3. Nasir El-Rufai
Any avid follower of Nigerian politics will know that the pint-sized incumbent Governor of Kaduna State has always had an eye for the Presidency. El-Rufai came into public consciousness as Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, prior to that, he had served as Director General of The Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE).
Born on the 15th of February 1960, El –Rufai attended Secondary School at the prestigious Barewa College, where he graduated at the top of the class, 1976. Incidentally, At Barewa College Zaria, it is said that the former President Umaru Yar’Adua was the House Captain of Mallam Smith House which was Nasir’s dormitory as a junior. Nasir also attended the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, earning a Bachelor in Quantity Surveying degree with First Class Honors. He also attended post-graduate programs at Harvard Business School and Georgetown University
In 1982, El Rufai and a few of his associates setup a Quantity Surveying and Project Management Consulting firm. It was in this line of work that he met incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari in the 90’s while the later served as head of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF). As FCT Minister, he presided over an infrastructural revolution in the capital city and transformed a bureaucracy earlier riddled with corruption and vast deviation from the original master-plan. With the establishment of the Abuja Geographic Information System within 12 months in office, Abuja became the first municipality in Nigeria with a computerized land register and information system.
During the later part of the Obasanjo administration, the former EFCC Chairman described El-Rufai as the “de facto No. 2 official”. He had effectively taken over the role of Vice President after the fall-out between the former President and his Vice-President Alh. Atiku Abubakar On the flip side, El-Rufai is a man that courts immense controversy, his tenure as Governor has been marred with his shoddy handling of the security crisis in Kaduna. He has also built a reputation as a Northern hardliner with little tolerance for opposition and criticism as shown the arrest and detention of Chocolate City Boss Audu Maikori. His infamous religious vetting law has not won him any friends among the Christian community.
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