Astute, cerebral and by some account, even always self-confident but it has taken a phanthom security report to cut down the man many had thought would be the modern-day saviour of Nigeria’s crumbling power sector.
With domestic public supply to Nigerian homes and businesses now at an average of a mere 3,000MW (another 500MW-700MW is exported) , power supply in Nigeria is now back to 2011 levels, well below that of the worst records of disgraced former President Muhammadu Buhari.
Sector debt is at well over $2bn and piling up even higher given the adjustment in FX rates and its impact on gas price. Without anyone on hand to watch the sector for the government, Nigerians must now expect their worst fears coming to pass.
Nasir el-Rufai, by all accounts, is perhaps one of the better prepared of the nominees to the yet to be formed cabinet of President Bola Tinubu, and one able it was thought to hit the ground running given what we now know.
Sources across the gas and electricity sectors attest to the fact that he had spent the past 6 weeks calling on various public and private sector players and consultants to help him appreciate the full extent of the current challenges and opportunities in Nigeria’s gas and power value chain.
They testify that he had come to appreciate the full gamut of governance, commercial and financial factors that have manifested in the policymaking, behavioural, engineering and financial failures that today hobble both the natural gas and electricity sectors whose fate are intertwined for better or for worse.
However, a combination of political forces afraid of the former Kaduna State Governor and those with access to the president who do not want a strong man near the petroleum sector, have succeeded in shutting down his dreams for a reboot of the power sector. It is a big hit to el-Rufai’s ego and current political standing, but it may also turn out to be an infinitely bigger loss for Nigeria and its wobbling power sector.
So, what do we know. El-Rufai was personally and publicly approached to be minister by Tinubu who almost a year ago told him if and when he won, he wanted the man in his cabinet. Both of them discussed the work he will do and in particular, how to reposition energy in a nation with enviable energy endowment.
At every point, el-Rufai kept the president in the loop, briefing him about things that needed to be done. In all this time, el-Rufai had no cause to doubt the intention of the president. Before long, a collection of technocrats was assembled with some of the best consultants in the business, all with the single task of creating a strategy and plans of action for giving new life to decrepit power sector.
This team that included experts from BCG and McKinsey, recognised that the gas and power sectors had to work together much more collaboratively and under a formal policy-making umbrella. The team had lawyers, donor agency expert as well, spending hours without end to set up new, game-changing policy/strategic leadership structures capable of overseeing the fast-paced transformation that Nigeria so badly needed and needs even more now.
Firstly, there was to be a ministry of energy with a Minister of Energy and a Minister of State for Gas Development, plan to better engage the Nigerian investment community in recapitalizing the electricity sector, especially in transmission and distribution, plus a plan to divest the government’s outstanding 40% equity in DisCos.
There was also a plan to enable all these by clearing the liabilities sitting on the Discos balance sheets and challenging its exponential growth. To demonstrate total commitment at the highest levels of government, a presidential energy council chaired by the president was proposed to be created to provide the political support for the transformation of a dying sector.
In a conference room at the Villa, President Tinubu sat to receive a presentation on Wednesday, 9th August of the good work that el-Rufai and his team of experts had done, but it soon became clear that plans for a credible overhaul of the power sector had again been sabotaged at the highest levels of governance, just as they had been during the reign of Presidents Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and Jonathan. When the former Governor of Kaduna State spoke about integrating gas and power under a Ministry of Energy, President Tinubu gave the impression that he had misgivings about the idea.
In similar vein, just 24 hours before, el-Rufai had met with the President to discuss the so-called security report that had held up his Senate clearance to take office as Minister. However, the President said he knew nothing about it and promised to ascertain what was happening within 24 hours.
Yet, oddly, when the matter of Festus Keyamo flared up in the senate, a recess and a quick trip to the villa the same day by the senate President cleared up the matter and Keyamo was cleared. So why is anyone to believe that Tinubu could not and seemed unable to do anything about the cloud that was gathering against el-Rufai?
Nigeria’s is a constitutional monarchy in which the president keeps all the cards and as Abacha is reputed to have said, if an issue or public outcry goes on for weeks in Nigeria, then suspect that government itself or its agencies have a hand in it.
Where is this security report? When was it written and by whom? What exactly does it say and what is provenance of the claims it makes against the man? Did the authors of the “report” analyse its intelligence value before sending it out? And since when does the Senate President receive a security report from the DSS before the President himself?
We may never know but truth is el-Rufai being no longer a governor has become dispensable, at least in the eye of some.
So, what went wrong? What is so fearsome about el-Rufai that his fall, quite literally, from power had to be so desperately and hastily organised?
The first hint that trouble was coming for el-Rufai’s ministerial confirmation may have been the suggestion last week that a former PDP governor from one of the states had been contacted by certain interests in the APC to work with some of the senators from Kaduna to raise opposition against el-Rufai’s nomination on the Senate floor.
The senators were said to have bluntly declined even with promises of financial inducement. It is now suggested that the initial push back came from some powerful persons, two specifically, one from the north and another from the south of Nigeria who are already forming alliances on succeeding Tinubu and who see danger in el-Rufai’s ascent to the cabinet and especially being given such a prominent role in which he may succeed and become the President’s blue-eyed boy.
According to one political commentator, “any one of the governors or politicians from the north who wants to be president is afraid of Nasir el-Rufai who, if he becomes a successful energy minister, they see as a major, perhaps number one contender from the north when you talk about a successor to Asiwaju.”
Read also: Ministerial Screening: El-Rufai stopped from addressing petition against him
El-Rufai believed in power coming to the south and was quite stubborn about it and this was known by Tinubu who sought to bring him closer even before the presidential party primaries of last year. When did it become expedient to throw el-Rufai under the bus?
El-Rufai was always fearless and perhaps the only governor from the north who stood up to Buhari to firmly demand that militants be fought relentlessly and eliminated and not given amnesty, as many around Buhari including some in the military and national security establishment advocated.
Why then has it been so easy to stick the label of a religious fanatic upon him this time? Whatever it is that the man did in the last eight years he did in office, so the records should not be difficult to unearth. Yes, he was always at loggerhead with Christian leaders from southern Kaduna, but el-Rufai’s supporters say no one can back up claims that he orchestrated the violence or the senseless killings in the state in the last eight years or at any other time.
Nasir el-Rufai is surely the victim of a conspiracy that seems not to be in any way focused on advancing the national interest but on pursuing and enabling the personal interests and ambitions of very small but powerful group of people around the President. It gives great cause for concern that this can happen so early in the life of this administration.
