The Accidental Public Servant

by El-Rufai, Nasir

  “Well, you know, I am not sure what to believe. I have had three attempts at conversation with

  Obasanjo about this subject and each time he denied it.”

  “Yes, he told me. That is why I came to confirm that there is a third term project. We are working

  very hard on it and we need you on board.” While initially taken aback at the confirmation, I was not

  entirely surprised at this revelation, because by then, we had all concluded that there was such a

  project, but we were simply not trusted to be part of it.

  “Well, you know me. Before I get involved in anything, I need all the details. I have to know the

  whole truth, everything. Tell me why it is being contemplated and what the end-game is. Who is

  involved in planning and execution, who are those providing the money, everything. When you do all

  of that, I will make an assessment of what is in Nigeria's best interest first, using my conscience as a

  guide. When so briefed and given some time to evaluate and reflect, I will decide on a position.”

  “Well, what are your initial thoughts, gut reaction?” he asked.

  “I think it is misguided. I believe it will fail in the legislature. But I do not have all the facts. If you

  give me all the information and rationale for it, I may be in a position to reconsider. New information

  may lead to modification in position.”

  He nodded, adding “Ok. I am going to Lagos for a couple of days to attend an event and when I return

  by God's grace, I will give you a call so we continue our discussion. I promise I will share all I

  know.” He then suggested that the patronage - like land allocations and employment opportunities -

  available in the FCT Administration would help in securing the support of several constituencies –

  members of the legislature, traditional rulers, and leading politicians, particularly from the north. I

  suspected he was sent to me by Obasanjo, but never asked for confirmation. Obasanjo never felt he

  could talk to me directly about many of these dodgy matters because he was uncertain how I would

  react.

  My friend continued, “We need you to bring the economic team on board and behind this project.” I

  was not the head of the economic team. Ngozi was, but I believe he chose to confide in me perhaps

  because we had a friendship dating back to our university days in the late 1970s. I agreed to meet him

  again in a couple of days and he left. That was the last time I ever saw him. On the flight back from

  Lagos, the Bellview Airlines plane conveying him and 113 other passengers and crew crashed shortly

  after take-off from Lagos on October 22nd, 2005. It was a double tragedy for the nation as the First

  Lady, Mrs Stella Obasanjo died in Spain the next morning. We confirmed the plane crash and the

  deaths the morning of October 23rd. Obasanjo was devastated, and we all mourned the loss of close

  friends and compatriots, including the last permanent secretary I worked with at the FCT, Deji

  Omotade. [11]

  The next thing I did after some weeks of mourning was to go back to Obasanjo. “Mr. President, about

  third term – I am now convinced there is a third term project.” “You are convinced, that is fine. I have

  told you that if the National Assembly wishes to amend the Constitution, it is not my business,” he

  said. “Yes, I know.”

  I suspect that he expected me to mention the conversation with my deceased friend, but I declined to

  do that. Instead I asked, “Have you discussed this issue with your predecessors in office, the former

  presidents? You know, it is perhaps understandable why you would want to remain in office because

  you probably believe you have many important programmes and projects to complete. I think the

  former presidents will probably relate to that and understand it too. If you discussed it with them,

  maybe they will openly support such constitutional amendments you have in mind.” He once again

  denied the existence of any effort to extend presidential term limits, claimed he had not considered

  this, and brushed it off. [12]

  The core leadership of the economic team – that is Ngozi, Oby, Nuhu and I – met several times during

  this extended period of intense speculation to discuss the alleged third term effort and were just

  getting nowhere. Nuhu, as EFCC chairman, was briefing us that the EFCC's Financial Intelligence

  Unit (FIU) noticed a lot of money flowing around from state governments to certain accounts in

  Abuja, but he gave us no details as to who it was going to. We all suspected that Andy Uba was likely

  to be the treasurer of the Third Term effort, but said nothing. Meanwhile, we all lived and worked in

  Abuja, I administering the federal capital territory, watching the suspected Third Term organizers

  come and go every day, and nobody said a thing to any one of us. Then one Wednesday, Ngozi

  informed me that Obasanjo had finally talked to her about 'third term' and confirmed that the

  administration would pursue the rumoured constitutional amendments. His reason, according to her,

  was that he had in his mind who should be his successors, but they were not ready yet. He hinted that

  we – the technocrats that were members of the economic team – should be his 'natural successors'.

