The Accidental Public Servant

by El-Rufai, Nasir

  level on which the hotel was set-out. This was the ground for Development Control’s refusal of

  approval for the setting-out, but Bolingo Hotels ignored the department and proceeded to develop.

  The problem was that when Road AR-14 would eventually be constructed, the hotel would then be at

  least eight metres below the road level and susceptible to flooding, plunging vehicles downwards

  into the hotel in the event of accidents and other risks.

  Bolingo Hotel’s management refused to acknowledge these problems, which would be germane to the

  safety of its customers and the viability of the hotel itself in the long run! Another engineering

  problem created was the attempted extension of Bolingo Hotels and Towers to Plot 599, a green park

  reserved as corridors for utilities within the Central Area of the City. Bolingo was duly informed of

  the danger posed by such development to the overall functioning of the city, but the FCDA was

  ignored. Bolingo’s argument that this problem had been solved by the provision of a culvert running

  through the plot was not acceptable because utility lines would require periodic maintenance and it is

  vital that the FCDA has a free access to them for its men, plant and machinery. This was not the case

  because the lines would be enclosed within Bolingo’s premises. In addition to housing the utilities,

  the plot is a green park and should be so maintained.

  On my instructions, we wrote Bolingo inviting their team for a meeting. During the long and

  stormy session in which a visibly affronted Chief Igweh shouted and insulted me and our staff more

  than twice, we maintained our calm and communicated the decisions we had taken with regards to the

  land allocation, land use and development control violations as they affected the hotel. Chief Igweh

  stormed out of the meeting and petitioned President Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar,

  claiming that I was engaged in violation of his rights to the land already allocated to him,

  victimization and discouraging investment in Abuja and Nigeria. My seven-page response, dated 11 th

  October 2004 and addressed to Obasanjo, was accompanied by engineering drawings, survey maps

  and previous correspondence, explaining everything, and the actions we took. President Obasanjo

  once again upheld our decision and actions.

  The Ministry acted immediately after the meeting, revoking the rights and interests of Bolingo Hotels

  over Plot 599 designated as green park/corridors for utilities and Plot 600 designated as a church,

  both plots measuring 1.2 hectares. We also withdrew Bolingo’s purported rights and interests over

  Plots 601 and 602, designated as transit railway park and public park/rail terminus respectively,

  measuring 8,733.51 square metres. Plot 597, measuring 1.2 hectares, and Plot 598, measuring 6,400

  square metres, were to be retained by Bolingo Hotels. These two plots are fully developed and

  accommodate the main building of the hotel. Though Plot 598 constituted a distortion of the Master

  Plan, having regard to the consequence of revoking it, which would require demolishing a part of the

  main building of the hotel and payment of compensation, it was reluctantly conceded to Bolingo

  Hotels.

  Contrary to the widely-reported claims of Bolingo Hotels of the value of assets affected by the

  revocation [which Bolingo put at N6.6billion], the affected structures, comprising the boiler room,

  generator house, fencing, and the like were valued by the Ministry in the sum of about N103.4 million.

  This amount was to be paid as compensation to Bolingo Hotels had we established that the affected

  structures were built on titled land and approved (before construction) by the Development Control

  Department as required by law. When we found otherwise, Bolingo Hotels was in the end not entitled

  to any compensation. Chief Igweh died, almost two years after we took these decisions, in an air

  crash. In the FCT, we all prayed that his soul and that of other passengers rest in peace, and I visited

  the family to convey our condolences.

  The Rules Apply – Even to the PDP Chairman

  Amadu Ali, Barewa old boy, medical doctor, Nigerian army colonel, and pioneer director of the

  National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in the Gowon administration, minister of education in the

  Murtala-Obasanjo regime, senator in the Second Republic, and senior special assistant to President

  Obasanjo, became the chairman of the ruling party, the PDP, in 2005. Due to our common

  membership of the Barewa Old Boys’ Association, I looked up to him as an elder brother, and we got

  on well, even though I preferred his predecessor, Audu Ogbeh, who remains the only truly reformist

  chairman the PDP has ever had. Our excellent interpersonal relations were to sour in the course of the

  restoration programme because one of his houses in Asokoro District was built on a trunk water line,

  and had to be removed. Like every Nigerian “big man,” particularly the ultimate Abuja big-shot, the

  chairman of the ruling party, that action was a slap in the face that he neither forgave nor forgot.

  Senator Amadu A. Ali was granted right of occupancy over Plot 1613 in Asokoro District in

  1994. He proceeded to erect two residential buildings on the plot in accordance with the terms of

  grant and approved building plans. Later, it was discovered that one of the buildings sat squarely on

  the main water trunk line supplying the Asokoro District. We therefore issued the required notices,

  valued the violating structure for compensation and thereafter removed the building. It was an

  unprecedented action that Obasanjo used to good effect to prove that the reforms of the federal

  government were blind, not selective, and spared no one, including the chairman of the ruling party.

