By Moses Ochonu
Nasiru El-Rufai is Exhibit A for why people with zero emotional intelligence should never be entrusted with consequential positions of leadership.
In his wide-ranging interview with Seun Okinbaloye of Channels, Nasiru El-Rufai said “I dealt with” Southern Kaduna leaders. He also said “I dealt with the IMN [Shiites]who are Muslims like me.” He then said “I don’t care what the people of Southern Kaduna think of me.”
Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of psychology knows that whenever someone says this, they are actually bothered by the thing that they claim does not bother them.
That is by the way.
What he sought to suggest is that the people of Southern Kaduna made irrational, entitled demands on him, which he rejected. He claimed specifically that they requested fifty percent of appointments.
This is flat out inaccurate since the people of SK, who occupy one out of three senatorial constituencies, had made no such demand in even in prior PDP administrations that they helped elect nor had they been given that.
Even under the governorship of perhaps the most inclusive governor who is universally regarded as the biggest political friend of Southern Kaduna, Ahmad Makarfi, SK didn’t get anywhere near 50 percent of political appointments and never demanded it.
If he’s wondering why the people of Southern Kaduna detest him so much, perhaps he should cultivate a brief moment of humility and reexamine the humiliation he inflicted on them.
With his utterances and actions, he openly sided with the bandits and killers who were killing, maiming, and destroying freely in Southern Kaduna.
He even paid the killers and compelled the people of SK, in a final act of humiliation, to put up signboards apologizing to their killers. He later defended this on multiple national media platforms when confronted.
El-Rufai dismembered some of the chieftancies of the people of SK, the product of a decades-long struggle, and arbitrarily created new emirates in their place or parallel to them.
El-Rufai arbitrarily removed or humiliated some Southern Kaduna chiefs he deemed too independent or recalcitrant.
His tyrannical bent caused him to jail some Southern Kaduna leaders on trumped up charges that were eventually and predictably thrown out in court.
El-Rufai vindictively refused to extend any gesture or dividend of governance to Southern Kaduna, ignoring the cries of the people for protection against ethnic cleansing armed herdsmen.
He also wickedly ignored their cries for basic infrastructure. When confronted about these unprecedently brazen acts of political bigotry, he said the people did not vote for him and would never vote for him even if he selected Jesus Christ as his running mate (his own words).
He was, in other words, paying them back for their refusal to vote for him.
If El-Rufai, after reflecting humbly on how he used power to “deal with” and humiliate the SK people, still cannot see why the people can’t stand him, let him consider the following facts.
The current governor, Uba Sani, is an Hausa-Fulani man just like El-Rufai. He is an APC man just like El-Rufai was until recently. He was brought to power by El-Rufai.
Uba Sani retained the Muslim-Muslim arrangement that El-Rufai engineered as a deliberate strategy of division and ethno-religious political manipulation.
Like they did El-Rufai, the people of SK rejected Uba Sani at the last governorship election, voting overwhelmingly for his opponent, the PDP candidate.
Uba Sani has not given SK people more political appointments than El-Rufai or previous administrations did.
In fact, I am not sure that Sani has done anything out of the ordinary for or sited any signature project in Southern Kaduna.
Apart from the federal university, which is obviously a federal project, SK has not suddenly enjoyed unprecedented developmental attention from the current federal or state governments.
Yet, in two years, Governor Sani has won over a significant segment of the people of Southern Kaduna to the extent that both their elites and commoners are now praising the man and would probably vote for him in high numbers in the 2027 election.
What did Sani do? He simply accepted the people of SK as equal citizens in the state. He treated them with respect. Through his utterances, body language, and gestures, he reassured them of their membership in and importance to the Kaduna project. He made them to believe that they’re part of the sociopolitical fabric of the state.
What did Uba Sani not do? He did not talk down on the SK people like children. He did not infantilize them. He did not insult or humiliate their leaders. He did not “deal with” their leaders or threaten to do so. Instead, he engaged them, gave them respectful audience, listened to their grievances, and assured them that he would look into them.
Sani did not side with the killers of SK people or blame SK people for the attacks that have killed thousands of them, displaced hundreds of thousands, and destroyed hundreds of villages.
Sani simply assured the people of SK that even though they did not vote for him, he was still their governor and would include them in his plans, and that governance was separate from politics.
With basic emotional intelligence, he was able to compartmentalize politics and governance.
Sani has shown empathy to the SK people and has refrained from making comments that betray bigotry and ethno-religious preference for his Hausa-Fulani Muslim kinsfolk.
Governor Sani, it should be reiterated, has not departed in any substantive way from the El-Rufai template regarding Southern Kaduna, nor has he done anything memorable for the people.
Yet, in two years, he has reunited Kaduna and brought back Southern Kaduna into the Kaduna sociopolitical family. He has given the people of Southern Kaduna a new sense of belonging.
It’s not yet kumbaya, but Sani has done through emotional intelligence, empathy, and diplomatic tact what El-Rufai failed to do through vindictiveness, unintelligent and counterproductive displays of “I don’t take nonsense” toughness, divide-and-conquer religious bigotry, and tyrannical violence.
Effective leadership is 60 percent symbolism and empathetic gestures. A good leader must know when to be tough and not “take nonsense” and when to extend empathy and gestures of inclusion and reassurance to his constituents. The balance of the two makes for effective politics and governance.
The difference between the Southern Kaduna dispositions towards El-Rufai and Uba Sani is simple. Sani, whether sincerely or not, has treated SK with respect and emotional intelligence, El-Rufai did not.
Effective leaders do not write off those who did not and would not vote for them, excise them from their governing agenda, and alienate them from the social fabric of the state.
Governor Uba Sani may be El-Rufai’s “boy” and “mentee,” but El-Rufai can learn a thing or two about the fine, balancing art of politics from his mentee.
