equipment suffered similar difficulties. We got a GSM license reserved for Nitel without auction and
since by then it was competing with private companies, Nitel had to invest in and deploy its GSM
network. The vice-president, as privatization council chair, approved a bid process for the first phase
of the procurement of GSM equipment. While we were pre-qualifying the companies interested in
participating, he called me in an attempt to rig a system specifically designed to be open and
transparent.
“I have been approached by the Ericsson people,” Atiku began. “They are really interested in doing
this Nitel job, and they have done more GSM equipment than anyone in the world.”
He continued for a few moments with what was more or less a sales pitch for Ericsson, and ended
with the question - “In what way can we assist them?”
“There is no way to assist them, other than just tell them to submit the lowest bid price for the
equipment.”
“DG, you never help, you only say ‘submit the highest price’ or ‘submit the lowest price,’” he
protested.
We laughed about it and I thought that would be the end of it. A few days later, his aide-de-camp, a
police officer named Abdullahi Yari, came to me and said Ericsson had approached him to 'intervene'
on their behalf.
“Yes, the vice-president had spoken to me about Ericsson, but these bids will be opened
publicly, so just advise Ericsson to submit the lowest price that they can afford,” I said. “The only
way to win is to submit the lowest price because that is what we will recommend, consistent with the
bid specifications.”
On bids opening day, we conducted our usual procedure of publicly opening the final bids with the
media in attendance. Motorola submitted the lowest bid for about $38 million. The next lowest bid
was Ericsson for about $41 million. The others, including Siemens, were even more expensive. So
we evaluated the bids and recommended Motorola be the supplier of the equipment for Nitel’s GSM
network. The final step was to convene a meeting with the president to approve a final decision a few
days later.
“We are meeting here to take a decision on who will supply equipment for Nitel for first phase of
their GSM network,” President Obasanjo said. Without looking up from the memorandum placed
before him, he added: “BPE director general, please present your findings and recommendations.”
The BPE team leader for the Nitel transaction, Hassan Usman, led the presentation and detailed every
step that had been taken leading up to the recommendation in favour of Motorola, because the
company submitted the lowest bid price, had supplied equipment in countries all over the world, and
was a pioneer in cell phone technology. He also listed the other bids and explained that all of these
companies were equally qualified to do the job, so it was simply a matter of price.
The floor then opened for comments and the president looked at me and asked me if I specifically had
any comments. I said not really, just that the team had done a good job, and that I was simply the
messenger passing along their recommendations. The vice president looked grim but said nothing.
“Our decision is as follows,” he said. “We approve the award of this contract to Ericsson Nigeria,
but at Motorola’s price.”
He looked at me again and asked if I had any objections.
“Mr President we do not care who is the contractor as long as it is at the best price and the job gets
done. It is just the price that matters, Nigeria should not lose money because any one of the pre-
qualified bidders has the technical capacity and competence to do the job.”
“Fine, then we are decided and the contract awarded.”
The meeting closed and we left.
The immediate effect of this was a letter of protest from the American ambassador[34] to President
Obasanjo, saying the government of Nigeria was discriminating against American companies: how
could a US company, along with European companies, bid competitively, and despite submitting the
lowest bid, the contract still went to a European company at the price the American company offered?
What has the American company done wrong? If this is not discrimination then what is?
A few days later, a former US ambassador to the UN and an old friend of Obasanjo’s, sent a team to
Abuja. His firm had been hired by Motorola management out of Chicago, to be their consultant to
figure out how and why they lost the bid in which they submitted the lowest price.[35] The leader of
the American team came to meet me separately to understand what happened during the bidding stage.
I explained that we did what we could as technocrats, but the award of the contract was a decision
reserved for our political masters. He informed me that the US government would protest the
decision, to which I wished him luck, but as far as BPE was concerned, this was the end of it. A week
or so later, the gentleman returned to my office just before he left to report back to Motorola. What he
told me about the high-level intrigues was quite revealing.
