In newly surfaced passage from 2014 memoir, former president dissects the 'three problems' that would define—and haunt—his protégé's career
Long before Nasir El-Rufai found himself at the center of wiretapping scandals, airport standoffs, and political firestorms, a father figure in Nigerian politics sat him down and delivered a warning that now reads like prophecy.
In a newly resurfaced passage from his 2014 memoir, The Accidental Public Servant, former President Olusegun Obasanjo recounted a private conversation with his then-protégé—a conversation that diagnosed, with startling precision, the very traits that have made El-Rufai one of Nigeria's most brilliant and simultaneously most embattled political figures.
The Three Problems
According to the memoir, Obasanjo sat El-Rufai down and laid out what he called his "three problems"—each, he warned, enough to attract enemies on its own. Combined, they were a recipe for perpetual conflict.
"Your first problem is that you are very clever. People generally do not like clever people. You are clever. That alone will attract you enemies," Obasanjo told him.
But the former president was just warming up.
"Your second problem—your second problem is that you look clever. One look at your face and a person knows that this one is very clever, and that is a bigger problem."
Obasanjo contrasted El-Rufai's fate with his own good fortune. He admitted he was no intellectual slouch—he had earned top grades in school and passed his exams a year early. But God, he said, had blessed him with a "not-so-clever face."
"People think I am stupid. So you cannot look at me and know what is going on in my brain. But in your own case, you do not have that luck."
The Bushman Strategy
The former president then revealed his own survival tactic—one he suggested El-Rufai would do well to emulate.
"You know what I do? I behave like a bushman. See what that has done to me. I am here, far smarter people than me are out there. There is nothing you can do about your face, but you can reduce the enemies you have by avoiding the problem of being too clever."
But Obasanjo wasn't finished. The third problem, he said, was behavioral—and therefore within El-Rufai's power to change.
"Your third problem—you speak clever, you act clever, you are impatient with people who are not as smart as you. You talk down to them. You do those things."
The Prescription
The advice that followed was both simple and, for a man of El-Rufai's temperament, almost impossibly difficult: learn to look simple. Be patient with those who can't think as fast. Talk less. Listen more. Agree even with people who aren't as smart.
"Unless you do that, you will continue to have problems," Obasanjo warned. "And it is my duty to protect you, and develop you, because you are a good person."
A Warning Fulfilled
Eleven years later, those words have taken on new resonance. El-Rufai's tenure as Kaduna State governor was marked by exactly the kind of battles Obasanjo predicted—confrontations with traditional rulers, clashes with labor unions, bitter feuds with political rivals, and a reputation for intellectual arrogance that made him as many enemies as admirers.
His recent admission that associates tapped the phone of National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu—an act he acknowledged as "technically illegal"—has reignited debates about his political judgment. His dramatic airport confrontation with security agents, his scorched-earth interviews, and his escalating war of words with the presidency all suggest a man who, for all his brilliance, has never quite mastered the art of looking simple.
The Unanswered Question
Obasanjo's memoir passage, now circulating widely on social media, has prompted renewed reflection on what might have been—and what might still be.
Was the advice ever truly heeded? Could El-Rufai have avoided some of the political quagmires that now surround him if he had learned to "talk less and listen more"? And is it too late to change?
For a man who prides himself on intellectual rigor and unflinching candor, the question may be uncomfortable. But as Obasanjo noted a decade ago, the problem isn't just being clever. It's looking clever, sounding clever, and acting clever—all at once.
That's a diagnosis. The cure, as always, is harder to swallow.
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