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(Re) examining Autobiography as Social History: A Historico-Critical Reading of

Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai’s the Accidental Public Servant

Article in All Nations University Journal of Applied Thought · December 2020

DOI: 10.47987/ZMPN9744

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Volume 8/ Number 1 November 2020 Article 14

(Re) examining Autobiography as Social History: A Historico-Critical

Reading of Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai’s the Accidental Public Servant

ADEYEMI AMOS ADEGBOYEGA

ADEYEMI AMOS ADEGBOYEGA holds a Master of Arts in Literature from
Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University in Lapai, Niger State, Nigeria. He is a
Lecturer in the English Program at Bowen University, Iwo, Osun State, Nigeria.

For this and additional works at:

anujat.anuc.edu.gh
Copyright © November 2020 All Nations University Journal of Applied Thought
(ANUJAT) and Author

Recommended Citation:
Adegboyega, A. A. (2020). (Re) examining Autobiography as Social History: A
Historico-Critical Reading of Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai’s the Accidental Public
Servant. All Nations University Journal of Applied Though (ANUJAT),8(1): 199-
212. All Nations University Press. doi: http://doi.org/10.47987/ZMPN9744
Available at: http://anujat.anuc.edu.gh/universityjournal/anujat/Vol8/No1/14.pdf

Research Online is the Institutional repository for All Nations University College.
For further information, contact the ANUC Library: anujat@anuc.edu.gh
 ANUJAT/VOLUME 8/NUMBER 1/ NOVEMBER 2020/ARTICLE 14

Abstract

In literature, no form of writing aptly captures the life, times and disposition of the author to his
subject matter as an autobiography. As a fact-fiction, it centers on the author, draws from his past
experiences and dissects the events surrounding him at the time of writing. It thus becomes a social
account that can only be adequately understood within its socio-cultural cum political milieu. It is
against this backdrop that this study examines The Accidental Public Servant in relation to the
Nigerian polity. Deploying New Historicism, the study argues that autobiography reveals the
inward life of the author which hitherto the publication has been veiled from the public. It posits
that El-Rufai’s The Accidental Public Servant justifies the tenets of autobiography as a social
history in relation to his personal and social life with in Nigerian polity. The study concludes that
the book is a landmark documentation of history which challenges the mediocrity, complacency
and self-aggrandizing attitudes of political actors who had the opportunity to turn around the
fortunes of Nigeria but never did.

Keywords: Autobiography, Social History, Polity, Accidental, Public Service.

Introduction
Since it was first introduced and used in literature in 1809, autobiography or autobiographical
writings have remained very crucial to recounting events in human life. As a sub-genre of
literature, it bears the burden of history, mirrors and reflects the author’s experiences from an
inward realm and accounts for the prevailing social realities surrounding him in his immediate
environment. Greene (1971: 9), one of the earliest biographers posits that

An autobiography is only a sort of life – it may contain less errors of fact than a
biography, but it is of necessity even more selective: it begins later and it ends
prematurely. If one cannot close a book of memories on the deathbed, any
conclusion must be arbitrary. 1

1
Greene, G. (1971). A Sort of Life. London: Bodley Head.

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The autobiographer who must have come of age when he writes – later in life – uses his intuition
to select past events of his life that are related to the story he wishes to narrate in his account. When
the decision to write is made, fresh insights are imaginatively given to past events. It is with this
imagination that the autobiographer sees life as complete and wholesome for his story to be told.
Similarly, William (1974: 364-5) in ‘Some Principles of Autobiography’ submits that

An autobiography is equally a work of art and life, for no one writes such a book
until he has lived out the requisite years. During his life he remains uncertain of
cause and effect, rarely sensing the full shape or continuity of experiences. But
in writing his story he artfully defines, restricts, or shapes that life into a self-
portrait – one far different from his original model, resembling life but actually
composed and framed as artful inventions. 2

Basically, the subject matter of an autobiography covers past and present events
surrounding the author’s life. Its centrality is on the author and his dispositions to issues
surrounding him. However uncertain these events may appear to the reading populace, they are
largely based on the author’s experiences which have surely been affected by varying internal and
external factors and realities. The autobiographer manipulates these factors, realities and other
historical events to soothe his narratives. As such, historical evidences and the prowess of creative
storytelling are fused together to underscore the role of history to human existence. Weintraub
(1975: 822-3) avers in this regards that

