Our Reporter, New York
Former Executive Chairman of the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Dr. Sam Amadi, has said that Nasir el-Rufai should not have been nominated as a minister because the former Kaduna State governor was too divisive.
The Harvard University-trained scholar, while speaking with 90Minutes Africa’s Rudolf Okonkwo, expressed surprise that former FCT Minister would be nominated by the Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s government in the first place.
“He shouldn’t have been nominated. Many Nigerians are mistaken about leadership. Nasir ell-Rufai no doubt has the technical competence, brilliance, and capacity to deal with difficult issues, but he lacks the central political skill to build community,” Amadi said in reference to the former minister of the Federal Capital.
The former aspirant for the Labour Party governorship ticket in Imo State said that although Mallam el-Rufai achieved some development projects as governor, he left Kaduna State greatly divided.
“Nigeria is at a point where security and national cohesion should be the central thing because you must have a country before you can talk about making anybody a minister,” the Law Professor said.
Mallam Nasir el-Rufai was among the first batch of twenty-eight ministerial nominees submitted to the Senate for screening and confirmation. However, three nominees, including the former Kaduna State governor, among forty-eight, failed to secure the nod of the Senate to become ministers in the Tinubu government. The Senate president, Godswill Akpabio, said the reason for withholding their confirmation was because the nominees didn’t have security clearance.
But Dr. Sam Amadi believes that the idea of security clearance might have been deliberately designed to block the confirmation of Mallam El-Rufai.
“This is just a foretaste of the level of maneuvering that we might see as we continue in this journey,” the social commentator posited.
