First published in my column, #TheAlternative, in Sunday ThisDay of June 14, 2020.
Ever since I revealed that the Governor of Kaduna state had sent me an email in which Southern Nigerian women were referred to as “whores”, there have been multiple sophisticated attempts to hack my email account.
I do not know why anyone will be stupid enough to think that a meticulous record keeper as myself would leave such a sensitive detail in my inbox. For the Attention of those who are trying to hack my account, that email is with my lawyers.
The email was sent to me on Wednesday the 27th of April, 2011. The reason I chose to expose its existence is that Nasir El-Rufai is scheming to become Nigeria’s President, and in my opinion, and I am sure in the opinion of every right-thinking person, Nigeria can not afford another Buharesque autocrat who believes that the women of half of the country are whores.
This was the sentiment expressed by extremist Hutus against Tutsis and was key to dehumanising them before, during and after the Rwandan genocide.
Nasir El-Rufai is notorious for suing people at the drop of a hat. I have spoken about his email to a DeutscheWelle journalist and on my recent interview with Daddy Freeze on Nigerian Info. I relish the opportunity to be sued by Nasir El-Rufai.
Look at what is happening in Southern Kaduna. In recent weeks, Southern Kaduna men, women, children and infants were being killed by herdsmen and the Kaduna State Governor has shown that he is more interested in appeasing and of apologising for the suspected perpetrators.
The photographs of the victims are just too gruesome. It is just like a déjà vu of Dogo Na Hauwa. If you do not know what happened in Dogo Na Hauwa, in Plateau State, then Google the massacre that occurred there on March 7, 2010.
Two years later, when violence erupted again in Plateau, and it looked like it was going to lead to a reoccurrence of Dogo Na Hauwa, then President Jonathan ordered troops to go to Plateau and keep the peace. I still have chills in my spine when I recall Nasir El-Rufai’s response to the attempt by the Nigerian Army to protect Nigerian citizens.
On Sunday, July 15, 2012, Nasir El-Rufai said, and I quote “We will write this for all to read. Anyone, soldier or not that kills the Fulani takes a loan repayable one day no matter how long it takes.”
When you take into account the ferocity, and integrity of the Southern massacre killings and the ease at which the killers can raid these communities, with impunity, and sad to say, gravitas, one can’t stop asking if the loan El-Rufai mentioned on July 15, 2012 is being repaid in 2020.
And then imagine if this man gets access to power at the centre. How will he treat Southern Nigerians?
Do not forget that on Saturday July 6, 2019, El-Rufai said “We (Northerners) are generally considered to be more honest and less corrupt than other Nigerians”.
Now, you can clearly see the utter disdain that this man has for Southern Nigerians. And he is not yet President. What then will happen to we Southerners if he schemes his way to Aso Rock? We will have a ruler who thinks Southern women are “whores”, and Southern men are dishonest. Can such a person ever do right by the South?
Look at the disdain with which his son publicly treated Southerners. Calling an Igbo woman a harlot and threatening to pass her to his friends to gang rape. Children are not born to hate. They are taught to hate. We cannot be so concerned about Black Lives Matter and overlook the lives of Southerners, which obviously does not matter to this man and his family.
Derek Chauvin had his knee on the neck of George Floyd for 8 minutes and 46 seconds and Floyd died. Does Southern Nigeria think she can survive if Nasir El-Rufai puts his knee on our necks for four years? You better have another think!
The man has not hidden his utter contempt for us. It will amount to masochism on the part of the South, to sit idly by and watch as this man schemes his way to the top, despite the many Freudian slips that have exposed the bigotry burning within him and his sons.
We are currently under the yoke of a regime that told us publicly and with a straight face that ‘giving land for ranching is better than death’. Do we want to now hand over to the person that will now actualise that? Are we so much in love with death that we will go to the slaughter without resistance? Is Southern Nigeria a conquered territory? Are there no more men in the South that we will just roll on the floor and allow ourselves to be defiled?
I reject any Southern irredentism that wants to dominate Northern Nigeria. And I also vehemently reject becoming a second class citizen in a country where I fought Sani Abacha and almost died. God forbid.
I remember that former President Olusegun Obasanjo once called for a psychiatric test for anyone aspiring to be the President of Nigeria. I am almost sure that if such a test is performed on Nasir El-Rufai, the results will shock Nigeria.
And that is not hyperbole. General Obasanjo has seen a lot both in peace and in war. He has been at the top and the bottom. He was a prisoner of war in The Congo and a political prisoner under Abacha. It will take a lot to shock him. Yet, hear what he has to say about Nasir El-Rufai.
Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, who brought him to the limelight, had this to say about Nasir El-Rufai in his book: My Watch Volume 2 as follows:
“Nasir’s penchant for reputation savaging is almost pathological. Why does he do it?……I recognised his weaknesses; the worst being his inability to be loyal to anybody or any issue consistently for long, but only to Nasir el-Rufai.
He barefacedly lied which he did to me against his colleagues and so-called friends. I have heard of how he ruthlessly savaged the reputation of his uncle, a man who was like, in the African setting, his foster father. I shuddered when I heard the story of what he did to his half-brother in the Air Force who is senior to him in age.”
Is this the type of person that should be aspiring to rule over us? God forbid. God forbid. And again, God forbid.
To be forewarned is to be forearmed. I have taken great pains to expose in gruesome detail the type of man that has Nigeria in his sight. If we allow him to succeed in his schemes, we would have nobody else to blame, because a stitch in time saves 9.
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