The essential subject matter of all autobiographic writing is concretely

experienced reality and not the realm of brute external fact. External reality is
embedded in experience, but it is viewed from within the modification of inward
life forming our experience […] Autobiography presupposes a writer’s intent
upon reflection on his inward realm of experience, someone for whom this inner
world of experience is important.3

2
William, H. L. (1974). Some Principles of Autobiography. New Literary History, 5, 363-81.
3
Weintraub, K. J. (1975). Autobiography as Historical Consciousness. Critical Inquiry 1(4) 821-
48.
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 ANUJAT/VOLUME 8/NUMBER 1/ NOVEMBER 2020/ARTICLE 14

The experience of the author up to the time he publishes his autobiographical account is what in
its entirety Weintraub calls inward life. The autobiographer (who is usually the protagonist)
becomes the social object around whom all other events in the narration revolve. All these make
any autobiographical piece a reflection of the contemporary realities in the society – a social
history.
The realization that history (reality) plays a great role in shaping, understanding and
interpreting literature (fiction) underscores the importance of historical knowledge and as such
makes it imperative as it will be done in this research to consider the influence of the social cum
political context in which a book is written on its content. This makes the historian a literary artist
and vice versa. Cited in Irele (1993: 98), Conrad in Henry James: An Appreciation submits in this
regards that ‘[f]iction is history, human history, or it is nothing […] A historian may be an artist
too, and a novelist is a historian, the preserver, the keeper, and the expounder, of human
experience’. 4
Consequently, because autobiography exists in a given socio-cultural milieu and locates
the author within the same, it becomes a social account, purposively aimed at giving insights for a
better understanding of the prevailing social realities within such socio-cultural ambiance. It
becomes a social history narrated as much as possible in contemporary literary traditions. The
literariness there in is in its adoption of literary conventions such as; narrative techniques,
aestheticism and rhetorical tropes among others. Ultimately, the autobiographer performs the
function of a literary artist and for the time being becomes a creative writer (in the historical sense
of creative writing) who re-enacts history and creatively selects the events surrounding his life
which are seemingly relevant and appropriate to the story he chooses to narrate. Putting all these
together makes an autobiographical account in all ramifications artistic.
The accurate interpretation of such works – which could be in different forms such as
diaries, memoirs, personal letters, and journals – must be circumstantially done within the same
social, cultural and historical context in which it is written. The knowledge of past and prevailing
events around the polity will go a long way in placing the text within the social edifice.
Additionally, a concrete recognition of the author’s intention is germane to adequately assess the

4
Irele, A. (1993). Narrative, History and African Imagination. Narrative1(2), 156 – 172.
Retrieved on November 17, 2020, from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20107005

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 ANUJAT/VOLUME 8/NUMBER 1/ NOVEMBER 2020/ARTICLE 14

autobiographical account. This in the words of Mandel (1968: 220) is because the purpose ‘will
be the motivation […] which drives the autobiographer to his desk and which accounts for the self-
view that emerges in the work [and also] help to establish the criteria for form, scale, order and the
like’.5 Eventually, the identification and understanding of the author’s intention will go a long way
and aid in the appropriate reading and interpretation the text, having in view its target audience.
My concern here is not on the accuracy, falsity or otherwise of the message contained in the
selected autobiographical account but on the interpretation of the experiences presented by the
author in his piece.
The contention in an autobiographical account is usually the distinction between fact and
fiction. The thin and an almost unidentifiable line of distinction between fact and fiction as
represented in any work of art – especially since literature draws basically from human experience
– makes the portrayal of real life and factual events which is the goal of autobiography difficult, if
not almost impossible. Oriaku (1998: 2) says that ‘it is often difficult to say where the writers have
consciously distorted the facts to such an extent that we can question the purity of these works’. 6
Either way, an autobiographical account – a fictional representation of fact – presents information
that is important to the formation of that character and the personality of the author. It can thus be
classify as a bildungsroman, a novel genre. Philippe (1999: 245) submits in this regards that
‘bildungsroman share with autobiographies the desire to inform and give a message to their
readers’.7 This presentation in the words of Oriaku (1998: 6)

[…] may start from his childhood memories of self and advance up to his old
age or he may limit himself to a specific stage or landmark experience in his life.
In either case, his selection of a particular range of life as well as relevant

5
Mandel, B. (1968). The Autobiographer’s Art. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism,
27(2), 215 – 226. doi:10.2307/428849
6
Oriaku, R. (1998). Autobiography as Literature. Ibadan: Humanities Research Center.
7
Philippe, L. (1999). Emotion and Motion in Catherine Caswell’s Open the Door! Towards a

Female Bildungsroman. In Sophie, M. (Ed) Féminin/ Masculin: Littératures et Cultures Anglo-

Saxonnes. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes. 233 – 247.