  For me, it was another show of political will and support by Obasanjo for the master plan restoration

  programme. As I say to anyone who cares to ask why I decided to leave the PDP in 2010, it was

  because the party had evolved within four years into a totally different party, more toxic, self-centred

  and controlled by a tiny clique of morally-flexible people. Is it possible in the PDP of 2010, I always

  ask, for any minister of FCT to take down a building owned by the chairman of the ruling party? “No

  way!”– virtually everyone would respond. However, we did that, and life continued like nothing had

  happened, as it should. Rules should apply to everyone without fear or favour.

  Diplomatic Pressure – the French Embassy/School Plot

  Another restoration decision that became a subject of controversy was the revocation of the title of

  the Embassy of the Republic of France to a piece of land in Maitama District that the embassy had

  earmarked for the ambassador’s residence. The decision to revoke the title was misunderstood at the

  Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and an angry Obasanjo summoned me to a meeting to explain. Jacques

  Chirac was a close friend of Obasanjo’s and it looked like I had ruffled not only diplomatic relations

  with France, but the warm friendship between the two statesmen!

  The Embassy of France, like other foreign missions, was granted two plots of land nearly gratis in the

  FCC, to build their Chancery in the Diplomatic Zone of the Central Area District, and for the

  construction of the ambassador’s residence in either Maitama or Katampe Extension. The French

  Embassy’s residential allocation was granted in December 1993 - Plot 929 in Maitama measuring

  4,829
square metres, a sizable plot. A year earlier, in November 1992, the embassy was granted

  Plots 376 and 377 in Central Area District, measuring 1.49 hectares, to build its Chancery. The

  embassy was granted another plot elsewhere for a French School as well. For some reason, the

  embassy wanted a much bigger plot for the Ambassador’s Residence, which the MFCT could not

  provide, so they acquired one in the open market, Plot 122 of 1.88 hectares, earmarked for a primary

  school in Maitama A6, along Mississippi Street, allocated to Professor Albert Ozigi. Professor Ozigi

  was a prominent educationist and a Barewa old boy. He had acquired the plot in 1990 to develop a

  primary school. He sold it to the French Embassy on 30th December 1993. The Embassy intended to

  build its Ambassador’s Residence and Chancery on this plot, but had not done so until we revoked

  the title on 8th November 2005.

  The French ambassador, Mr Dominique Raux-Cassin, wrote me on 9th December 2005,

  appealing for reinstatement of the title, restating the resolve of the French authorities to build the

  chancery and ambassador’s residence in that location reserved in the Master Plan for a primary

  school. In what smelled like diplomatic blackmail, the Ambassador reminded me that Obasanjo had

  escorted French President Chirac to the location to perform the foundation laying ceremony in July

  1999. In the New Year, we met with the ambassador and his team and gave them the option of

  building a French Primary School on the plot, reminding them that they already had separate

  allocations for chancery and residence. The ambassador was unwilling to take our offer. We,

  therefore, reconfirmed the revocation, which led to the summons by Obasanjo. By the time we put all

  our explanations forward with documentation not controverted by the French Embassy, Obasanjo

  upheld our decision and subsequently sought the understanding of the French authorities that the FCT

  Administration was trying to sanitize our capital city the way their forebears had made Paris so

  beautiful. That was the end of the matter.

  Nonetheless, I was certain that unless we got that school built on that plot, the French Embassy would

  probably appeal to a future president or minister of FCT to get the revoked plot back. It was middle

  of 2006, and we had no budget for the year to build such a school. I, therefore, put out a search to find

  a developer ready to build a school IMMEDIATELY on the plot. The only condition I insisted must

  be met was that the person would provide designs, construction documents and a signed contract

  before I approved the grant of conditional title, and full title when the project achieved 50%

  completion.

  We got lucky. Lucky Omolewa, a wealthy defence contractor, was looking for land to build a top-

  class basic education school, and was therefore ready to meet our conditions. We granted the title and

  today, I am proud to see the school in operation – Centagon School – any time I drive to Chopsticks,

  one of my favourite restaurants in Abuja, or to visit any of my friends in that neighbourhood. The

  circumstances surrounding the revocation and reallocation of the plot sparked rumours that Lucky was

  merely a front for me. Indeed, a couple of people have approached me to help gain admission for

  their children into ‘El-Rufai’s school.’ Some are embarrassed when I tell them that I had never met

  the owner of the school until I retuned from exile in 2010. Sometimes I wish all the buildings in

  Abuja and other businesses in Nigeria whose ownership were at one time or another credited to me

  truly belonged to me. I would be Nigeria’s wealthiest man, and would need not struggle every autumn

  to pay the school fees of my children and myriad others that I sponsor. But c’est la vie.

