Obsession with Power: The el-Rufai many battles

2026-02-22 - 02:46

By Luminous Jannamike, Abuja By mid-morning on Wednesday in Mpape, a densely populated settlement in Bwari Area Council of Abuja, the air is already thick with dust. Iorngu Terkura bends over a charcoal stove outside the single-room shack she now calls home. 20 years ago, she lived in a solid settlement in Jabi, then one of Abuja’s fast-growing city-centre districts. Her children walked to school. Her husband ran a small welding shop nearby. Then the bulldozers came. “They told us Abuja had a master plan. But nobody told us what our own plan would be after the house fell,” she said, eyes fixed on the weak flame under her pot. For Terkura and thousands of displaced residents of the Federal Capital Territory, the name Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai is not just political history. It marks a turning point in their lives. Now the former Kaduna governor is back in the headlines; this time after being moved from EFCC custody to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) as investigations into his administration’s finances widen. Admirers describe him as fearless. Critics say his methods leave too much human damage behind. But nearly everyone agrees on one thing: controversy tends to follow wherever El-Rufai appears. The Senate bombshell El-Rufai’s reputation for confrontation took shape nearly 23 years ago, in July 2003, when President Olusegun Obasanjo nominated him as Minister of the Federal Capital Territory. At his Senate confirmation hearing in Abuja, the then-rising technocrat stunned lawmakers by accusing Deputy Senate President Ibrahim Mantu and Senator Jonathan Zwingina of demanding a $414,000 bribe to clear him. It was political drama at the highest level. Both senators denied the allegation. A Senate Ethics Committee was set up. El-Rufai swore on the Quran; the lawmakers declined. No criminal charges followed, but the damage to relationships was lasting. From that moment, Abuja learned something about the new FCT minister: He did not enter rooms quietly. Abuja’s demolition years Back in Mpape, Terkura still remembers the morning officials marked her Jabi community for clearance. “They wrote numbers on the walls. After that, we watched the bulldozers pull down our neighbourhood,” she said. Between 2003 and 2007, El-Rufai’s FCT administration carried out one of the most aggressive urban enforcement drives in Abuja’s history. Determined to restore the capital’s original master plan, his team demolished hundreds of structures and cleared dozens of informal settlements. Human-rights groups estimated that as many as 800,000 residents across the FCT were displaced. Urban planners argued the exercise restored order to a rapidly expanding capital. Many affected families, however, say it triggered years of economic hardship and social dislocation. El-Rufai never apologised, repeatedly insisting that the rule of law must prevail. For people like Terkura, the policy debate always felt far away. “We were not against the law. We were just poor,” she said quietly. From power to pressure After leaving the FCT in 2007, Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai saw his political fortunes begin to shift. Under President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, anti-graft authorities opened investigations into his time in Abuja. By 2008, he had relocated abroad in what he described as self-exile. He returned in 2010, was briefly detained and later released. Years later, he made one of his most controversial boasts, that he had fought two presidents and outlasted both, reinforcing his image as a politician who thrives on confrontation. “I have fought two presidents. Umaru Yar’Adua fought me and ended up in the grave; Goodluck Jonathan fought me and ended up in Otuoke,” El-Rufai had said in a viral video. The Jonathan years During the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan, El-Rufai sharpened his role as an opposition strategist. He publicly alleged that the administration placed him on a hit list, a claim that was never substantiated but widely debated. At the same time, he helped build the coalition that defeated Jonathan in 2015. That victory returned him fully to power and cleared his path to the Kaduna governorship. But the next chapter would cut deeper than politics. Southern Kaduna: Grief across two cities Grace Luka no longer lives in Zangon Kataf. The once-quiet Southern Kaduna town was her home, the place where her husband was killed during the waves of violence that swept the region. These days, she spends most of her time in Abuja with relatives, where a framed photograph of her late husband sits in her living room. A member of the Ikulu Development Association, Luka keeps the image on a wooden shelf. It shows her husband beside their small poultry pen, taken months before the attack. “We kept hoping the government would protect us. We waited,” she said on the sidelines of a recent press briefing in Abuja by victims of the Southern Kaduna violence. Between 2015 and 2023, Kaduna State experienced some of its deadliest communal violence in decades. Human-rights organisations and the Southern Kaduna People’s Union accused El-Rufai’s administration of bias toward Fulani herders, an allegation he consistently denied. In 2016, his