The Accidental Public Servant
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would be to Obasanjo and the administration. We had greater certainty about the bill dying in the
House of Representatives and as such were preparing for it to die there by having the 152 members
walk up to the Speaker the moment debate on the third term clause began, present letters, each of
which would state that they would be withdrawing attendance until the debate on that section and the
vote on it was taken, and then walk out. This was the only way to guarantee that it would not be
passed – the opposition in the House, led by Dr. Usman Bugaje, did not even want to chance a voice
vote. They had 152 members, which was what Dr. Bugaje had recorded, and we had their names and
phone numbers and they had all written their letters and were waiting to just walk up to the Speaker
and hand over the letters of withdrawal. They would then address the media and explain why they
were withdrawing and making it publicly known that the term limits clause could not and would never
pass in the House of Representatives, since more than one-third of the members had withdrawn from
the debate. That was the plan.
In the Senate the debate was progressing remarkably well and the whole bill was considered and all
Senators that wished to comment made their contributions. It was then the time to take a vote on
whether to proceed further or not. The morning of the vote arrived, and the first reading of the bill
was completed. At its conclusion, Senator Nnamani said, “We have finished reading the bill, we have
done the first reading. Now I want to put the question. Do we refer it to committee for second
reading? Those that are for this, say aye, those that are against it, say nay.”
There were no ayes. Everyone kept quiet.
“No ayes?” he said. “What about the nays?”
From the depths of the Senate chambers came a resounding “NO!”
He repeated the question.
“Distinguished senators, I am putting the question, those who want this bill to go to
second reading should say ‘aye’. Those that are against it should say ‘no.’”
There was no question: the no’s had it. Live on national television.
Once it was clear that the bill had failed in one house of the national assembly, there was no point
continuing the debate in the other house since both houses would have to pass it with two-thirds
majority for it to move on to the state assemblies. We had no idea it was going to end that
dramatically and so easily, but for us, that was about as graceful as it could ever get.
Obasanjo returns to face the music – With a Speech
That is, until the infamous speech. Obasanjo came back from his travels a couple of days later and
everyone – the Tony Anenihs, the Amadu Alis, Ojo Maduekwes, and Andy Ubas – went into hiding.
On our part, we all just kept away from Obasanjo because we did not know what he would do next.
What he did was he wrote a speech - no speechwriters, no drafts. He authored it himself and then
delivered it on national television. He congratulated the National Assembly for doing a commendable
job of deliberating over the constitutional amendments, how some of the amendments were desirable,
but they have not been passed and we have to accept the will of the people; he also mentioned how
people had been accusing him of wanting a third term, but that in fact he never wanted it. It was all
very strange, but the strangest bit he saved for the end: whatever he wanted, he would ask God for it
and God would give it to him. Therefore, went the implication, he clearly had never wanted a third
term. That speech, I must reiterate, I know he wrote all by himself. We were nothing less than
completely shocked.
As a result of presenting that speech, [123] Obasanjo had to pretend nothing happened. The next day
we all saw him and some ministers commended him for the speech: “Mr. President that was a very
good speech.”
“Yes, imagine,” he exclaimed, “They said I wanted a third term!”
We just smiled. What was there really to say? What would we do when someone accused us of being
coup plotters a few days earlier, because we had suggested that the third term amendment was going
to collapse, and then some days later looked at one of us and said, “Ha! People said I wanted a third
term!” – Really, what more was there to say?
His chief of staff called me that next day.
“Nasir, you see what happened with this? God works in mysterious ways.”
“Yes, He does.”
“Let me give you a piece of advice as someone who knows Obasanjo very well: he thinks
you are behind that group that came to my house. Be careful. Be very careful from now on,
please.”
I thanked him and promised to heed his counsel.
I was not the leader of the economic team – Ngozi was the leader. We all went together, indeed she
did most of the talking and I gave out the information to back our position.
