These are reasons grave enough why the Nasir El-Rufai leak of the importation of 10 kg of lethal thallium sulphate must be taken very seriously by Nigerians. No government must be trusted.
Very few Nigerians are as audacious as diminutive former Federal Capital Territory minister and former governor of the crisis hotbed Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai. What El-Rufai lacks in body weight and height, he more than made up for in audacity. He could challenge hell to its face. And he has done that. He is the first minister to dare those who think they own Nigeria and therefore can do anything, whether legal or illegal. With an order from former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, Nasir El-Rufai demolished all structures that were not erected according to the plan of the capital city, including churches and mosques. The high and mighty threatened him, but he stood his ground and did his job. The late President Umaru Yar’Adua searched heaven and earth for anything, just anything, to nail him to but found nothing. El-Rufai returned to Nigeria triumphantly after the demise of Umaru Yar’Adua. El-Rufai leaked many secrets about how Umar Yar’Adua and his cabal planned to keep Nigeria in the hands of an oligarchy.
For example, there was a plan by that cabal to get former governor of Bauchi State, Isa Yuguda or Turai, the wife of Yar’Adua, to take over the presidency after Yar’Adua without any constitutional order. El-Rufai leaked that. He also leaked the actual cause of death of Yar’Adua and got Nigerians to know when the former president became brain dead. When El-Rufai leaked all this, he was not in Nigeria. He was abroad in self-exile. And that proves the man’s capacity to access government secrets.
In other words, El-Rufai has tentacles everywhere, and he predicted whatever is happening. He told the story of an unnamed woman who called him from abroad and leaked a secret plan of government against him. The woman was unknown to El Rufai but told him that he was the person that made her have a house in her life because of his honest and transparent housing policy as FCT minister. That was why when the woman, a staff member at the Aso Rock, got that document, she felt she owed the duty of protecting him by leaking it.
But now, when driven by his unguarded mouth, Nigerians have totally forgotten the good things that El-Rufai did in government. I’m yet to come across any positive thing written about him since he committed a verbal gaffe in his statement on Arise Television that he has persons who eavesdrop on the conversations of the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, and told Nigerians that it was not the President, Bola Tinubu, that asked the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to arrest him at the airport but the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu. I have also written a criticism of El-Rufai because I think he fell because he was proud. No doubt in the course of his tour of duty as a government official, he had offended many people, and therefore there are many who have been waiting for his downfall, and they think they got it now. Poor El-Rufai. One thing must not be overlooked, however bad El-Rufai may be made to look in his current trouble, and that is that Nigerians must not throw the baby out with the bathwater, which is what many writers are doing currently. Some, in a bid to flatter the president, are attacking El-Rufai with much venom. Some to avenge the good things he did in the service of the nation, which affected them badly.
Former president Olusegun Obasanjo painted El-Rufai as a liar in his book “My Watch.” But it is uncharitable for the retired general to brand Rufai a liar. Obasanjo himself is an unabashed liar. For example, he has consistently denied that he sought an illegal third term in office. El-Rufai saw this and was indeed one of the secret kitchen cabinet committee members appointed by Obasanjo to see to the third-term project. Rather than work for him, the committee worked against him because they felt that the third-term plan would work against all the good things that the administration of Obasanjo did for Nigeria. If anybody can believe that Obasanjo is a saint, that person must be able to believe that Satan is Jesus Christ. Any man whose life is out of order with women cannot be good in all areas of his life. Such is Nigeria’s former president. President Obasanjo’s pinning the label of a liar on Nasir El-Rufai is itself a lie.
It is in this context that Nigerians must not let the passion of the moment against Nasir El-Rufai becloud their sense of judgment about Nasir’s other leak that this government imported 10 kilograms of thallium sulphate. Nasir El-Rufai did not just wake up in the morning after bowls of fura da nunu the previous night to say what he alleged about the National Security Adviser’s importation of a very toxic substance into the country. In his audacity, Rufai wrote the NSA asking him to explain the circumstances and even the identity of the supplier and the purpose to which the government plans to use the very toxic substance. Why would any reasonable person think that Rufai lied? Have people forgotten the deeds of Nuhu Ribadu at the EFCC as the attack dog of President Olusegun Obasanjo, hounding anybody that the president wanted to hack? Have Nigerians suddenly forgotten how Nuhu Ribadu became such a megalomaniac, behaving as if he were the president himself? Why do Nigerians believe that Nuhu Ribadu cannot do the same for President Bola Tinubu?
El-Rufai said in his book, Accidental Public Servant, that Nuhu Ribadu said he did not mind joining a bad group in order to climb to power and jettison that group after he achieved his aim. Couldn’t President Bola Tinubu be the instrument Nuhu Ribadu wants to use? Nuhu Ribadu has not hidden his unbridled ambition to rule Nigeria. That ambition will not work in the interest of Nigeria.
In the two years of service in the very powerful position of NSA, he has displayed an unexpected degree of ethnic and religious bigotry. In cahoots with notorious Sheik Ahmad Abubakar Gumi, the Islamic fundamentalist from Kaduna, Ribadu has pressured President Bola Tinubu to bribe the bandits and insurgents to exchange captured Nigerians for cash instead of fighting them to the last man. His embarrassing position led to the retirement of General Christopher Musa, former Chief of Defence Staff, who insisted that the bandits and insurgents must not be pampered but fought to submission. It took the intervention of the American military in a Christmas Day bombing of the armory of the insurgents in Sokoto for President Bola Tinubu to reverse his decision and bring back General Musa as the minister of defence. His equally placatory former defence minister, Alhaji Badaru Abubakar, was forced to resign to make room for the tough stance of General Christopher Musa.
