“A closed mouth catcheth no flies.”  –Malayalam proverb

By CHIDI OBINECHE

Related News

Within the confines of government and the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC a seething cauldron is boiling.  The lid on the cover of the regime is not blown or picketed but there is a certain unease stirred by the Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai. In a tearful, unbidden letter to the president, crafted in the confusing wilds of post- victory delirium, in September 2016, the petit politician let loose his mind on the state of affairs and proposals for a clean break.
By a hand of sleight, the bubbly missive found its way to the media long after it was written. And the guessing game and buck passing on who dunnit continues. It was like a song of ice and fire; the ultimate lessons drawn when the crow commands and the captive obeys. Though it let off some goose bumps, the ugly and beautiful kind, it screams for blood, grubs, crusts, anything. It opened the APC’s tiny hells; the guns cocked and loaded waiting for someone to pull the trigger. And it was for good measure.  The party is mired in the rules of the butterfly, making the crow to call the ravens black.
The governor rued about the nest’s filth, the stealing of the salmon, and the worship of self. The crow rides a pale horse seeking direction and redemption for the government, noting that nothing is unreal and impossible as long as you can imagine like a crow. In the missive, El Rufai enjoins that honestly not all crows are ravens; that a crow is not a serpent. In him and in the letter, the nation learns from Isrealmore Ayivor’s Shaping the Dream that “ If  you don’t know where the crowd is going, don’t follow it. Get set.” The former minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT in a sullen tone tells of the pain of a strange position, of an emotion more real,  of a looming cul- de – sac, of a government in a labyrinth of time without a consciousness to get out. And was he right? He hits the president in the nuts, screeching bloody murder on latent failure.  The former boss of the Bureau of Public Enterprises is not a guileless rook by all definitions and standards.
He has been in government long enough to understand the colour of performance, the beauty of direction, the impact of principles, and the condiments needed for good governance. Flickering like flame, the stormy petrel, like the crimson crow warns that a little misstep can send the government cascading down the history lane. He may have done his bit, reminding us of the dowdy lines of Maxim  Gorky that “ Once there was a crow. It flew from the fields to the hill, from hedge to hedge, and lived its life. Then, it died and rotted away.  What’s the sense in it?”  For many, El Rufai is a Posta boy of S.M.A.R.T, that comprehensive definition of goal setting, with a brain as fecund as that of a dolphin, but he forgets Alfred Tennyson’s injunction that “ I am part of all that I have met”; that whatever choice you make makes you. But will the falcon hear the falconer? Will the government reject the sense of injury so that the injury itself disappears? El Rufai through his action is a perfect definition of an independent thinker who at all times rebuffs attempts to define him in a limiting way. He extrapolates the strain that a broken clock is correct twice a day.
He was born on February 16, 1960 in Daudawa in Faskari Local Government Area of Katsina State. His father who lived on a pension of £3 a month died when he was 8 years old and he was raised, by his uncle. He attended the prestigious Barewa College for his secondary school, graduating at the top of the class in 1976. He went off to Ahmadu Bello University, ABU, Zaria, earning a  Bachelor in Quantity Surveying  degree with first class honours.
He also attended post- graduate programs at Harvard Business School and George Town University He also holds a degree in Law from London University, and a Master’s degree in Public Administration from  the John  F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.  Married to  Ummi, Hadiza and Asia  with five children, he is the author of the Accidental Public Servant.