“You and Ngozi, you are in trouble. He will exact his revenge. So just be careful.”
The chief of staff never really liked Ngozi – I do not think he gave her this warning.
“I know him, I have known him for 40 years plus, he’s going to try to get you, so just keep
your head down, do your work, get out of his way,” he said. “He never lets anything like this
go without retribution.”
Of course, less than a year later, Ngozi was more or less forced out of her job. I stayed. Even as we
speak today, there remains the grudge. I think after the whole initiative collapsed, Obasanjo figured
out that Nuhu Ribadu and I played some role in its demise, in addition to the ‘coup plotting’
discussions with the chief of staff, which he considered unforgivable enough, anyway.
I said this at the beginning and I will keep saying it: I am indebted to President Obasanjo for all of the
things he did for me, for giving me the opportunity to achieve national prominence, for standing by me
and providing the support to do my jobs effectively and serve Nigeria well. However, I took an oath
of office which required my loyalty to the federal republic of Nigeria and the rule of law and the
constitution. I was loyal to President Obasanjo throughout our tenure and will always respect him, but
that loyalty is not without its limits. Specifically, that loyalty ends where the national interest and
preserving our constitution and our laws begin. I cannot, out of loyalty to a friend or to a mentor,
break the law or violate the constitution or do something that in my assessment could be wrong and
against Nigeria’s interest.
President Obasanjo and I have never addressed this issue head on since leaving office, so if he reads
these words, I hope that he will finally understand my position on this matter. As for the retribution
that the chief of staff warned me about – well, I will never know for sure whether the president ever
sought retribution against me. [124] What I do know, though, is that the two years immediately
following our exit from government were the most difficult two years of my life. Many people close
to Umaru Yar’Adua [125] have suggested that Obasanjo might have had something to do with what
Nuhu Ribadu and I went through. That may be true, but I do not hold Obasanjo or any other person
(other than Yar’Adua) responsible for what happened. After all Yar’Adua was the president and must
be held responsible for everything, good or bad that happens under his watch to any ci
tizen. In any
case, he did not do everything Obasanjo expected him to do. My belief is that he must have pursued us
politically because he wanted to, even if someone else had planted the seeds.
Chapter Fifteen
From bad to worse
“When you’re going through hell – keep going.”
– Winston Churchill
With the third term distraction out of the way, attention could only then turn to who would succeed
Obasanjo. There are those who say Obasanjo’s revenge for his third term defeat was intentionally
picking two incompetent people to be president and vice-president, but I do not fully agree with that. I
think Obasanjo picked them for a different reason: he thought they were weak people he could control
and through whom he could continue to exercise power. I think that he thought Yar’Adua would be an
acceptable president, but would be weak and subservient to him in many policy areas and would be
consulting him regularly so that Obasanjo might be a Lee Kuan Yew sort of figure, exercising power
from behind the scenes. I do know that Obasanjo and Lee Kuan Yew are friends and he admires Lee
Kuan Yew – whenever he spoke about a great, visionary leader, it was always Lee whose name he
brought up.
If I am just naive and the ticket that ended up succeeding Obasanjo was meant to be a third term
revenge, it did not exactly work out. Yar’Adua revolted against him, reversed virtually everything he
did and even began investigating him. [126] Obasanjo recently admitted to another close friend of ours
that throughout the years Yar’Adua was in power, he was constantly in fear of being arrested because
it was clear to him that at some point, Yar’Adua was after him.
While Goodluck Jonathan has so far behaved a little differently, he has also not exactly been
subservient to Obasanjo either. It certainly has not quite worked out the way I think Obasanjo
envisaged it, but many people think he chose them in particular for those more sinister reasons.
Personally at the end of the third term adventure, I was more worried about other things: Would
Obasanjo create some chaos that would enable him to invoke the state of emergency provisions in our
Constitution to stay on? I had all sorts of nightmare scenarios running through my head. What will he
do next? - was a nagging thought in the early post-third term days.
