EL Rufa’i: The Emotional Intelligence Deficient Governor by Aisha Yesufu

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power-Abraham Lincoln. Nasir El Rufai the governor of Kaduna State has repeatedly demonstrated the accuracy of this statement.
As a leader, one of the qualities one must have is Emotional Intelligence and any leader bereft of it is a disaster waiting to happen. For a leader to govern effectively he or she must be able to emotionally connect with the people.

The leader must empathise with the people, place his or herself in their shoes and be able to communicate with them at the level they can understand. A leader should know the language and words to use to effectively communicate to everyone to understand and share his or her vision.


A leader with high emotional intelligence is one that no matter the situation stays level headed and is able to make decisions calmly and do not go off in a tandem and cause harm and sometimes bring disharmony. Leaders with high emotional intelligence are less likely to be involved in controversial issues and are good at handling disputes and even preventing them. Such leaders most importantly have respect for the people they lead. They learn to stoop to conquer.


The least attractive quality a leader can have is arrogance. Most especially arrogance to the people they lead. An emotionally intelligent leader would always have reverence to those he or she leads and that way would have the people they lead bend backward to give them their all.

Only an emotional intelligence deficient leader most especially a duly elected public servant would resort to insults in engaging with citizens and that is what Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna state has repeatedly done over time.

He delights in attacking those he perceives as coming against him. How a man who is so intelligent can be lacking in emotional intelligence beats one but it goes to show emotional intelligence and intelligence quotient are two different things.

How can one explain the several outbursts from Governor El Rufai as if he is compensating for something? Like one who is so insecured that the successes he has achieved in life has not been able to compensate for the inadequacies he bears. His aides on social media are the most unruly of all the aides in Nigeria.

They insult, malign, abuse and attack citizens daily. They take after their master in using the vilest of words against citizens and it is a sad case of appointees always doing the biddings of their masters and following the examples set by their masters.

The recent outburst of Governor Nasir El Rufai on Twitter where he referred to citizens as dimwits on his twitter handle @elrufai is appalling to say the least. In the tweet he wrote “ONCE & FINAL RESPONSE: I do not respond to every dimwit who never voted in Kaduna State on my TL. I am trying to govern our State & disinterested in being a public commentator/responder to publicity/follower-seeking, anonymous & jobless clowns with neither credentials nor address.

He then followed by this tweet  “AFTERWORD: The most efficient & effective way to hurt those seeking un-earned attention, cheap retweets & Twitter following is to ignore them. Depression & sychosis set in for ignored inanities & non-entities, manifesting into anger, insults & fabrications. I will forgive you!”


When did not voting in a State mean that one cannot speak about what is happening in that State? When Governor Nasir El Rufai collects the State’s allocation does he insist that only revenue generated in Kaduna State should be given to him? Why then does he feel that citizens who have not voted in his State do not have the right to speak about the State or be addressed?

How can a public servant paid with taxpayer’s money say such to citizens? How did we get to the stage that public servants feel they are our masters and will lord it over us? This is not acceptable and it is not okay that citizens are being cowered and made to fear in their country. I spoke up and told Governor Nasir El Rufai in unequivocal terms that I am not one to be bullied and saddest part is how citizens feel that I would either be harmed or properties that I have in the State would either be confiscated or razed down based on trump up charges. This is not the Nigeria of our dreams. We can do so much better than this and we deserve to be treated like citizens rather than like slaves. The day we no longer speak because of the harm we fear will come to us or to our properties is the day we cease to live!