Despite the fact that Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s government president and former governor of Kaduna state, Nasir El-Rufai, has denied rumours that he would be appointed as a minister for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), new information is emerging that points to his comeback.
El-Rufai, who previously held the FCT ministerial position from 2003 to 2007 during the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who just made the ministerial nominees of the new administration been credited with larger percentage of the all-around development of the nation’s capital placing him above other ministers that have held the position to date.
El-Rufai in May 2023 said “Once I leave a job, I don’t look back. If I leave Kaduna in 19 days, I will only visit if it becomes necessary.
“So, I don’t think about the FCT. I’ve done my bit. I don’t comment on the performance of those that came after me.”
However, many people believed that the last minister of the FCT has badly managed the power capital and people like El-Rufai are needed for it revival.
The former governor developed a reputation for tearing down “illegal” buildings while serving as FCT minister.
Mr. El-Rufai has in his time as minister ordered the demolition of hundreds of buildings within the Abuja metropolis and the satellite towns for the distortion of the city’s master plan to the chagrin of the house owners.
Over the years, observers have bemoaned the construction of numerous unlawful structures in Abuja, and many of them had hope that El-Rufai’s return would change everything.
A quantity surveyor by training, Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai worked as a consultant in the construction private sector for years. After declining several offers to join the public sector, in 1999 he became president Olusegun Obasanjo’s director general of the Bureau of Public Enterprises and Secretary of the National Council on Privatization. During Obasanjo’s second term, he served as a member of the Economic Management Team and took over as minister for the Federal Capital Territory (Abuja), where he led civil service reform and undertook the computerization of Abuja’s land register. He served briefly under President Umaru Yar’Adua. After leaving public service, he completed legal and public management training programs at the University of London and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
El-Rufai served as a two term governor of Kaduna State from 2015-2023.
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