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 ANUJAT/VOLUME 8/NUMBER 1/ NOVEMBER 2020/ARTICLE 14

incidents and experiences will be determined by his need to present a unified

view of his life or the phase (or span) of it being highlighted.8

It is pertinent to note here that most autobiographical accounts follow this rather sacrosanct
format targeted at a revelation of the personality of the autobiographer by concentrating on the
different aspects of his life as presented. This same fashion of presentation is what Nasir Ahmad
EL-Rufai’s employs in his autobiographical account, The Accidental Public Servant. EL-Rufai
uses the account in The Accidental Public Servant for the purposes of ‘self-explication, self-
discovery, self-clarification, self-formation, self-presentation and self-justification’.9 All of these
in the words of Oriaku are the ‘native milieu of autobiography’ (11) 10.
It thus become clear from the above that EL-Rufai in The Accidental Public Servant
attempts to provide justifications for his actions as a political appointee, to exonerate himself from
the image smearing and character assassination that trailed him after he left office and also provide
justifications for the downward turn of events in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, where he
served as a minister in particular and in Nigeria generally.

Theoretical Insight
The theory adopted for this study is New Historicism. New Historicism is one of the context
oriented approaches to the study of literature. Literary theorists in this school of thought do not
regard texts as an island or study them in isolation. Texts here are placed and studied within a
larger context of historical, religious, social or political backgrounds. The New Historical Criticism
theory or New Historicism was developed because there was a need for an approach that looks at
a literary text differently from the ones that existed before. Drawing from post-structuralism and
deconstruction, new historicism adds historical dimensions to the study and discussion of texts.
Klarer (1999: 93) avers in this regards that ‘history, therefore, is not regarded as isolated from the
literary text in the sense of a historical background but rather as a textual phenomenon’. 11 In the

8
Oriaku, R. (1998). Autobiography as Literature. Ibadan: Humanities Research Center.
9
El-Rufai, N. A. (2013). The Accidental Public Servant. Ibadan: Safari Books.
10
Oriaku, R. (1998). Autobiography as Literature. Ibadan: Humanities Research Center.
11
Klarer, M. (1999). An Introduction to Literary Studies. London: Routledge.

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 ANUJAT/VOLUME 8/NUMBER 1/ NOVEMBER 2020/ARTICLE 14

same vein, Abrams is of the view that new historicism interfaces between history and literature.
According to him, the historical mode which is the mainstay of new historicism is

[…] grounded on the concepts that history itself is not a set of fixed, objective
facts but, like the literature with which it interacts, a text which needs to be
interpreted; that a text, whether literary or historical, is a discourse which,
although it may seem to present, or reflect, an external reality, in fact consists of
what are called representations - that is, verbal formations which are “ideological
products” or “cultural constructs” of a particular era; and that these cultural and
ideological representations in texts serve mainly to reproduce, confirm and
propagate the power-structures of domination and subordination which
characterize a given society. (249)12

Pioneered by Stephen Greenblatt in his book, Renaissance Self-Fashioning: from More to

Shakespeare (1980)13 new historicism in some other discourses referred to as new historicism and
cultural materialism usually seeks to understand texts whether literary or non-literary historically
and places emphasis on the historical and social contexts of texts. In the words of Vince, ‘New
Historicism and Cultural Materialism seek to understand literary texts historically and reject the
formalizing influence of previous literary studies, all of which in varying ways privilege the
literary text and place only secondary emphasis on historical and social context’ (6) 14.
New Historical Criticism seeks to find meaning in a text by considering the work within
the framework of the prevailing ideas and assumptions of its historical era. Popularly called the
New Historicists, practitioners in this school of thought concern themselves with the political
function of literature and with the notion of power, the complex means by which cultures produce
and reproduce themselves. These critics focus on revealing the historically specific model of truth

12
Abrams, M.H. (1999). A Glossary of Literary Terms. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College

Publishers.

13
Greenblatt, S. (1980). Renaissance Self-Fashioning: from More to Shakespeare. Chicago.
University of Chicago Press.
14
Vince, B. Literary Theory. (2002). Retrieved from Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/literary/.

