earlier, in August 1999, I had married Asia Mohammed Ahmad as my second wife. I met her in 1996.
Asia was running her law firm in Abuja when she went to the World Bank annual meetings in
Washington, DC. We met on a KLM flight from Amsterdam to Lagos. Five hours of conversation was
the beginning of a friendship that became a relationship and then marriage. I, therefore, needed the
consent and support of my two spouses before accepting the assignment. Happily for me, both Hadiza
and Asia were supportive, but my children, led by Yasmin, were not too enthusiastic and expressed
reservations. I explained away their concerns which had to do with reluctance about relocation to
Abuja and the perception of all public servants as corrupt.
I returned to Nigeria and made contact with Abdullahi Nyako, the principal secretary to the Vice
President, to see Atiku. He said he would call back but never did. After two days of waiting in Abuja,
I called Steve Oronsaye to arrange an audience with Obasanjo. I met him whereupon he confirmed
that he had approved my appointment as DG of BPE if I would accept. I thanked him and he instructed
me to "report immediately and get cracking." As I was about to leave the President's office, Atiku and
his coterie of staff arrived; he was a little surprised to see me there, and requested that I should go to
his office and wait. I had a short meeting with him in which he repeated his reasons for wanting me to
lead BPE, Obasanjo's approval and directives to report immediately. I had no letter of appointment,
no one asked for my resume and that was it. Atiku was not even aware that I had been waiting for two
days to see him. The appointment was announced in the media (national radio and television) the
same afternoon of the 7th of November 1999. The print media carried it the next day. I left for Kaduna
immediately after meeting Obasanjo and Atiku, dozing all through the two-hour drive. My phone - the
NITEL analogue cellular service “090”, was switched off so the VP's media people that needed some
biographical information about me could not reach me. They went ahead with the announcement based
on information given by Dr. Usman Bugaje - who thought I was 43 years old and a lawyer by
profession. Actually, I was then a law student and more like 39 years of age at the time! I left for
Kaduna and reported for work back in Abuja two days later.
Entering the BPE
On the 9th of November 1999, I reported to the BPE to start what has turned out to be another eight
exciting years in Abuja - of fast-paced change and growing up in various ways. My professional life
until then had been spent entirely in the private sector, which gave me a perspective that career public
servants lack. Specifically, the private sector has a single goal: to make profits for shareholders. A
single goal makes it easier to focus, and because a private sector actor wants to make as much money
as possible for partners and shareholders, the most efficient methods possible and the most cost
effective operations tended to be used. I believed then, and still do now, that that approach can be
applied to the public sector. Cost cutting, efficient management – these are things required in the
public sector, even though the purpose of public sector organizations is usually not to turn profits, but
to provide social goods and services whose benefits are more difficult to quantify in simple monetary
terms.
This was the basic attitude I brought into the BPE. It did not always satisfy everyone, but then this is
the nature of public service and indeed politics – there will always be someone who is ill-served by
a decision. To the extent that my actions were or are ever governed by a political ideology, that
ideology is pragmatism. Such is the legacy of spending my formative professional years in the private
sector. For those who take exception to the way I practice pragmatism, I would respond by saying
two things: first, I would encourage a close examination of the interests and loyalties held by my
naysayers over the years – not only do they tend to differ significantly from my interests and loyalties,
but in many cases also the interests and loyalties of the Nigerian people at large. Second, I do my best
to keep my word, no matter how inconvenient. I do this as a matter of habit – it is how I was raised.
Conveniently for me, this matters in politics more than anywhere else. Indeed, one could say the only
true currency in politics is keeping one’s word, because that is the basis upon which relationships are
built and agreements are enforced.
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 problems. 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. I did not come around to this assessment of
our country’s malaise until I was actually in public service for some time. As I was entering BPE, my
philosophical framework was simply that I knew that the public sector had to work at a basic
minimum level in order for the private sector to flourish. I came to this realization during the Abacha
years and it was during his rule that I made up my mind that if I ever got the opportunity to work in the
public sector, I would not only accept, but would do my very best.
Chapter Four
Taking Charge of Privatization and Policy Reform
“Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention,
sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many
alternatives – choice not chance, determines your destiny.”