government acknowledged paying compensation to some foreign Fulani groups to discourage reprisals, sparking nationwide outrage. For families like Luka’s, policy debates translated into graves. “We buried our people,” she said softly. Friends who became rivals Political alliances around El-Rufai have often proved fragile. When Kano Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje dethroned Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II in 2020, El-Rufai openly backed the deposed monarch, a move widely interpreted in Abuja as a direct rebuke to Ganduje. But the most consequential rupture came after he left office. The Tinubu rupture Perhaps the most politically delicate break in El-Rufai’s long career is his worsening relationship with President Bola Tinubu, a leader he helped bring to power in 2023. After playing a prominent role in the APC’s presidential victory, El-Rufai’s ministerial nomination was stalled in the Senate and eventually dropped, a development many insiders viewed as the turning point in their ties. In the months that followed, the former Kaduna governor became increasingly critical of the administration’s direction and, through both private political conversations and public signals, was widely seen as unsupportive of Tinubu’s potential second-term bid. The quiet standoff has added a new dimension to El-Rufai’s reputation, not just as a reformer who clashes with opponents, but as a power broker willing to take on even allies when political interests diverge. The successor’s probe The man El-Rufai helped install as governor, Senator Uba Sani, soon turned investigator. Within months of taking office in 2023, Sani’s administration, acting through a Kaduna House of Assembly ad-hoc committee, launched probes into the previous government’s finances, alleging the misappropriation of ¦ 432 billion. Several former officials have since been arrested and prosecuted. El-Rufai denies wrongdoing and has accused his successor of political persecution. The feud has become one of Abuja’s most closely watched political dramas. The Ribadu explosion The latest rupture may be the most explosive yet. In a recent television interview, El-Rufai accused National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu, once a close ally, of plotting against him. More dramatically, he said he had access to Ribadu’s private phone conversations, claiming someone had bugged the line. He also alleged that Ribadu’s office imported large quantities of thallium sulphate. The Federal Government responded with charges linked to unlawful interception and national security concerns. After initially being held by the EFCC, El-Rufai has now been transferred to the ICPC as the financial investigation widens. Ribadu has not publicly addressed the specific allegations. Nigerians react — loud and divided Across the country, opinions remain sharply split. Jacob Popogbe, a social commentator, was blunt: “If not for bad politics, I can’t imagine anyone trusting El-Rufai with power after Kaduna.” At Area 1 motor park in Garki, supporter Mubarak Olatunji pushed back: “Mallam El-Rufai’s light will overcome darkness.” On X, political strategist, Nawas Masood, said early reactions were sympathetic: “Many first thought it was political because he left APC. But when people revisit his record, views begin to shift.” Near Berger junction Abuja, Shuaib Ismail Bundu questioned the government’s motives: “Is it not worrying if security agencies are being used against opposition figures?” Kaduna-born blogger Aisha Mohammed offered a cautious view: “For Governor Uba Sani to remain quiet while his political godfather faces pressure from anti-graft agencies, it suggests one of two things: Either the money cannot be traced, or the story is more complicated than what we are hearing.” Policy researcher Wilson Akusiobi in Garki focused on the poisoning allegation: “If such a serious claim was made about thallium sulphate, why has there been no independent probe?” Engineer Ira Habib framed the moment politically: “Many defending or attacking him (El-Rufai) today once stood with him. Nigerian politics forgets quickly.” Public affairs commentator Chinedu Okafor was more reflective: “His former allies are now his adversaries, and the people who might defend him today are those he once fought.” Still at the centre From his Senate showdown in 2003 to his current multi-agency probe, El-Rufai has clashed with lawmakers, presidents, communities, allies and successors. Yet even under investigation and facing widening scrutiny, he continues to dominate political conversation in Abuja and beyond. Back in Mpape, Iorngu Terkura says she no longer follows politics closely. Survival takes most of her time. But she still remembers the day everything changed in Jabi. “In Nigeria, government decisions reach the poorest people first,” she said, adjusting the pot on her stove. Whether history ultimately casts El-Rufai as a reformer who moved too forcefully or a political warrior who made too many enemies, one reality remains clear: For more than two decades, he has turned confrontation into influence. And even now, moving between investigators, allies thinning, critics growing, the man from Zaria remains exactly where he has always been most visible: At the centre of Nigeria’s political storm Vanguard News Nigeria