Post by Omotosho Kehinde Seun (@KennyOsho)

*Karma is a Beast, it's real and doesn't forget: The Rich Also Cry*.

- The Nasir El-Rufai Story

"I campaigned for you, Mr President. My husband stood by your side. Is this what our family deserves?"
Hajiya Asiya El-Rufai's voice trembled as she spoke.
The nation listened. And watched.
She had given everything. Her time. Her influence. Her husband's political machine.
She campaigned tirelessly. Her husband stood in the trenches.
And when victory came, they found themselves outside the gate, just like some other ones. Watching others feast.
Her question cuts deep. It was not just personal. It was profoundly human.
No amount of political capital buys loyalty. No history of service guarantees reciprocity.
Amaechi Nzekwe understood this truth.
His novel, 'The Rich Also Cry,' captured it perfectly.
Wealth offers no immunity from sorrow. Power cannot shield you from heartbreak.
The protagonist's tears flow not because he is poor. He weeps because he is human.
And humanity knows no class distinction when it comes to pain.
Hajiya Asiya's plea echoes this same truth. Even those who have everything can find themselves weeping. Weeping in the shadows of their own miscalculations.
But beneath her family's tears lies a deeper story.
A story of power wielded without mercy.
A story of arrogance without restraint.
And a beast called karma. A beast that always comes.
Always.
Nasir El-Rufai governed Kaduna with an iron fist. He left a trail of casualties.
His urban renewal policies displaced thousands. Critics called it ruthless.
Inadequate compensation.
Insufficient consultation.
Development was the excuse. Human cost was the reality.
That bitterness still flows. It flows back to haunt him.
He alienated traditional institutions.
He attacked religious leaders.
He treated governance as a zero-sum game.
He built enemies instead of bridges. A fatal error in Nigeria's political jungle.
June 2017. El-Rufai woke up and made a decision. A decision that would echo forever.
With one stroke of his pen, he sacked 22,000 school teachers.
Twenty-two thousand families. Jobless overnight.
Children pulled from schools. Households plunged into uncertainty. Livelihoods erased without warning.
But he didn't stop there.
He sacked 300 District Heads and Traditional Rulers in Southern Kaduna.
He balkanized their Chiefdoms.
He, as a Fulani, imposed an Emirate structure they hated much.
These were not administrative changes.
They were cultural violations.
Attacks on centuries-old institutions.
He humiliated them. Stripped their dignity. Dismissed their authority.
He treated them as nothing.
Yet fate has a sense of humor. And a memory.
El-Rufai found himself in detention.
140+ days. Still counting. Behind bars.
One condition for his bail?
A certificate from those very Chiefs.
Government na ya mate? Oya, sign the certificate.
The irony is almost too perfect.
The men he humiliated.
The rulers he dismissed.
They now held the keys to his freedom.
And none of them - not one - was willing to sign.
In life, there is something called 5Alive.
Actions return to their source.
What you sow, you reap.
The man who destroyed 22,000 livelihoods.
The man who trampled on traditional institutions.
He now found himself at their mercy.
Karma does not forget.
Karma does not rush.
But karma always arrives.
Karma, na your mate? Sorry case.
El-Rufai's predicament did not appear from nowhere.
He built it. Brick by brick. Error by error.
His greatest blunder?
Boasting on national television about infiltrating the NSA's phone communications.
He tapped into sensitive security conversations.
He admitted it. Openly. Proudly.
He handed his adversaries legal ammunition. On a silver platter.
Political disagreements became national security breaches. The stakes shifted forever.
The beast called karma sharpened its claws.
Contrast this with President Tinubu.
Tinubu faced humiliation under Buhari.
His own party marginalized him.
His allies abandoned him.
But he never openly got angry.
He never gave them a reason to move against him.
He absorbed provocation. He maintained equilibrium. He played the long game.
That discipline is the dividing line.
Political survival versus political annihilation.
El-Rufai did the opposite.
He visited Lagos. He boasted about teaching Lagosians how to defeat a godfather. He threw caution to the wind.
He declared hostilities openly. Wiser men pursued their battles in shadows.
He joined Tinubu's camp at the last minute. Only when Buhari abandoned the consensus plan.
Opportunism dressed as loyalty. Smart leaders never forget.
Then he carried himself as the heir apparent to the Buhari legacy. He projected entitlement. He displayed ambition.
Openly. Brazenly. Dangerously.
He invited preemptive destruction.
In political warfare, open ambition is a vulnerability. Not a strength.
Tinubu understands this. He plays long-term games.
He once told governors:
"All you've built will be a waste if you don't decide who succeeds you."

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