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 ANUJAT/VOLUME 8/NUMBER 1/ NOVEMBER 2020/ARTICLE 14

and authority reflected in a given work. This theory does not look at texts independently but
consider some other factors that might have influenced the writer. Delahoyde buttresses this point
by giving a further description of New Historical Criticism. He indicates that: ‘history here is not
a mere record of facts and events, but a complex description of human reality and evolution of
preconceived notions. Literary works may or may not tell us about various factual aspects of the
world from which they emerge, but they will tell us about prevailing ways of thinking at the time:
ideas of social organization, prejudices, taboos, etc’ (2).15 Doing a new historicist analysis
therefore entails understanding a text from its historical and political dimensions. The critic
examines the cultural context which covers; issues, struggles anxieties, politics and power
structures of the era in which the text was created. It is from this background that I hope to adopt
New Historicism in my engagement of EL-Rufai’s in The Accidental Public Servant.

Synopsis of the Book

The Accidental Public Servant 16 is an account that reflects the life, times and experiences of its
author, Nasir Ahmad EL-Rufai while he served in two different public capacities: first as the
Chairman of the Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE and later as the Honorable Minister of the
Federal Capital Territory, FCT. The seventeen chaptered book has a prologue, an epilogue, an
afterword, endnotes, appendixes and photo sections. The book centers on the transition of the
author from his private enterprises to the public service in Nigeria.
The author begins the story from his familial background through to his educational
background and his early debut into the private sector, a construction company. It was during these
years, which he chooses to call the formative years, that he acquired his characters and personality
traits that will sustain him when later he switches from the private sector to public service in which
he as remained up till the present serving in different capacities. He recounted his sudden or rather
‘accidental’ venture into the public service when he was appointed as a member of the General
Abdulsalami Abubakar’s transition committee in 1999. When he was subsequently appointed as
the chairman of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) by the President Olusegun Obasanjo’s led

15
Delahoyde, M. (n.d.) Introduction to Literature. Retrieved from:
http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/new.hist.html
16
El-Rufai, N. A. (2013). The Accidental Public Servant. Ibadan: Safari Books. 712 pages.
$64.88.
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 ANUJAT/VOLUME 8/NUMBER 1/ NOVEMBER 2020/ARTICLE 14

administration, his refusal to do things the “Nigerian way” got him into trouble. After the
expiration of his tenure at the BPE, he was nominated and appointed as the Minister of the Federal
Capital Territory (F.C.T). During his years as a minister, his challenges multiplied. Although he
worked assiduously with his team at the Federal Capital Territory’s administration, his refusal to
compromise his stand on the platform of friendship and acquaintances in doing government
businesses and his belief that such businesses must be in the interest of the public gave him tougher
times and more challenging troubles. Prominent among this was his stand against the third term
agenda of President Olusegun Obasanjo. All of these happened during the political administration
that spanned between 1999 and 2007.
The failure of the third term agenda, having served two consecutive terms, brought the
political administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo to an end in 2007. The events that ensued
for the author after his exit from political office in 2007 were rather devastating. He became an
enemy to the new political administration under President Umaru Musa Ya’radua. The witch-hunt
after him forced him into exile where he remained to escape arrest, secret trial and ultimately death.
While in exile for twenty-three months, between 2008 and 2010, he fought the government back
with everything he had until the radar was clear enough for him to return back to the country. He
returned home, reunites with his family, friends and associates and continued the business of
criticizing the government to make her alive to her responsibilities to the citizenry. In the end of
the book, the author who currently, at the time of this research is the executive governor of Kaduna
state, north-west Nigeria, expresses optimism that with the great natural and human resources in
Nigeria, if the problem of bad leadership can be done away with once and for all, Nigeria will be
a great nation.

A Historico-Critical Reading of the Accidental Public Servant

On the early pages of the book, EL-Rufai acquaints the reader with his familial background and
his early school life in Katsina state, northwest Nigeria. A son of a peasant farmer, EL-Rufai’s
love for and devotion to western education spurred him to achieve greatness. Perceivably, he
embarks on this to recounts his personal experiences of having to rise from grass to grace through
sheer hard-work, dedication and commitment, virtues that were relegated to the backline during