“We have seen Obasanjo and he said to us that the vice-president had come to him and told him three
things,” my American friend said. “The first was that you (that is my humble self) had been on
Motorola’s staff and therefore had rigged this bid so that Motorola would win. Two, Ericsson had
offered some financial contribution to Atiku, (it later turned out to be $3 million) for the ruling party's
war-chest for the 2003 elections while Motorola had been quiet on this matter. The vice president
therefore suspected that Motorola planned to pay you that sum of money instead. Third, the vice-
president was convinced that your older brother Bashir owned 10 per cent of the common stock of
Motorola in the US, so it is in the best interest of your family for Motorola to win this contract. You
were therefore conflicted but failed to excuse yourself from overseeing the bidding process.”
I was incensed. Responding to him, I explained that I had worked for Motorola, which was of course
true. My last job before I joined the government was as a business development manager for Africa
for Motorola, but both the president and vice-president knew that when they appointed me to the
position and directed me to oversee the bidding. Secondly, the bid could not have been more open –
bids were received and opened with all the mass media represented. How could I have known in
advance what price would be low enough for Motorola to win? Finally, Bashir did not own any
Motorola stock as far as I knew, and even if he was able to buy a few shares on the New York Stock
Exchange, I am certain only major US mutual and pension funds, and the Galvin family that founded
the company owned more than 1% of the company – certainly no individual in the whole world
owned 10 per cent of Motorola. Regardless, Motorola had annual sales well into the tens of billions
of dollars, so I doubted if a measly $38 million contract would be so important to any Motorola
shareholder. However, as I would come to learn later, these were the ways in which people like
Atiku Abubakar seek to manufacture fiction, manoeuvre and manipulate situations to create false
scandals in Nigeria. I was understandably enraged at this high-level accusation by the vice president
which benefited them. I was determined not to let this go wit
hout a response.
“My short friend, I have a duty to train you”
In short, Atiku was spreading falsehoods about me for reasons I could only surmise, but it made me
very angry. I decided not to go to Atiku but to Obasanjo, with my letter of resignation.
“On this Nitel contract, I have heard stories that the vice-president said about me,” I said.
“I did not believe him,” he replied.
“Oh but you did, Sir. You believed him. If you did not believe him, sir, why did you award the
contract to Ericsson instead of Motorola? You believed him, Mr President.”
“Yes, but I did that not because I believed him but because he is my vice-president. I cannot fight with
him because of you. But I made sure it was at Motorola’s price, so whatever financial arrangement he
may have had with Ericsson, he will not be able to get it. The country does not lose anything. You
said so yourself on that day.”
“Well, anyway, the reason why I came here is to tell you that I have my resignation letter here. I can
no longer work with Atiku Abubakar. If you want me in the government, get me another job,” I said.
“Or if you say I should hold the resignation while you redeploy me, I will wait, but I cannot work
with this man. Anybody who would do what he did to me for no reason is simply mean-spirited and
not someone I want to work with.”
I also told him about the vice-president’s request to help Ericsson win the bid and sending his aide-
de-camp to me. The President then showed me a petition addressed to the Vice President and sent in
by Ericsson, signed by one Kenneth Awara, alleging that I rigged the bid against his employer.
What happened next is what I consider the first really personal, candid conversation I had with
President Obasanjo. He stood up. I was escorted to see him by my friend Steve Oronsaye, then the
principal private secretary to the president. Obasanjo locked his office.
“Well, my short friend, I am not going to discuss any resignation and I am not going to redeploy you,”
he began. “You know why? Because I am the father of everyone here, and I have a duty to train you. I
have a duty to make sure you learn to work with everyone, not just people you like. In public service,
you meet people you do not like and you must learn to work with them. This is not your company, this
is not your quantity surveying firm where you can choose who you work with, this is the government
of Nigeria, and everyone - good, bad and ugly have equal right to be part of it. It is my duty to teach
you to learn to work with people like Atiku.”
“But Mr President, why learn to work with people I do not like?”
“Because you see, you are a good man, a clever man. One day, if you play your cards right, you will
do even greater things in government than where you are today, so I have a duty to develop you,
smoothen your rough edges and reduce the obstacles you will face in future public life.”
Steve and I listened attentively. He continued,
“Listen, let me tell you – you know, you have three problems. Each one of them is enough of a
problem by itself, but you have all three. 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.”