Aside from that, the upcoming election of 2027 promises to be a rough one for President Bola Tinubu. His policies since 2023 have turned Nigeria into an unlivable country, as many households can no longer afford three square meals. Students from poor homes have had to leave universities and polytechnics because their parents can no longer afford the high fees charged by the institutions. The North, especially, never willing to be out of the power loop for any time since its financial survival depends on controlling the levers of power at the center, has been complaining and promising they will not vote for the president in 2027.
When Bola Tinubu campaigned for the 2023 presidency, he told Nigerians he would give them electricity and make sure they were no longer given estimated bills, which had meant the various distribution agencies reaping where they have not sown and thus fleecing helpless Nigerians. Tinubu, three years into his four-year first term, has not fulfilled any of his promises on electricity. Tariffs have been hiked, and electricity access has been stratified, giving more access to the rich at the expense of the poor. Electricity supply despite the hiked tariffs and stratification has been in fits and starts to the extent that Nigerians have given up on enjoying uninterrupted power supply.
Yet President Bola Tinubu is being deceived by his acolytes and hangers-on who spurn false statistics, including international agencies who benefit from an ever-falling naira, encouraging him, therefore, in his punishment of especially the poor in the country. If the 2027 election is free and fair, and there is credible alternative on the list of those who want to be president in 2027, President Bola Tinubu will not win that election. But Nigeria should fear all kinds of manipulations and behaviour from the president and his political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Virtually every governor in all 36 states has crossed over from their parties to the ruling party. To expect anything from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would be like waiting for Godot. The African Democratic Congress (ADC), which is an amalgam of individuals who had performed subpar in previous appointments and have even looted the treasury, offers no hope to Nigerians. Despite this weakening of the opposition, Bola Tinubu is an ambitious politician who will do anything to return to power in 2027.
So it is not impossible to think that the security apparatus of the president may have been using or preparing to employ thallium sulphate, a very odorless and lethal substance. Thallium sulphate is said to be so toxic that its sale is internationally regulated. It has been used in the past by various governments in the world to eliminate or assassinate opponents. Individuals have also used it to carry out assassinations. Killing with thallium sulphate is said to be very difficult to detect.
It is common knowledge that the man who won the 1993 presidential election in Nigeria, the late MKO Abiola, died after drinking tea in Aso Rock, the seat of power in Abuja. Doctors assembled from different parts of the West could not detect the cause of his death. People are asking whether thallium sulphate was applied in his tea. General Tunde Idiagbon, a former deputy to the late General Muhammadu Buhari during their military reign, was said to have returned to his home in Ilorin after a visit to the Aso Rock, where he drank tea. He died complaining of a stomach ache after he returned from Abuja. Could he have drunk thallium sulphate in his tea?
It has also been widely speculated that the late General Shehu Musa Yaradua, second in command to military president Olusegun Obasanjo, died after he was injected by a military doctor in prison. Nigerians are asking if it was possible that he was injected with a substance containing thallium sulphate. General Shehu Musa Yaradua died in the time of dictator General Sani Abacha, a man in whose hands many top Nigerians died, all because he wanted to transit from military to civilian rule. It was also rumoured that it took the timely intervention of the late Chief Bola Ige, a leading politician from the southwest and a close friend of Obasanjo, who, when he heard of the plan to also serve Obasanjo the same Yar’Adua treatment, sent word to Obasanjo not to take any injection. Obasanjo’s refusal to receive an injection by the doctors saved his life, according to the rumour.
There are many people determined not to allow Tinubu back in 2027. Nasir El-Rufai is part of the pack. Right now it would be daydreaming to call Bola Tinubu a democrat. He has not demonstrated anything close to being a democrat or civil activist. Many Nigerians arrested from the #EndSars demonstration in the time of Muhammadu Buhari, whom Tinubu succeeded, are still languishing in prison despite many appeals to release these youths.
Also in the same league is the jailed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) chief agitator, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, who has been at the forefront of the agitation for the secession of the Southeast region from Nigeria. Nigerians are at sea about what plans Tinubu has for Nnamdi Kanu. Out of prison or inside prison, Kanu is a sore political pain for Tinubu. A draconian government like Tinubu’s could think up anything to do to Kanu just to silence him. A slow and undetectable death may be an option. What to do with captured insurgents is also a problem. The government of the late Muhammadu Buhari was training and absorbing them into the military, which has helped the insurgents infiltrate the military. So also are the bandits. Putting them away silently through a thallium sulphate application might be an option for an ambitious government. If journalists and activists cannot be bribed, they can be dispatched secretly to the grave.
These are reasons grave enough why the Nasir El-Rufai leak of the importation of 10 kg of lethal thallium sulphate must be taken very seriously by Nigerians. No government must be trusted. And that includes this government. Nigerians should continue to interrogate the leakage, believe in the details that El-Rufai provided, and challenge the government to do more than ask the Department of Security Service (DSS) to investigate. DSS is an agency of government under the coordination of Nuhu Ribadu, the man at the center of the allegation. Nobody should expect the DSS to do any good and objective job. And an independent body of known and credible civilian experts will do. Nigerians must not go to sleep. There is fire on the mountain.
First Published in METRO
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Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos.
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