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 ANUJAT/VOLUME 8/NUMBER 1/ NOVEMBER 2020/ARTICLE 14

the military despotic rule in Nigeria. These virtues against what obtained in postcolonial military
Nigeria became for him, a life sustaining virtues. The Accidental Public Servant is a story about a
young Nigerian boy, growing up and having acquired a good educational qualification, ventures
into a private practice of quantity surveying and building consultancy.
This period coincided with the transition of Nigeria from military despotism to democratic
rule in 1999. As events gather momentum for the transition to democratic dispensation, the desire
of General Abdulsalmi Abubakar led administration in 1998 to prepare a fertile ground for the
democratic elections and subsequent hand-over to be held later in 1999 prompted the search for
committed, dedicated and hardworking Nigerians to serve in the transition committee. This search
for individuals that will guarantee a successful transition to the incoming political administration
brought the author, Nasir Ahmad l-Rufai to the limelight of the public service and politics in
Nigeria. He will later be appointed as the chairman of the Bureau of Public Enterprises BPE and
the honorable minister of the Federal Capital Territory FCT both under the first and second civilian
administrations of President Olusegun Obasanajo. Thus, the period of the author’s life covered in
the book range from his teenage years to 2010 when he returned from the United Kingdom after
twenty-three months, between 2008 and 2010, which coincided with the period Nigeria lost her
president, Alhaji Umaru Musa Ya’radua.
In a characteristic autobiographical style, which in the words of Oriaku (1998) centers on
the author’s ‘selection of a particular range of life as well as relevant incidents and experiences
[which] will be determined by his need to present a unified view of his life or the phase (or span)
of it being highlighted’ (6)17, El-Rufai provides a justification for his actions, reactions and
inactions on the range of his life covered in the book. In his words, ‘I am writing this book to put
on record my version of events, in my own voice and in my own hand’ (xxxi).18 It ‘lays the
foundation for why I think the way I think and why I took the actions that I took when I was in
public service’. (xxxiii). 19 A review of events in Nigeria after May 2007 when the author left office
as the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, having stood strongly against Chief Olusegun

17
Oriaku, R. (1998). Autobiography as Literature. Ibadan: Humanities Research Center.
18
El-Rufai, N. A. (2013). The Accidental Public Servant. Ibadan: Safari Books.
19
Ibid, p. xxxiii

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 ANUJAT/VOLUME 8/NUMBER 1/ NOVEMBER 2020/ARTICLE 14

Obasanjo’s third term presidential ambition sometimes in 2006 even as an insider, a cabinet
member of the administration at that time will reveal that what warranted his account in the book
were the witch hunt, negative attacks and image smearing campaigns that ensued against him and
the political will to question and query his political stewardship especially between 2003 and 2007
as a minister. He is no doubt conscious of the happenings around him and he is driven by the
passion to clear the multiple disgruntled opinions in his direction. He tags the book ‘a story of my
years in government and after’20, and this places him at the center of the unfolding actions and
events.
A critical look at the life and personality of Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai will clearly reveal a
number of significant personal, social and largely political factors, forces and experiences captured
in his 2013 biographical account, The Accidental Public Servant. The lack of political diplomacy,
bureaucracy, due process and accountability in conducting the affairs of government which were
the modus operandi of Nigeria’s democracy and were more powerful as against the ideal tenets of
democracy took the center stage when the author ventured into the public space and politics in
Nigeria. His venture in to politics, devoid of the traditional Nigerian bureaucratic bottlenecks,
especially god-fatherism and partisanship syndrome is what the author termed to be his accidental
venture into the public service in Nigeria. This particular incident remained viable in his memory
several years later.
Similarly, the author acknowledges the complexities of the public space in Nigeria, the
paradoxical nature of public administration, the uneven and imbalance implementation of policies
as well as issues that have bedeviled Nigeria ever since the colorful mosaic of her postcolonial
history. In his words,

Nigeria’s governance outcome really depends on a series of accidents rather than

any meritocratic or rigorous process. […] I believe that we have failed to develop
any process of identifying, training and rewarding leadership, of putting people
who are potential leaders through a crucible to determine their preparedness and
worth. Instead, people just emerge out of nowhere. (57)21

20
Ibid, p. xxxiii
21
Ibid, p. 57.
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This has eventually resulted to corruption and the unquantifiable level of highhandedness, bred by
the political elite and has become characteristic to the Nigerian polity. The experiences of Nasir at
the BPE where he started his public service career reaffirm this. In his words,

Upon entering the BPE, I, like many other Nigerians, attributed our country’s
famous lacklustre progress to corruption. What I soon discovered was that
corruption is really only a symptom of Nigeria’s problem. The true culprit
behind our country’s lacklustre progress is actually much deeper and even more
difficult to identify, but for the time being I refer to it as disastrous political
leadership and bad decision making leading to a culture of impunity. (71) 22