― Aristotle
As I stated earlier, I returned to Abuja on 9th November 1999 without a letter of employment or any
formal introduction, to report at the BPE offices then located within the NDIC building. I was in the
office by 8am, and it was virtually empty. None of the staff was at work except an assistant in the
DG's office named Effiong. He welcomed me and asked who I wanted to see. I informed him that I
wanted to see Mr Bernard Verr, the outgoing DG. He guided me to a visitor's seat and said Mr Verr
will be in the office soon. Within the hour, Ibrahim Shehu Njiddah, then a Deputy Director and who
knew me well from my previous interactions with the BPE, sauntered in, identified who I was and all
hell broke loose. The directors then came over to say hello, and suggested I move to the DG's office. I
declined and waited instead in Ibrahim's office until Mr Verr arrived an hour or so later.
The hand over was very brief. I was given the balances in all of BPE's accounts and a short
inspirational speech not to be intimidated by the directors that were all older and more experienced
than I was! Mr Verr said he was appointed DG at 39 years of age as well, so I had nothing to worry
about. With that, he left and I never saw him until a couple of years later. Within days, a memo to pay
his severance and terminal benefits was brought for my approval, which I gave immediately and it
was settled the next day. Then the acting director of finance and administration, Mrs Modupe
Abiodun-Wright, sought to take me through what were my entitlements as DG, and asked permission
>
to book me into the Hilton Hotel immediately for the first 28 days at government expense which I was
entitled to as a new senior government appointee. I declined since I had a home in Abuja where my
bride, Asia, lived along Amazon Street in Maitama. I paid little attention to the levels of pay and
allowances, as I knew they would not add up to much. I had already arranged with El-Rufai &
Partners to pay me a quarterly supplemental to augment what I knew would be my low, government
pay. I had to start looking for a house as my first wife, Hadiza, wished to relocate to Abuja. My
second wife, Asia, never enjoyed a real honeymoon period, because another bride - the BPE - came
into our lives less than three months after we got married!
The heads of departments - the directors - I think four in number at the time, now began briefing me in
detail. In terms of privatization activities, there had been none the previous five years under Abacha.
The organization had so many deputy directors (over 20 in number) mostly doing little or nothing. I
found that all the staff of BPE originated from only 22 states of the federation, so 14 states and the
FCT had no representation. While the BPE had some incredibly competent people at all levels, the
quality of some of the more recent employees left much to be desired. More importantly, the most
experienced staff had no idea how to do privatization transactions involving core investor sales as
they were largely familiar with listing shares on the Stock Exchange or sale of assets in liquidation
situations. A lot of new hiring was needed, and intensive training for existing staff. I knew from day
one that I would have to bring into the BPE many good people and from each state of the federation to
satisfy the 'federal character' requirements of our sometimes cumbersome constitution. The BPE
needed re-engineering, revamping and skills development. In a few days, I had to brief the
Privatization Council chaired by Vice President Atiku Abubakar on the plans for the implementation
of Phase 1 of the programme.
I had attended a programme on practical approaches to privatization at the Arthur D. Little School of
Management in 1992, and had the privilege of serving as a member of a Study Group on Socio-
Economic and Related Problems of Privatization and Commercialization in 1991. I had also served
as Member and Secretary of two committees set up by the governors of the northern states to
restructure the operations of the northern regional development finance company - the New Nigeria
Development Company (NNDC), so none of the challenges in BPE was brand new or difficult to
understand. The draft of the privatization implementation programme was presented to me by the two
directors, Salisu Liadi (privatization) and Okpa-Obaji (commercialization). It was a good plan on the
whole, and I reworked it overnight, introduced the concept of at least one high-profile, ‘flagship
transaction’ each year to measure our success. The national carrier, Nigeria Airways Ltd., had
already been so identified for the 1999-2000 year, and the IFC, the private sector investment arm of
the World Bank, had been enlistedas advisers a couple of weeks before my appointment. I proposed
that NITEL be our flagship divestiture for 2001. The revised plan was presented to the NCP early in
December 1999, and it was approved. Before then, I had to learn how to write and present
government memoranda (memos), how they all ended with a summary and ‘prayers’ and BPE's unique
style of presentation developed by my mentor, Hamza Zayyad. It was a great learning experience and
I could see that the council was impressed with my first outing as DG. The next day, we had to brief
the media and announce the kick-off of the second privatization and commercialization programme of
the federal government of Nigeria.
