Nasir el-Rufai: The bloodlust of a presidential wannabe, By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

In the week in which former Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai abandoned the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to chart a different political trajectory with the Social Democratic Party (SDP), his son, Bashir, characteristically made it known that “Southern Kaduna residents will keep seeing sheghe if they continue to attack indigenous Fulani herdsmen.”

Three things about this, among many, were chilling. One is the absence of any interest in addressing the underlying problem of coexistence between communities. The second is the enthusiastic investment in violence. The third is the indiscriminate nature of the promised violence. This was not the first time that an outburst of candour from the el-rufai clan was laced with unconcealed thirst for human blood.

In January 2019, as the country prepared to go to the polls in a presidential election the following month, the administration of Nasir el-Rufai’s political benefactor, Muhammadu Buhari, guillotined then…