It is from this perspective that the author develops several important themes, most of which
are peculiar to governance and public administration in Nigeria. Some of these include; the irony
of the Nigerian society where opportunities for betterment and advancement are squandered each
passing day, the high profile corruption in the public service, lack of due process in the public
service, nepotism and favoritism in conducting the affairs of government, self-aggrandizement and
power mongering of politicians, politics of hate and sentiments, ethnicity and tribalism against the
common national good of Nigeria and Nigerians, as well as the urgent need to revamp the public
service and the modus operandi of conducting the affairs of government in Nigeria. The most
evident theme, which runs through the pages of the book, is perhaps the search for self or selfhood,
a selfhood characterized by integrity, dignity and doggedness that cannot be easily impugned by
prevailing and surrounding circumstances. This personifies the author.
While Nasir acknowledges the prevailing realities in Nigeria, he is still optimistic. His
optimism is that soonest; a new dawn will break in Nigeria. In his words,

Our challenges are many, but our opportunities outstrip them. We will however
have no chance of overcoming these obstacles without commitment and
sacrifice from a critical mass of our people. Our country has amazing potential,

22
Ibid, p. 71

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 ANUJAT/VOLUME 8/NUMBER 1/ NOVEMBER 2020/ARTICLE 14

and to watch these opportunities squandered by each passing day I considered

to be nothing less than tragic. (488)23

To correct this anomaly, Nigerians against the current resignation to the fate of bad leadership
must show interest in the affairs of government, hold the government accountable and do so in
utmost national interests.

The more we choose not to care, the more we choose to opt out of politics, stay
on the sidelines or move abroad, the more we choose to resign ourselves to
cynicism, the more our resignation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and our
daily reality. The more we fail our children and their children. The more we
decree a life of suffering and limitation for each child that wakes up in this land.
(488)24

This is what he sets out to achieve with his encompassing account in The Accidental Public
Servant. El-Rufai’s final submission is in hope. ‘I hope this book has accomplished what I set out
to do, which is to make the case that public service should be something every serious Nigerian
should consider if truly we are determined to put our country back on the right track’. (488) 25
The entirety of the narrative presented in The Accidental Public Servant which can thus be
regarded as an account of the author’s stewardship in the public space between 1999 and 2013
when the book was published adds to and ultimately seeks to redirect the myriad of controversial
opinions that that have been expressed on the personality of the author while he served at the BPE
and the FCT. It passes for a social history, relevant to understanding the modus operandi of the
socio-political milieu in a bid to achieve a radical change in the ways of conducting the affairs of
the public and running the government in Nigeria.
Consequently, that the author, Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai is still very active on the Nigerian
political scene, now serving for the second term of four years as the democratically elected
governor of Kaduna state, northwest Nigeria, having won the first gubernatorial elections on the
platform of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) in 2015 fulfils Dele Olojede’s prophesy in

23
Ibid, p. 488
24
Ibid, p. 488
25
Ibid, p. 488
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 ANUJAT/VOLUME 8/NUMBER 1/ NOVEMBER 2020/ARTICLE 14

the afterword that ‘Nasir l-Rufai is to a degree chastened by his experience, but one gets the sense
that this is a leader willing to bleed for the good society we all seek. I will hazard a guess that,
before too long, he will be back in the fray’ (492).26 It also justifies his assertion that when the
book was published that ‘[M]y years in government – about nine in all, and the aftermath – are too
short to present more than a snapshot of the challenges of being in public service and politics in a
developing country like Nigeria. (xxxii-iii).27

Conclusion
Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai’s account in The Accidental Public Servant spans from the last military
dispensation in Nigeria, to the transition to democratic dispensation in 1999 and thereafter. It is an
account of the author’s trainings and professional practices both in the private and public sectors
in Nigeria. With Nasir at the center of the unfolding events, the book is a quietly compelling socio-
historical document that testifies to the great social misdeeds and atrocities that have been
committed against the Nigerian state and the need for a radical change. Nasir El-Rufai has
succeeded in creating a strong sense of the earlier and crucial times he has carried in his memory
about Nigeria and Nigerians. He recognizes the complexities of the Nigerian society and develops
several important themes that cannot be easily ignored in a bid to understand the rationale behind
some previous actions, reactions and inactions of past frontline political actors in Nigeria, himself
inclusive.

26
Ibid, p. 492.
27
Ibid, p. xxxii-iii
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References
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