Former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, has said that it is too early to judge the performance of the Bola Tinubu government.
According to him, the administration is just about nine months in office and so needs some time more.
This is as he, however, said the Federal Government was now paying more for fuel subsidy than before.
“It (the Tinubu administration) has been there just for nine months now,” he observed, adding, “Leadership is a work in progress.”
El-Rufai, whom some believe is no more in a very intimate relationship with Tinubu, based on the intrigues surrounding the failure of his ministerial nomination during screening at the National Assemble, disclosed this while speaking with newsmen after delivering the lead paper at a capacity-building workshop on Enhancing Skills of Government Officials in Policy Implementation and Productive Human Resource Management for political appointees in Maiduguri on Monday.
He added on the subsidy matter, “The federal government is now subsidizing fuel; many people don’t know this.”
Applauding the policy, El-Rufai added, “It is a right policy. I have always supported the withdrawal of oil subsidy; but in the course of implementing the policy, the government realised that subsidy has to be back; right now, government is paying a lot of money for subsidy, even more than before.
“You start implementing a policy because you are absolutely sure it is the right policy, but in the course of implementation, you come across bottlenecks, and you modify.
“The keyword in leadership, in my view, is pragmatism. You should be pragmatic. So when you make a policy, you start implementing it, and it doesn’t seem to work well. You should have the humility to stand back and say this is not working, and you modify it.”
Meanwhile, the former Kaduna governor also took a swipe at the critics of President Bola Tinubu’s administration over leadership deficit, accusing them of hasty judgment.
Stressing further, the former Kaduna governor maintained, “Leadership is a continuous thing, and you cannot judge someone who has four years in just nine months.”
He, however, charged Nigerians to pray for their leaders for God’s guidance.
