ogun State counterpart, Ibikunke Amosun, also threw his signature skyscraper cap in the ring. Similarly, Yemi Osinbajo, who was vice president to Buhari, also saw in the fray what he thought was an opportunity to upstage Tinubu in the quest for the party’s ticket. Perhaps, the open “rebellion” by the former Osun State governor, Rauf Aregbesola, must have been a blow that hit Tinubu below the belt. Fayemi, Amosun and Osinbajo went about their failed adventures without throwing darts at their estranged political benefactor. From his comfort zone as cabinet minister, the ex Osun governor mounted the rooftop to denigrate his former principal. It must have felt like the thrust of Brutus’ sword in Caesar’s groin. Et tu, Rauf? And this was a man who used to be the godfather’s consigliere. The four “renegade” members of the Tinubu political clan could not handle their individual and collective discomfiture when, against all odds, the man managed to dribble Muhammadu Buhari and his cabal to clinch the APC presidential ticket. The godfather crowned it by beating their ambush to win the presidential election subsequently.

Such character traits in the power politics of the Southwest are well documented by political historians. It happened in the First Republic. It was embraced in the Second Republic. It played out in the short lived Third Republic. In those three previous republics, power brokers in the North had forged alliances with overtly ambitious associates in the Southwest for the purposes of pulling down their powerful political leaders. As it was in 1963-1966, so it was in 1979-1983. Circa 1993 (June 12 annulment). It spilled over to the Fourth Republic, 1999 -2023 and still counting. The trend won’t stop with Tinubu. It will continue after him because politicians are a product of ambitions; moderate or inordinate. So the gentlemen who tested their strength with Tinubu for the APC’s 2023 presidential ticket, did not commit any crime.

El-Rufai’s Hidden Agenda

It must be stated clearly that El-Rufai bore no personal animosity towards Tinubu when he set out to instigate the Jagaban’s loyalists against their leader. The ex-Kaduna only played on the moderate or inordinate ambitions of a few of them for his own political gains. It was a long distance race towards 2023.

He knew of Tinubu’s burning desire to succeed Buhari. And he was smart enough to know that another northerner should not be president after Buhari’s eight years in the saddle. The plan was that El-Rufai wanted to be a running mate on the 2023 presidential ticket of the APC. He had figured it all out; that the party would not contemplate a Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket. He had reasoned that being a Muslim, there was no way he could be on the same ticket with Tinubu who is a fellow Muslim. So for him to be on the 2023 ticket, the presidential candidate must be a Christian from the south, preferably from the Southwest. That was why he zeroed in on Fayemi. He was working towards having the ex-Ekiti governor or any other southern Christian as presidential candidate, with him as running mate to balance the religious equation. He must have based his permutations on the 2015 experience when the APC flatly rejected the idea of having another Muslim as Buhari’s running mate. So in his own calculation, he had reasoned that with Tinubu as the presidential candidate in 2023, he stood no chance of picking the vice presidential ticket. He had imagined the party would pick a northern Christian as Tinubu’s running mate, a choice that would automatically shut him out. But contrary to his calculations, Tinubu picked Kashim Shettima, a fellow Muslim as his running mate.

Candidate Buhari of 2015 and candidate Tinubu of 2023 presented two different scenarios. The two leaders are poles apart in terms of their public perception. The former president arrogantly wears his Islamic fundamentalist emblem like a badge of honour. Tinubu on the other hand, maintains a visage of a liberal Muslim with a pastor wife, and, perhaps a mix of Muslim and Christian among his children. In the Buhari case, a Muslim-Muslim ticket would have proved an electoral disaster for the APC. That ticket was redeemed with “Pastor” Osinbajo’s name on the ballot. It attenuated what the community of Christian voters would have perceived as “an extremist ticket.”

From 2015 when El-Rufai started playing Saul of Tarsus, up to the build up to the 2023 electioneering, Tinubu’s trust in the ex-Kaduna governor had grown as big as the mustard seed. It didn’t require any deep intuition for the president to see through El-Rufai’s half-hearted “on the road to Damascus” experience.

But Tinubu managed to play safe by summoning enough native wisdom in his relationship with El-Rufai when he was seeking the presidential ticket, and during the campaigns. He had observed how the then Kaduna governor switched allegiances from one presidential aspirant to another. He switched over to Tinubu when it was obvious that many of his fellow northern governors had settled for the former Lagos governor. Tinubu craftily wormed his way into El-Rufai’s heart by cajoling him and massaging his oversize ego. At his campaign stop in Kaduna, candidate Tinubu had “begged” El-Rufai not to leave Nigeria after his tenure because he would need his services for his administration to succeed. That was how a dead cat was sold and bought. Dealing with a complex character like El-Rufai required a great deal of wisdom…and gumption too.
Tinubu’s approach in disarming El-Rufai may find expression in a number of Yoruba proverbs:
Eni ma mu obo, a se bi obo. (If you want to catch a monkey, you must learn to act like a monkey). Adete o le fun wara, sugbon o le da wara nu. (A leper may not be helpful in milking a cow, but he can waste a whole bucket of milk if provoked). Bi owo eni o ba ti te eku ida, a ki bere iku to pa baba eni. (You don’t threaten to avenge your father’s unnatural death if you are holding a contested sword by the blade). Tinubu did not court El-Rufai for his electoral value. He only stooped to conquer. It was a wrong time for dissent within his party at that critical period. He could ill afford it. Even at that, he lost the majority votes in Kaduna State to Atiku Abubakar and his PDP. With the 2023 presidential election won and lost, El-Rufai spent considerable time drooling over the president-elect in the hope of securing a place in the emerging cabinet.

Tinubu’s Pound Of Flesh

Tinubu sent El-Rufai on a fool’s errand by adding his name to the list of ministerial nominees he forwarded to the Senate for screening and confirmation. Unconfirmed reports at the time, suggested that he was being considered as potential power minister. And before anyone could say Godwin Emefiele, El-Rufai had scurried to the Senate wing of the National Assembly, awaiting his turn in the screening exercise. The news hit him like thunderbolt; his screening had been put in abeyance on account of an unfavourable “security report.” The ex-Kaduna governor did not need a soothsayer to tell him that the “security report” comes in flesh and blood. Tinubu simply took his pound of flesh from El-Rufai by humbling him in the full glare of the public. The godfather never forgets. El-Rufai was caught off guard. He bleated. He brayed. He was dazed. It was a humiliating experience. He got hit by a ricochet from a bullet he had fired at the godfather.
El-Rufai had claimed that Tinubu’s role in Buhari’s 2015 electoral victory was exaggerated. But this same Buhari failed in three previous attempts. Did he mean to say that without Tinubu, Buhari would have won in the Southwest where he was rejected in three consecutive election circles? If he still insists that Tinubu’s role in Buhari’s election was exaggerated, then how would he rate his own contribution to Tinubu’s victory in 2023? Tinubu won 29.4 percent votes in El-Rufai’s Kaduna while Atiku won 40.8 percent. Check the records.
The long and short of the story, is that Jagaban outsmarted his opponent in a political chess game. It’s coup and counter coup. Tit for tat. And today, the godfather El-Rufai plotted to retire from politics, is now holding the sword by the hilt. What a thing about politics. In frustration, he dumped the APC for the Labour Party a few days ago. El-Rufai’s cat has undergone sphynx mutation. It is in desperate need of covering to shield its furless skin from the vagaries of the elements. May Shehu Sani’s wish for him never prevail.