El-Rufai and the SDP May Be a Worthy Political Option
By: Deji Yesufu
When Ibrahim Babangida, former military president of Nigeria, published his memoirs recently, the Nigerian nation went agog. Most commentaries on the book were extreme: there was simply no middle line to the subject. It was either the writer hated Babangida’s guts or they loved him intensely. My position on the book is a middle line. I might have reached this position because I cannot say that Babangida’s actions affected me negatively when he was in government. When IBB was in power, I was a young Yoruba boy schooling in the far north, at Ahamdu Bello University, where I obtained my primary, secondary, and tertiary education. So, I find myself torn between the moral allegiance to my tribe – the Yorubas, whose decision to annul the June 12 elections IBB robbed, and the Hausas – whom I remain eternally grateful for affording my family and me a well-rounded education. One lesson that I take away from Babangida’s book is something I would like to call the mystery of history. Time has a way of helping all of us to heal.
Most of the bad blood that follows the Nigerian civil war, and that is demonstrated through the insurgency of IPOB and groups like them, are the retelling of a one-sided story. If these individuals have the opportunity to live with the “other side” and hear their own story, it is very possible they will have a change of perspective. Babangida’s book showed one reality: Nigeria is the creation of the British under the gracious providence of the Almighty God. Nigeria is an excellent idea – the day we get governance right, we will save the world. Nigeria is therefore worth investing in, and this is what the British sought to do when the likes of Obafemi Awolowo and his Action Group began to call for self-government. The fact is that this country was not ready for self-rule when we asked for it, but the British granted it because they were running short on their investment in Nigeria and they needed to preserve those resources for their own country too.
Another reality that Babangida’s book showed me was that while the likes of the Action Group had shown the world that they could handle modern government systems, other politicians were not sufficiently mature to do the same. So the moment we gained independence, this country simply began to slide from bad to worse, which all culminated in a thirty-month civil war. The Nigerian civil war produced two kinds of people – the dead and the living dead. The dead were those who were killed during the conflict. The living dead were those who emerged from the conflict but had been eternally scarred. Some of the individuals in this latter group would be the young men who fought the war. One such young man was Ibrahim Babangida. If you read the book carefully, you will understand that the policies that all the military governments implemented after 1970 were all done with one motive in mind: not to return to the chaos of the first republic.
The boys in the barrack understand that if the politician messes the polity up again, it is they, the soldiers, that will again be thrown into a war, where they will be forced to kill their own brothers who they had shared barracks with in the past. A kind of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was what propelled the likes of Muritala, Obasanjo, Buhari, and Babangida when they led the country. The chaos of the first republic was seen in the fact that Nigerian politicians simply could not organize themselves in free and fair elections. It was either rigging was widespread, thugs were employed to mar election processes, or opponents were assassinated; or political groups made their homestead inaccessible to rival political parties. So, every time the boys in the barrack saw that things were about to go haywire, they employed extreme measures. They could either plan a coup and overthrow an existing government – with the potential danger that the coup could fail; or they would cancel elections. The only thing the boys in the barracks requested from the politicians was this: guys, behave yourself. This brings me to El-Rufai.
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I met Mallam El-Rufai sometime in 2012 when he came to Ibadan to promote the sale of his book in Booksellers, Dugbe. He was no different from the El-Rufai you see in the newspapers. Diminutive. Sharp-witted. Intelligent. Humorous and kind. I got a copy of his book, The Accidental Public Servant, and read it like a Bible afterwards. I stood on the line and got the book personally signed by him. I also stood by and watched as Edmund Obilo, our local media figure here in Ibadan, interviewed him. I cannot remember what Obilo might have asked him that triggered this statement from him, but suddenly Mallam raised his eyebrow and said “…oh, are you one of those who believe that Northerners think they are the only one born to rule Nigeria?” In other words, the former Governor of Kaduna State does not believe that only northerners should rule this country. El-Rufai expressed these sentiments again when he granted an interview to Arise TV in 2025, after years of not granting TV interviews to any media outlet. He stated that where he fell out with the northerners in the run-up to the 2023 elections was the position that Northern Nigeria has led this country for eight years under Muhammadu Buhari.
It only makes perfect sense that power should go to the South. He said that power may go to the East or West – but certainly not the North again. I believe that this position he took was endeared to Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who at that time had enough incline that Buhari might wish to hand power to a northerner like him. His famous “emi lokan” speech in Abeokuta was a reaction to this reality – and not necessarily an espousal of a selfish personal agenda. Today, El-Rufai has ditched the All Progressive Congress (APC) and joined the Social Democratic Party (SDP). El-Rufai gave his reasons in that interview with Arise News: he made it clear that the APC lacked internal democratic norms; he said that one money bag had stolen the party – he made it clear that money bags will be unable to steal the machinery of a political party if all members gave their dues faithfully. As far as I am concerned, I think El-Rufai is right and he was worth giving a listening ear. I will now explain how I reached this position.
I will call myself an accidental politician – if I could employ Mallam El-Rufai’s expression too. My primary calling is to Christian ministry. In recent times when I go out on evangelism, I cannot help but notice the deep hunger on the streets. Many times, my team and I have to buy people food before they can give us a listening ear. It then occurred to me that we are hungry in this country because we have not been farming our lands. Many of us have acquired education and headed into the cities to get white-collared jobs – looking at a vocation like farming as beneath us. We have left the farms to illiterates, who are still using hoes to work the ground. It occurred to me that everybody eats grains and vegetables every day – yet none of us wish to be involved in its production. We have created a situation where scarce resources are chasing scarce goods – that is a simple recipe for inflation.
Now as I thought about these phenomena, I remember the reason why the government of Obafemi Awolowo was so successful: they took farming seriously. The Action Group did not get a dime from oil; they got all their wealth from farmers who produced cocoa and palm kernel, and they built a thriving Western Region from these two crops alone. Cocoa House still stands in the middle of Ibadan as a testament to such visionary leadership. My last epiphany on politics was when it occurred to me that even the Western countries Nigerians are fleeing to in droves have thriving agriculture. “If we do not work the land, we will flee from it…” are the thoughts that ruled my mind recently. Therefore, how can you and I return back to a time when politics worked hand in hand with agriculture in Nigeria? Is there something we can learn from Obafemi Awolowo and the Action Group? Mallam El-Rufai may be the man who has stretched his hand across the Niger River to offer answers to these questions.
My essay is made even more urgent by the fact that after years of bad leadership, progressive-minded individuals might come to the wrong decision that all politicians are bad. There is no doubt that Governor El-Rufai is not a saint – neither is any of us. What this man is doing is that he is offering all of us another option to the political question. It is clear that not one person can rule this country by himself – Nigeria is way too large and this is the reason why single-person candidature may be discouraged by our electoral processes. If we win elections in this country, two regions of the country must team up together. Bola Tinubu came to power when he rose from Lagos and joined up with Nigerians in the North. Similarly, if any of us will come to power, we must work with another region. I suggest that El-Rufai is a viable option. The Social Democratic Party has not been in the news since the days of M.K.O Abiola but it is clear that it is usually a powerful political figure that brings light to a political party, in the same manner that Peter Obi brought light to the Labour Party. Whether we agree with El-Rufai’s style or not, what is clear is that this country is in dire need of a new political dispensation; we need good governance; we need a few good men to lead us; and one of such men might be Mallam El-Rufai. I believe he is a worthy political option.
Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY and VICTOR BANJO.
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