Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai is a Nigerian politician who has served as Kaduna State’s governor since 2015. From 2003 to 2007, he served as the Federal Capital Territory’s Minister and Bureau of Public Enterprises’ Director. He was one of the founders of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Table of Content hide 1Biography 2Career 3Nasiru El-Rufai as Minister 4Nasir El-Rufai as Governor 5Achievements 6Family 7ConclusionBiography
Nasir El-Rufai was born on February 16, 1960, in Daudawa, Katsina, to a Fulani family. When he was eight years old, his father passed away. An uncle in Kaduna supported him throughout his early education.
El-Rufai attended Barewa College, Zaria, Kaduna State, for his education. President Umaru Yar’Adua served as the house captain of his dorm while a junior in college. In 1976, he received the “Barewa Old Boys’ Association Academic Achievement” Trophy for graduating at the top of his class. El-Rufai studied quantity surveying at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, where he graduated with first-class honours.
He graduated from Ahmadu Bello University with a Master of Business Administration in 1984. Since then, he has taken many professional and post-graduate courses, including those at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., United States, as well as courses on leadership and privatisation.
He graduated with a law degree from the University of London in August 2008, and a master’s in public administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in June 2009. After serving as an Edward A. Mason Fellow in Public Policy and Management for 11 months, from July 2008 to June 2009, he also received the Kennedy School Certificate in Public Policy and Management.
Career
He established El-Rufai & Partners in 1982, a quantity surveying consulting company with three partners that he ran until 1998. The company received building and civil engineering contracts from 1983 to 1998’s military juntas, including those for Abuja’s construction, making the partners young millionaires. El-Rufai worked as a manager for AT&T Network Systems International BV and Motorola Inc., two global telecommunications firms, in addition to his private practice.
General Abdulsalami Abubakar appointed El-Rufai as an economic counsellor in 1998 when General Sani Abacha, the military head of state, passed away. He collaborated with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in this capacity.
The military handed up control to President Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999. He was named Director of the Bureau of Public Enterprises and Secretary of the National Council of Privatization in November 1999, and together with Vice President Atiku Abubakar, they oversaw the privatisation of major state-owned enterprises.
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Nasiru El-Rufai as Minister
He was named the Federal Capital Territory’s Minister in July 2003. During his administration, the federal capital, which had previously been rife with corruption and had significantly deviated from the original master design, underwent a major overhaul. The capital of Nigeria, Abuja, became the first municipality in Nigeria to have a computerised land registration and information system with the creation of the Abuja Geographic Information System.
He oversaw the restructuring of the Nigerian public service, which had degenerated into dysfunction over years of military dictatorship, along with the President and other members of the Economic Management Team.
He oversaw the federal ministries of Commerce (twice) and Interior at various points throughout his tenure as Minister. Additionally, he presided over numerous prominent cabinet committees that helped develop the Nigerian mortgage system, the National ID card system for Nigeria, the country’s electricity supply improvement, and the sale of Federal Government property in Abuja.
He returned to Nigeria in 2010, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) detained him. He explained that he was returning to clear his name of any corruption allegations. El-Rufai entered party politics in 2011 and worked with the Congress for Progressive Change to support Muhammadu Buhari’s presidential campaign. He was elected the All Progressives Congress’s deputy national secretary in 2013.
Nasir El-Rufai as Governor
El-Rufai announced his candidacy for governor of Kaduna State in 2014. He participated in the APC governorship primary and won. He defeated the incumbent governor, Mukhtar Ramalan Yero, who was running as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate and won the governorship race with more than a million votes. He again became the APC’s governorship contender in 2018. On March 9, 2019, he won re-election, surpassing his nearest challenger by more than 200,000 votes.
El-Rufai took office as Kaduna State’s 22nd governor on May 29, 2015. He announced in his first speech that he and his deputy would reduce their compensation by half until the state’s financial situation improved. El-Rufai declared that Kaduna State would embrace the Treasury Single Account policy by September 1 of the same year as one of his first official acts as governor on August 6, 2015. Four hundred and seventy accounts belonging to various ministries, departments, and agencies were closed after the operation, and N24.7 billion in lost funds were recovered and transferred to the Kaduna State Government TSA at the Central Bank of Nigeria.
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Achievements
El-Rufai has attained a lot of achievements as the Governor of Kaduna State. El-Rufai also overhauled the Kaduna State public service, cutting the number of permanent secretaries from 35 to 18 and ministries from 19 to 13. El-Rufai selected only 13 commissioners, 10 special advisers, and 12 special assistants as opposed to the 24 commissioners, 41 special advisers, and over 400 special assistants chosen by the previous administration in an effort to cut the expense of governance.
El-Rufai has started a thorough school reform as governor to revitalize the educational system, which has fallen into disrepair. El-Rufai fired over 22,000 unqualified primary teachers. El-Rufai’s administration started the School Feeding Programme to give one free meal a day to 1.5 million students enrolled in state-run primary schools. Additionally, he ended the collection of taxes and fees in Kaduna’s public primary and junior secondary schools, relieving parents of a N3 billion financial burden.
Twelve inmates in Kaduna State received pardons from El Rufai; some received them because they were elderly, and 10 were concluding their sentences. He also commuted the death penalty to life in prison for one prisoner.
Family
Hamza El Rufai, Yasmin El Rufai, Biikisu El Rufai, Mustapha El Rufai, and Ahmed El Rufai are the five children El-Rufai has with his three wives namely Hadiza, Asia and Ummi.
His first wife Hadiza, is a popular writer while Asia is a lawyer and Ummi an interior decorator.
The Yasmin El-Rufai Foundation (YELF), established in memory of their daughter, who passed away in 2011, is run by El-Rufai and his first wife, Hadiza Isma El-Rufai, a writer and novelist.
Conclusion
El -Rufai is dedicated to serving the people of Kaduna State to the best of his abilities.
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