  We Did What We Had To Do

  People often observe, in some cases correctly, that many of our decisions and restoration efforts have

  been reversed or allowed to flounder by my successors. The corollary to that is whether our effort

  was worth the pain and suffering-- whether acquiring all the enemies that we inevitably did was all

  for nought. I do not agree. Firstly, I do not think that for anyone in a leadership role, there is any

  alternative to doing what is right, for its own sake. Secondly, it is posterity in this life, and Almighty

  God in the next, that will ultimately judge our decisions and actions, not those timorous souls too

  quick to render opinions based on the short term. Thirdly, there is an important message for the

  discerning arising from the corrective actions we took. It would teach a lesson that although a ‘big

  man’ may presume to have clout to violate the regulations today, but sooner or later, the law would

  catch up with him, and often at greater cost. Finally for me, restoring order in the chaos that we found

  many aspects of living in Abuja at the time, was simply consistent with my personal philosophy of

  life, a preference for rules and orderliness–a burden that I needed to discharge personally so I could

  sleep well at night. It was without question worth giving four years of my life to pursuing. Therefore,

  I have no regrets for attempting to do what we did. We did what we believed to be right at the time

  we did it.

  Chapter Twelve

  A Large Construction Site

  The city is a fact in nature, like a cave, a run of mackerel or an

  ant-heap. But it is also a conscious work of art, and it holds within

  its communal framework many simpler and more personal forms of

  art. Mind takes form in the city; and in turn, urban forms

  condition mind.

  - Lewis Mumford (American Writer,

  1895-1990)

  My professional background, as a chartered quantity surveyor and construction project manager,

  proved invaluable in the administration of Abuja, particularly in addressing Abuja’s infrastructure

  development needs. The Federal Capital Territory was without doubt the single largest construction

  site in Nigeria, if not in Africa. Indeed, successive ministers of FCT have focused more on

  infrastructure development of the Federal Capital City than anything else. In spite of this, the influx of

  people into FCT had accelerated since 1999, outstripping the FCDA’s capacity to provide not only

  physical infrastructure, but also other social and human services in acceptable quantity and quality.

  A focus on city infrastructure build-out often led to inadequate attention to the development needs of

  the satellite towns. In spite of this, many city districts with plots allocated had incomplete

  infrastructure, thereby driving up the cost of serviced land, rental levels and real estate values to

  unsustainable levels. Moreover, the existing infrastructure, mostly built in the 1980s and 1990s, was

  falling apart because of neglect. Apart from roads, no other component of the city transportation

  master plan, including bus ways, transit ways and light rail system, had been designed, let alone built.

  Every aspect of social, economic and physical infrastructure – hospitals, schools, markets, roads,

  water and water management-- were in short supply and under increasing pressure. It was clear that

  addressing infrastructure deficits would be a principal challenge in administering Abuja.

  A week after I took control of Abuja, on 24 th July 2003, it was the turn of the Executive Secretary of

  the FCDA, Charles Dorgu[93] and his team of planners, engineers and surveyors, to brief me on their

  c
ore function of planning, development and maintenance of the infrastructure and facilities of the

  FCT. They first presented me a huge “welcome card,” then got down to business. The briefing

  focused on FCDA’s problems and then proposed a schedule of visits to all their major projects. Like

  every agency of the MFCT, the FCDA complained of inadequate funding, excessive debts of nearly

  N50 billion, and unresolved resettlement issues that had further hindered the execution of some of

  their infrastructure projects. We visited all of FCDA’s projects a couple of weeks later, between the

  21st and 28th of August, 2003. I studied the briefs and took copious notes, asked questions and began

  to form plans in my mind how each of the projects could be managed better, challenges addressed,

  and the bottlenecks cleared.

  Firstly, I decided that we would not embark on any new projects unless we completed some of the

  existing ones. This decision became necessary due to the scarcity of funds – the FCT was entirely

  dependent on the Federal Government for its financing needs. [94] We attempted changing that by

  clawing back the personal income tax of private and public sector employees resident in the

  FCT[95], introducing property taxes in the City, and exploring other sources of revenue, in addition to

  improved collection of land fees and rents. Secondly, I needed detailed briefing on the thorny subject

  of resettlement of the original inhabitants of the FCT. It was not only an issue of fairness to the

  indigenous people, but the lingering problem hampered the orderly development of the City.

  Resettlement of Original Inhabitants

  The briefing revealed that at the inception of Abuja, the entire territory was a sparsely populated area

  of less than one hundred thousand people - one of the reasons for its choice as our future capital. The

  territory’s Master Plan assumed that all the original inhabitants within the nearly 8,000 square

  kilometres of the FCT would be relocated to neighbouring states. Professors Akin Mabogunje and S.