Internally, we initiated the process to recruit more staff - entry level, senior and directorate grades. I
approached several friends and ex-classmates to join the BPE as directors to help me. I approached
Bature Shehu Garba, who held a Masters in Construction Management and had been a commissioner
of water resources in my home state of Kaduna but he declined. So did Dr. Mansur Mukhtar, a first
class economics graduate and our chief economist in PIMCO who was then working for the World
Bank. Dr. John Ayuba, another first class marketing graduate then working with a commercial bank,
also declined. Only Tijjani Mohammed Abdullahi, an accountant and banker, who was then deputy
managing director of one of our leading merchant banks – First Interstate Merchant Bank - accepted to
work with me. I think it is difficult for classmates to work under one another, but this was not
apparent to me when I made the approach to several of them! Those that declined all had good
reasons other than serving under their somewhat erratic former classmate! I believe strongly though,
that the people you know best are those you went to school with or worked with in near-equal
capacities, so in whatever position I found myself, I always tried bringing in some former
schoolmates and classmates to help out, and many accepted and we worked beautifully with little or
no tensions.
We hired Bashir Yusuf Ibrahim’s New Paradigm Consultants to review BPE’s structure, staff and
training needs and make recommendations for improvement. On the basis of the final report of the
consultants, we fired many of the directors and deputy directors, and began a transparent hiring
process with an advertisement in the national newspapers inviting applications from people with first
degrees or equivalent. We were looking to hire about 108 people but received over 3,000 qualified
applications. The short-listed applicants sat a GMAT-type aptitude test and were hired on the basis
of best three scores from each state. We did not hire anyone that failed the aptitude test. Some states,
notably Bayelsa, Rivers, Zamfara and Yobe, had no qualified candidates, so we had to head-hunt for
them by making contact with the governors of the states, but insisted that the candidates must meet our
minimum requirements - upper second class degree or better in any field, to be considered. Many of
these young people turned out to be BPE's best and brightest, and this goes to show that when merit
trumps caprice in staff selection, the results can be phenomenal.
The consultants observed that our staff compensation levels were poor compared to the private
sector. The BPE staff housing loans scheme and the institution's pension fund were both in financial
deficit. Certain that by the time our staff get well-trained, many investment banking and consulting
firms would lure them away, we submitted proposals to the privatization council to raise the pay and
allowances of BPE staff to levels near to those of financial institutions, and to acquire our own
offices. The council approved our proposals. The compensation structure needed to be ratified by the
National Salaries and Wages Commission to take effect, which was done. In 2000, we acquired the
building that we named Hamza Zayyad House on Osun Crescent in Maitama District. Over time, we
extended the building slightly, building a staff canteen and crèche, while the Muslim staff contributed
and built a small mosque for the two afternoon prayers. I ate lunch regularly in the canteen thereby
compelling the caterer to whom we outsourced it to maintain quality and good prices. Apart from
providing the canteen building rent-free to the caterer, nothing else was subsidized. We also insisted
that no senior staff would have exclusive toilets, thus ensuring that the environment was kept clean by
outsourcing the function as well to a cleaning company. BPE operated like a private sector
organization but we still had a skills-gap problem.
In addition to all these, there were no operating manuals for transactions and no serious diagnostics
on the enterprises scheduled for divestiture or restructuring. To make matters more complicated, the
BPE had no funds available to do most of these important preparatory activities. It was at this point I
began to approach donors for support.
USAID to the Rescue
Early in 2000, I called for a meeting with the Mission Director of USAID in Nigeria, Tom Hobgood,
and asked to present the outlines of our federal privatization programme. We met him in Lagos (for a
few minutes because he had to leave for another meeting but handed us over to Mrs Ravi Aulakh, his
number two) and our presentation and subsequent discussions led to a grant of US $10 million for
BPE in support of the privatization efforts of the government. The funds would be administered by a
USAID-appointed consultant, IBTCI of Fairfax, Virginia. We proposed to hire some staff as
'consultants' and then IBTCI placed the advertisements, short-listed candidates, interviewed them and
fixed their hourly rates of pay. We did not even know how much the consultants were paid! For me,
as long as I could get Nigerians at home and in the diaspora to assist the implementation of the
programme, I was interested in nothing more. That was how we began the two-track system of staffing
the BPE - the regular, permanent and pensionable staff of BPE, and the ‘core team’ consultants whose
pay was much higher but whose contract of employment was neither permanent not pensionable, and
indeed could end whenever funds terminate! Some of the regular BPE staff like Roz Ben-Okagbue and
The Accidental Public Servant Page 16