  However, he "needed time to prepare" the team and "lobby" the politicians to accept technocrats like

  her in top-level political leadership. He explained that his plan was that if elected for a third time, he

  would pick one member of our group as running mate in place of his estranged Vice-President Atiku

  Abubakar and then groom that person to take over from him. This was the line he pursued and the tacit

  impression he gave Ngozi, who appeared persuaded of the logic of this storyline. I did not buy it for a

  minute and told her so.

  We subsequently learned he had told versions of this story to other people whose support he needed

  in the Third Term Project. For instance, he hinted to the then Speaker of the House of

  Representatives, Aminu Bello Masari, that if he supported the third term project, Obasanjo would

  pick him as his running mate and prepare him to be the next president. Surely the Speaker could not

  have been the only one Obasanjo made this pitch to.

  Ngozi's pragmatic political mindset came out clearly at this point. Her attitude was that as far as she

  was concerned, this third term project was a done deal, it would happen, so we should just accept it

  as a fact that "these unprincipled politicians will be bribed and will vote overwhelmingly for the

  amendment. It is not necessarily a bad thing because we will continue to do our work and make the

  country’s economy better until the time is right."

  She furthermore showed me a document authored by a private think tank for Obasanjo which analysed

  'the options before the president' at the time. This think tank was a group Obasanjo established to

  study the political scenarios for 2007, and they came up with three options. One option was obviously

  leaving office and handing over power to a northerner, as expected. The zoning provisions in the PDP

  constitution made handing power to a "southerner" nearly out of the question, but the document argued

  that "northerners" had ruled Nigeria for a disproportionate period of time since independence, and

  had always messed up the country’s economy and governance when in leadership positions. The

  document therefore identified this option as the least preferred.

  The document was silent on the historical f
act that the perception of most Nigerians old enough to

  know are that the Tafawa Balewa, Yakubu Gowon, Murtala Mohammed and Muhammadu Buhari

  governments were the least corrupt, most inclusive and ranked higher in good governance than all

  other military or civilian administrations we have had. All four administrations were headed by

  "Northerners". In addition, the fact that every successive federal administration always had an ample

  mix of ‘northerners’ and ‘southerners’ in top-level positions is often conveniently forgotten. This kind

  of selective amnesia and ethnic irredentism have remained major tools of division deployed by the

  Nigerian power elite for personal political gain. The ‘transition strategy’ document went further to

  present other options.

  The next option was to identify a person from the Niger Delta to hand over power to. A person from

  the Niger Delta would be from the south, which would be in technical violation of the zoning

  arrangement entrenched in the PDP constitution, but the justification of "fairness and justice" argument

  made was that no one from the Niger Delta had ever been president of Nigeria, even though that

  region has been the cash cow of the federation since the mid-1970s. The argument was that the zoning

  arrangement in the PDP should be set aside as an unconstitutional contraption, and Obasanjo should

  identify someone from the Niger Delta to hand power to no matter what it takes. Clearly, the person to

  emerge would have been Obasanjo's favourite politician - Governor Peter Odili of Rivers State. This

  was the second preferred (reserve) option.

  The best option, according to this document, was to amend the nation's Constitution for Obasanjo to

  have one more term to put all the foundations of the "modern Nigerian state" in place, before taking

  the risk of leaving office. The group was silent on who that person was, or from what part of the

  country the post-third term president would be. This was the document Obasanjo gave to Ngozi one

  early Wednesday morning to read and return to him, and she shared it with me during the course of

  our cabinet meeting. I should have taken a copy of it, but I did not need to. I was certain about what

  the real agenda was and was firm in my personal decision about what needed to be done.

  Ngozi took the existence of this document as proof that the Third Term effort was a fait accompli

  since its protagonists had clearly put a lot of thought into it and had the resources to buy off the

  legislature to ensure its enactment. The divisive foundations of the document were not of concern to

  Ngozi, perhaps because many "Southerners" believe the convenient lie that there was ever a purely-

  Northern administration. The inconvenient truth is that except for the Buhari-Idiagbon junta, every

  administration headed by a Northerner had a Southerner as number two, with the positions of

  secretary to the government, ministers of finance, defence and petroleum equally shared between the

  two regions. With the exception of the Gowon regime which, with Admiral Akinwale-Wey as deputy,

  had two Christians at the helm, and the Buhari junta with two Muslims on top, every federal

  government had the two major religions equally represented at the two top spots.

