Apparently I am a late-comer to the party, having read El-Rufai’s book 10 years after it was published. The Accidental Public Servant chronicles Nasir El-Rufai’s life, from his humble beginnings in Kaduna, to his sojourn into the public service, culminating in his appointment as the minister of the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria (FCT) at the time, and the role he played in the failed attempt at a merger that would have become the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2011. Of course he went on to become the governor of Kaduna state later in 2015. More importantly, it gives a front-row account of happenings at the heart of government, especially during the Obasanjo era. Here is a short critique of the book.
First, the book is unnecessarily voluminous (almost 500 pages; 613 if you add the end-notes and appendices!) made up of repetitions and needless details. A seasoned author will easily compress it into 300 pages or less without missing the salient points. Second, while there were no grammatical blunders and commendably, no typographical errors, the use of the English lexicon was average and in many instances, elementary, with many feeble attempts to puff it up with fancy words.
Third and most importantly, El-Rufai misses a chief hallmark of a good author, the ability to separate one’s emotions from their story. The book is filled with emotional outbursts and the author made no attempt to control them while telling his story. An example is his description of the late Former-President Yar’adua, a man he had a raging feud with until the latter’s death. El-Rufai writes ‘….we met in late 1972. I had just been admitted to Barewa College and he had just graduated from Barewa a month earlier…His nickname was ‘Bad Man’ – he drank all the time, smoked a lot, was not a strict disciplinarian at all……He was quite bright though and despite reportedly sleeping away his two years of A-levels and mostly missing classes, he still made good enough grades to be admitted into university…..What struck me when we first met was his austere, untidy appearance and the debilitating skin disease – some kind of eczema that gave him a blotched, discolored aspect…..I concluded he was very untidy, dirty even, rarely bathing and never caring to ever dress neatly’ (Page 369). I read this and wondered if it was really necessary. This is just one example of many unprofessional, emotional outbursts.
Fourth, in much of the book, El-Rufai puts in a lot of effort to come across as altruistic. He describes himself as the live-wire of the Obasanjo administration without whom the government wouldn’t function. He referred to himself as the super-minister who at some point was delegated to the power ministry to solve the power crisis.
However, despite the aforementioned points, El-Rufai must be commended for writing the book. It is only a courageous person that will even entertain the thought of writing such an expository political book in Nigeria. It reminds me of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s Fighting Corruption is Dangerous; the difference being that while Ngozi was more restrained and withheld names where she felt it wise to do so, El-Rufai did not take any prisoners. Not only were names mentioned, locations and times of meetings, what was discussed and how much bribe was given, by whom and to whom, were all written in black and white. And in case one has any doubts, he left his readers with 80 pages of memos and private correspondence between top government officials as his way of saying ‘go and verify’.
The book was as revealing at it was expository. How else would I have known that Obasanjo shared 50 and 75 thousand USD to each Federal Rep member and Senator respectively as bribe money for his third term ambition. Or the circumstances surrounding Yar’Adua’s death and how he had nominated 3 people (his wife Turai, and two serving Northern governors who were coincidentally married to his daughters) as potential replacements. Or Atiku and his penchant for shady dealings especially during the sale of public assets.
In summary this political thriller made for a good read and I highly recommend it to anyone remotely interested in Nigerian politics. There is a caveat however. One must bear in mind that this is only one side of a story with many sides. Therefore, it must be interpreted with caution. But as long as others refuse to write their own memoirs, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.