The
roforofo fight between Governor El-Rufai of Kaduna State and Labour Leaders have come and gone. Let us assume that is phase 1 because both parties had to sheathe their swords only upon the intervention of the Federal Government. While the standoff lasted, hateful words were hauled back and forth. ElRufai became Hell Rufai, and the Labour Leader was labelled a fugitive from the law and a bandit. Over and above, what we saw in Kaduna was a clash of ideologies… and that makes the issue very symbolic for the wellbeing of the soul of Nigeria, and indeed a sign of things to come, given that El-Rufai heads up a faction of APC middle-aged men who believe they are smart and are angling for the presidency in 2023. Kayode Fayemi is his sidekick. The arrogance with which Governor Nasir wanted to ‘waste’ civil servants in Kaduna was taken out of a neoliberal playbook. As elegant as the ideology looks on the surface, it has held Nigeria down and dragged her backwards since the days of General Babangida in the 1980s. One should have thought that with the vast exposure of Nigerians to education, we should have stepped away from practising what Lant Pritchett and Matt Andrews at Harvard called Isomorphic Mimicry – like when a country tries to act like what she is not because leaders believe they have arrived.