  Indeed in 1993, Nigerians freely voted for the Muslim-Muslim ticket of Abiola and Kingibe,

  defeating the ‘balanced’ Tofa-Ugoh ticket, and destroying the untenable assumption that ordinarily,

  Nigerians voted along largely ethnic or religious lines! The reality for me has always been as clear as

  tropical sunshine - the Nigerian political elite - military and civilian, Northerners and Southerners -

  consistently collaborated to short-change our nation and majority of the people all the time without

  regard to any ethnicity or religion. The mythical ethnic, regional and religious divisions only come

  into play when they seek to outwit one another for the top job or a bigger slice of the political and

  economic pie! I have never and will never buy this crappy, worn-out line. I have lived in Nigeria all

  my life, have observed its sociology, politics and economics and will never be fooled by these

  outwardly-antagonistic regional, religious and ethnic bigots who one day are sworn enemies, only to

  become cooperating-looters the next day! Ngozi was relatively new to Nigeria's politics, retained

  hang-ups about her civil war experience, and may therefore interpret the situation differently. I felt I

  had a duty to ensure that she was not fooled.

  Over lunch at Chopsticks Restaurant, after concluding the cabinet meeting, I disagreed with her

  position and was quite blunt in the conclusions I drew. “Ngozi, it is not going to happen,” was my

  response. “A constitutional amendment requires two-thirds of the members of the legislature voting in

  support – that means 67 per cent of the membership and 57 per cent of the legislature consists of

  membership from the north. The bulk of the 'northern' legislators will never vote to give Obasanjo a

  third term because political power and its perceived benefits will be seen to elude that part of the

  country for another four years or longer. Why should they? Even if they are paid huge amounts of

  money to vote in support of such a scheme, none of them could go back to their constituencies and

  explain that they gave a 'southerner' another four years in office. It is not a question of whether those

  legislators will then be re-elected or not – they could be physically attacked and their properties

  destroyed. It will not just be cases of political suicide; it will be actual suicide for those that support

  this in many parts of the country. Some of them living in politically-charged places like Ondo and

  Kano could have their houses burned and their entire families ostracized. That would be the feeling in

  the north and many parts of Obasanjo’s south-west home base. In the north, I am more certain because

  I speak to ordinary people and they talk to me, I know the feeling. This ‘third term’ thing is just not

  going to happen."

  I explained further that in the unlikely event that all the legislators from the north accepted the monies

  that would be offered to them, supported the move, stayed in Abuja and gave up ever going home, for

  the constitutional amendment to take effect, 24 out of 36 states’ assemblies then also must vote to

  support it. There are 19 states in the north and 17 in the south. So in addition, assuming that all the

  southern state legislatures approved it, which I doubted – it still needed seven more states in the

  north. I did not see how seven state assemblies in the north would support this third term thing. It was

  just not possible. The state assemblies’ buildings and their members would stand the risk of being

  physically attacked by angry mobs on the day they voted to support it .

  “We Have Three Choices”

  The defiant feelings on the third term project were not peculiar to or just prevalent in the north. In

  every part of Nigeria, particularly within the media and civil society organizations, the opposition to

  Obasanjo’s tenure extension plans was vehement, even violent. Nigerians of every political, religious

  and ethnic persuasion were dead set against it and very angry at even the thought of it.

  “It is not going to happen, so do not even think about it,” I repeated. “So what do we do?” asked

  Ngozi. “Well, we have three choices. We could decide to support it. I told you it would fail. We’ll

  have a burd
en (of public betrayal) to carry for the rest of our lives. Or we could come out publicly

  and announce that we are convinced there is a third term project, we were not a part of it and for this

  reason, we were resigning together. We could do that. We will acquire a lot of national and global

  credibility in the end, because I am sure this third term scheme will fail. But then the work you said

  we are doing for our country may suffer and what we are doing is for the country, not for Obasanjo or

  anybody else, and we still have some work to do - the Paris Club debt relief deal is yet to be signed

  and sealed, and London Club is still a long way from closure.”

  This was in late2005. I continued, “Or we could take a third option – ‘siddon look’. Remain in

  government, keep out of the radar, pretend neutrality towards the third term project, or even perhaps

  indicate benign support privately to Obasanjo, though we must not be actively engaged in anything to

  do with it. We could then use as much information as we can obtain as insiders or bystanders as the

  case may be, to work with those that are working openly to unravel it. This option enables us to keep

  our jobs, preserve the implementation of our economic reform programme and to some extent, we can

  also help the president, because there will be life after the collapse of the third term project and it is

  important for him to be at least credible enough to select a decent successor. In my considered view,

  that last option was the least controversial, enabling us to promote good and help the defeat of evil in

  our administration, which was therefore our best choice. We agreed to stop saying even in private

  conversation that we were against third term. We chose not to comment on what they were doing, but

  never support them even in private conversations. I summarized the next steps for our group:

  "We should never do anything to help them – the third term plan is morally wrong, legally