“But you have a 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. Look at me. In my time,
I was not as clever as you are. I have gone through your grades in school. You are very bright. You
got A’s in high school, A’s in A levels, first class honours. I did not go to university but I took my
high school graduation exams a year in advance and I also got A’s so I was also clever in school. But
I am lucky – God gave me a not-so-clever face. People think I am stupid. So you can’t look at me and
know what is going on in my brain. But in your own case, you do not have that luck. 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.”
“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. So you have these three problems. That is
why Atiku won’t like you. You are smart; you look smart, talk and act smart. Many people will not
like you. You must learn to look simple, to be patient with people who can’t think as fast as you. You
must learn to talk less and listen more and agree even more with not-so-clever people. Unless you do
that, you will continue to have problems and it is my duty to protect you, and to develop you, because
you are a good person. If I let you go, you will remain unchanged, learn nothing and suffer more for
the rest of your life. So, go back to your job. Go and manage Atiku Abubakar. You do not like him?
Learn to work with him, prove that you are learning something, and prove that you are a real man by
working with him, in spite of your misgivings and the fact that he had been mean and unfair to you.”
I was in absolute shock. I did not know what to say.
Finally, he said, “But have you noticed something? I kept asking you if you had any objections to
awarding the contract to Ericsson. Why did you not object?”
“Because I had no objections, I really did not care who won.”
“Do you not see, for me; that showed you had no interest in the matter, that he was being unfair to
you? But he is my VP. I will not fall out with him because of you. I will not give him any reason to
think I will not do what he wanted. But I know what is going on. I want you to know that by coming
here and speaking up about the matter, you have earned my respect and confidence.”
In many ways, that conversation was not only the first deeply and candidly personal conversation I
had with him, but it also made him begin to trust me just a little more, and appreciate that I was not in
cahoots with Atiku to subvert the privatization outcomes. Up until then, there were all these stories
about the vice-president buying up companies and Obasanjo believing that somehow I was a part of
it. He was constantly asking questions, checking up on things, and even though I was upfront with him,
I could tell he still felt that there was something else going on. This was a ground-breaking moment in
my relationship with Obasanjo because he knew from then that I was not Atiku’s boy, and that Atiku
was mean to me, but that I would henceforth be managing the relationship and be tolerating working
with him. As a result, he gave me stronger political support in many other ways. [36]
Now the rest of the Nitel transaction became a much longer story that I must take up in a separate
book on my BPE years, and which even as I write is still in process. The point here merely is that the
Nitel transaction fundamentally changed my relationship with the president and the vice president. On
a personal level, I decided firmly on resigning from service after a three to four month gap, to avoid
any connection between this incident and my leaving. I therefore began to devolve more
responsibilities to the directors of BPE, particularly Tijjani Abdullahi whom I considered the most
capable and honest of my six direct reports
. I had meetings with some of the trusted BPE directors,
my inner circle of friends, the US Ambassador Howard Jeter, and UK DFID Director William
Kingsmill, intimating them of my plans to leave the BPE after a while. All were unanimous that I
reconsider and wait until the anger of that period subsided, which I did.
On further reflection, I also decided to defer resigning until I attended the Advanced Management
Programme (AMP) at the Harvard Business School (HBS) in the early part of 2002 to prepare me
better for a private sector life. One of the considerations that compelled me to defer resignation was
the threat by the US Ambassador Jeter that if I resigned, the $10 million grant funding by the USAID
to support the privatization programme 'may be in jeopardy'. I had met with Ambassador Howard
Jeter over lunch to review the GSM contract debacle involving Motorola, Ericsson and Atiku
Abubakar. I thought it would negatively impact the BPE’s operations and training programmes if that
funding is lost on my account. Aspects of this conversation appeared in the Wikileaks release of
classified US diplomatic cables in 2011! But things turned out quite differently as subsequent events
would reveal.
Chapter Six
The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend-- Unless the Friend is El-Rufai
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
~ Seneca (Roman Philosopher, mid-1st century, AD)
My disagreements with the president did not end, but for the most part they were about process. We
still broadly agreed on where we wanted to go, we just disagreed on how to get there and how fast,
The Accidental Public Servant Page 23
