Ibrahim Soba
There is a recurring tendency in Nigerian politics that reveals itself whenever a powerful figure finds himself confronting institutions he once wielded with ease. The moment accountability approaches, the language changes. The vocabulary of law suddenly gives way to the vocabulary of victimhood. Allegations become persecution; legal processes become vendettas; scrutiny becomes conspiracy. And perhaps most remarkably, those who once celebrated the hard edges of power begin to discover the soft poetry of civil liberties.
It is a familiar script. One has seen it before, and one is seeing it again in the recent arguments surrounding former Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai.
The attempt by some supporters to cast El-Rufai as a victim of political persecution deserves closer examination, not because political persecution is impossible in Nigeria; history teaches otherwise, but because not every encounter with the law automatically transforms a public figure into a political martyr.
There is a difference between prosecution and persecution. The distinction matters.
No democratic society can endure if public office becomes a permanent insurance policy against scrutiny. The rule of law loses its meaning if the mere mention of investigations involving influential personalities immediately triggers allegations of witch-hunting. Public service cannot be reduced to a system in which accountability applies only to the obscure and the powerless while the prominent and politically connected become untouchable.
El-Rufai is not above the law. That simple statement should not be controversial. It should be self-evident. Yet in recent weeks, some voices have spoken as though asking questions of a former governor constitutes an assault on democracy itself. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Democracy is not endangered when institutions examine the conduct of former office holders. Democracy is endangered when such examination becomes impossible.
The proposition being advanced in some circles is that the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu sees El-Rufai as a political threat and is therefore determined to neutralise him. The argument is dramatic, but drama is not evidence. One searches for the logic and struggles to find it.
Political systems generally do not expend enormous energy suppressing individuals they regard as electorally overwhelming. More importantly, there is little objective basis for the suggestion that either President Tinubu or Governor Uba Sani spends sleepless nights worrying about Nasir El-Rufai’s political shadow.
Politics, after all, is ultimately measured not by social media noise or television appearances but by actual influence among actual voters.
And nowhere should that influence matter more than Kaduna State itself. The reality of Kaduna since May 2023 presents a different picture from the one painted by those eager to construct a narrative of political fear. When Senator Uba Sani assumed office as governor, he inherited a state burdened by significant challenges. Security anxieties, social fragmentation, fiscal pressures and deep public mistrust had become defining features of the environment.
Kaduna’s difficulties were not inventions. They were visible realities confronting ordinary citizens. Banditry and kidnapping had affected communities. Agricultural activities had suffered disruptions in several areas. Economic pressures were evident. Social divisions carried long histories and deep emotional consequences.
Rather than devote his tenure to perpetual explanations of inherited constraints, Uba Sani chose another route. He focused his political energy on rebuilding confidence.
Across the state, efforts have increasingly centred on inclusion, reconciliation and institutional stability. Public conversations have shifted toward restoring trust between communities and reducing long-standing fault lines that had too often shaped political life.
Equally significant has been the emphasis on fiscal prudence and economic restructuring. Governance eventually reveals itself not in speeches but in outcomes. Governments inherit problems; history remembers how they respond to them.
The political mood in Kaduna today increasingly appears less concerned with yesterday’s quarrels and more interested in tomorrow’s possibilities.
That reality makes the suggestion that El-Rufai constitutes an overwhelming political threat rather difficult to sustain. If anything, the argument sometimes resembles wishful mythology more than political analysis.
Even more curious is the recent attempt by the so-called El-Rufai Support Group Association to internationalise the matter by reportedly engaging a Washington-based advocacy organisation to draw global attention to what it describes as concerns regarding due process and democratic standards. One struggles to avoid a smile.
The implication appears to be that international institutions should now be mobilised because a former governor faces legal scrutiny within his own country. But advocacy abroad does not automatically strengthen arguments at home.
No amount of lobbying in Washington can substitute for judicial proceedings in Abuja or Kaduna. Courts determine legal questions; public relations campaigns do not. The suggestion that Nigeria’s democratic future somehow hangs on the legal circumstances surrounding one individual appears rather exaggerated. Nigeria is bigger than any governor, former governor or political personality.
Its institutions must be bigger too. If there are legitimate concerns regarding procedure, those concerns should be addressed within the framework of the law. If there are questions regarding fairness, courts exist precisely to examine such questions.
But elevating every legal difficulty involving a politically exposed individual into evidence of democratic collapse risks trivialising genuine cases of institutional abuse.
The language of persecution should be used carefully because history contains examples of people who truly suffered persecution.
There were individuals imprisoned merely for opposing military governments. There were journalists detained for publishing uncomfortable truths. There were activists harassed because they challenged power itself. Words matter. To use the language of persecution casually risks emptying it of meaning.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this entire debate is that it reveals something larger about Nigerian political culture.
Too often, we personalise institutions. We interpret legal processes through friendships and rivalries. We assume that every development must conceal hidden political calculations. We search endlessly for puppeteers behind every curtain.
Sometimes conspiracies exist. Sometimes they do not. Sometimes a legal process is simply a legal process.
The measure of democratic maturity is not whether powerful people face scrutiny. The measure is whether institutions function fairly while they do so. If allegations exist, they should be tested. If evidence exists, it should be examined. If innocence exists, it should emerge. That is how law works. Or at least that is how it ought to work.
None of this requires hatred toward El-Rufai. None of it requires denial of his contributions to public life or refusal to acknowledge his significance in Nigeria’s political history. But political prominence certainly does not confer sainthood.
Nigeria cannot simultaneously demand accountability and reject it whenever accountability approaches the powerful. The tears presently being shed in some quarters would perhaps carry greater moral force if they were less selective.
For what democracy ultimately requires is not protection for individuals from institutions. It requires protection for institutions from individuals. That distinction, inconvenient as it may be for some, makes all the difference. The incontrovertible fact is that Mallam Nasir El-Rufai is being given the opportunity in the law court to account for his actions while he served as the Governor of Kaduna State; that I dare say is not political persecution. No one is above the law. Certainly not Mallam Nasir El Rufai.
Dr. Soba, a university teacher, writes from Zaria, Kaduna State.
