There are some lessons to take home from President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent visit to Kaduna State. First is that the President is ready to turn the tide in support of those who support him. That is obvious from Buhari’s decision to fly from Banjul, where he had gone to be part of ceremonies marking the second-term inauguration of Adama Barrow’s government, to land in Kaduna when some had concluded that he would snub, and shame, Governor Nasir El-Rufai.
In honouring El-Rufai, Buhari showed appreciation for the work the governor has done in positively affecting the Kaduna landscape. Most people in the state believe, and agree, that El-Rufai has inscribed his name boldly in the development index of the state, like he did in Abuja when he was FCT Minister. In Abuja, many still look back with nostalgia when they recount his time as minister. So, it is not surprising that he has been able to captivate many with his developmental strides in Kaduna. I sneaked into Kaduna last August and stayed somewhere around 1 Division Headquarters. I could feel the state of the road within that area. They were classy. My host took me around town and said, “Kaduna is now better. El-Rufai has done a lot of work here. If you go to Kawo area, you won’t recognize the place again.”
However, Buhari made remarks that expressed how pleased he was with El-Rufai’s doings in, and for, Kaduna State. For instance, he said, “Most of my visits to Kaduna State since 2015 have been in connection with clear strides of progress. I was here in 2017 to commission the hatchery and feed mill project of Olam, a multinational agribusiness company that has sited a major factory in Kaduna. In August 2019, I had the honour to commission Phase 2 of the Zaria Water Project and a road project. Therefore, I am not surprised that Malam Nasir El-Rufai and his team have undertaken such a major investment in infrastructure development. I am glad to say I have seen with my own eyes the remarkable changes across all the three senatorial zones.”
Buhari also said, “Since my arrival, I have commissioned many completed projects across the zones, and I look forward to commission more and more projects. I wish to commend the Kaduna State Urban Renewal Programme for its sheer audacity, breadth of imagination and quality of project execution. Projects under this programme have been described as an unprecedented investment in urban infrastructure in the state. When completed, these projects will define the city of Kaduna for the next 50 years.”
El-Rufai was born in 1960, as he claims; I was not there when he was born. He is 61 this year. Fifty years more and he will be 111 years. If he is still here then, he would be in such a state that none of the infrastructure he is developing today would be of any beneficial, or enjoyable, use to him. So, when Buhari projects into Kaduna in the next 50 years, he is not talking of a Kaduna for the likes of El-Rufai. He is, rather, lauding and encouraging the governor and all governors who are consciously and consistently planting trees whose shades they would never sit under. This is what makes the difference in leadership and futuristic insights. And this is also a challenge to all other governors, who, as Buhari said, “have direct responsibility for the quality of life of the residents of their state.”
In this regard, he said: “Kaduna State is providing an example of how this can be done.”
The remarkable thing about El-Rufai’s stewardship in Kaduna State is the attraction of about $2.8 billion in foreign investment to the state since 2015 and also increasing the internally generated revenue of the state by from N13 billion in 2015 to N50.7 billion in 2020. This comes with the World Bank ranking of Kaduna as number one on its Ease of Doing Business in Nigeria index. For me, these are not outcomes of politics but the effect of a result-driven and problem-solving administration focused on general positive impacts rather than the sort of narcissism that drives some of El-Rufai’s colleagues, past and present.
In turning Kaduna into a modern city, El-Rufai said: “This is the first time that any state in Nigeria is approaching development from a city perspective. Contemporary thinking recognizes cities as the hubs of modern prosperity. There is also a growing understanding that cities achieve more for their residents when their services are coordinated…My personal experience as one-time minister of the FCT and as governor of Kaduna State has convinced me that our cities are too critical and vital for the human experience to be treated like abandoned orphans with no single authority in charge. As the magnets for large swathes of our population, our cities must be managed to enhance opportunity, life chances and prospects for their residents.”
While this is true, it, however, has the capacity to encourage rural-urban migration, which leaves the rural communities forlorn. El-Rufai understands this and that is the reason he is also building rural access roads to boost living. For this reason, he has built 443km of township roads, 414km of intercity roads,172km of rural feeder roads and over 60km of solar streetlights in urban and rural areas of Kaduna State between 2015 and 2018. Wish most governors would copy this in truth and honesty because more of individual actions like these aggregate to general development and national growth.
Many who are happy with the pragmatism of El-Rufai in Kaduna and are eager to recommend him to a national assignment also say that there is a snag to his achievements: the problem of insecurity. The reality here is that the governor’s best, thus far, in managing the reality of insecurity as it affects his state has been blighted by the centralization of the security system of the country such that the best El-Rufai, and other governors, can do is to constantly lend support to the security agencies by way of logistics and advice. Buhari affirmed this when he said to El-Rufai that “the Federal Government notes with appreciation the support Kaduna State provides to the security agencies.”
Beyond this, El-Rufai’s decision to establish a ministry to coordinate internal security, perhaps, the first of its kind in the country, has laudably helped to drive the coordination of security challenges in the state.
He said: “We have spent considerable sums to support federal security agencies in our state in order to promote the safety and wellbeing of our people. We are implementing a safe city project, created a vigilance service to provide community-level security services and established a Ministry of Internal Security and Home Affairs to improve coordination among security agencies and intelligence sharing. We believe that further military action and more boots on the ground are needed to stop the terrorists that menace our people.”
However, the inability of state governors to be chief security officers of their state in actuality is a problem that hinders a lot of states. This calls for urgent review, and restructuring, of the foundations such that a chief security officer will, in actuality, be one. In the interim, governors will consistently hold the Federal Government to task about security challenges across their states. Otherwise, a governor like El-Rufai has openly stated his preparedness to get ruthless with bandits troubling Kaduna residents. But he is hampered by the fact that he is a chief security office of Kaduna State only on paper.