In any event, Obasanjo chose Yar’Adua for reasons that to this day nobody can be sure of. One of the
times I visited his Abeokuta home with my friend, Ulysses, in October 2010, he asked him why he
chose Yar’Adua. Obasanjo said that Yar’Adua was the candidate who was a) northern, b) not Atiku
and c) in the best position to keep Nigeria unified. Take that for what you will – I did not really buy
it. What I can say is that after the third term project collapsed how the aftermath unfolded only served
to heighten the already existing tensions within the administration. The first step involved a group of
about a dozen people, [127] businessmen and senior government officials, including our economic
team, who decided to meet to discuss the way forward. I do not remember why, but Obasanjo was not
directly privy to the meeting, though Andy Uba was invited to participate in our first meeting. The
meeting was scheduled to take place side by side with the meeting of the Honourary Presidential
Advisory Council on Investments (HPACI), hosted by Baroness Chalker in London. We met and
brainstormed ideas for how to approach the succession strategy and agreed to follow up with a
second meeting in Abuja at Ngozi’s house.
That second meeting never happened. Obasanjo found out presumably from Andy Uba about the
substance of the first meeting, was incensed that anyone would convene such a gathering without his
authorization and told everyone – except me – that he did not need anyone’s advice on succession
and therefore this second meeting was unnecessary. It was Nuhu’s idea to begin this discussion group,
but I am fairly certain that Obasanjo must have heard that I was involved and immediately concluded
that I must be leading the proceedings.
All that Obasanjo said regarding succession was that he would fast and pray for 30 days for God to
guide him on his choice. One day, in November of 2006, Tanimu Yakubu, who eventually became
Yar’Adua’s economic adviser, came to my office and said that Yar’Adua would be coming to see me,
which from a traditional as well as protocol standpoint, was unusual – it was usually I who paid
visits to him, whenever he came to Abuja. On pressing Tanimu further, I understood why this apparent
reversal of protocol and tradition became necessary on that day. What made this time different was
that he was coming to ask for my support of his candidacy to be president of Nigeria. Obasanjo had
made his decision.
Umaru came over to my house that evening looking like a man who had just had the weight of the
world thrust upon him. He told me that Obasanjo had called and asked him to submit a nomination
form to run for president and that he really was not expecting this and felt totally unprepared, but that
if he was to go ahead with this, he would need me by his side, along with the economic team. I
congratulated Umaru and assured him that support from the economic team should not be a problem. I
honestly did not think it would be any problem. In spite of my misgivings about his personal
shortcomings, I did not think he would make a bad president.
He was a bit hung up on the fact that no one else who had officially declared candidacy was, as he put
it, ‘impressive,’ and wanted to know why I was not in the race.
“Well, I have never thought about this and I am not really into competitive politics.”
“At least if two of us are in the race, one of us will get it,” he said.
“No, I am really not into this game, Mallam.”
“Ok. Well listen, I am going to Katsina tomorrow and will be passing through Kano to inform
certain others about this. From your end, whom do you think I should talk with before I leave
Abuja?”
“Please see Nuhu Ribadu, definitely. Also, see Tony Anenih and tell him.”
“Do you think he (Anenih) does not know?”
“The president has not told any one of us and we are probably the closest people to him in the
government. If he has not told us, I would like to assume that he has not told anyone else. So I
think it would be good to go and see these two people. When you return to Abuja, it would be
nice to see Nenadi Usman who as Finance Minister is the head of the economic team. But that
is mere formality.”
Umaru Asks Nuhu for Support: the Beginning of Our Problems
Now, I do not know what happened between Umaru and Tony Anenih, but I can say that what
happened then between Umaru and Nuhu was probably when the seeds of our future problems with
Umaru were planted. When Yar’Adua broke the news, Nuhu’s response could hardly have been any
less gracious:
“Well, Obasanjo has not told me, and as far as the presidency is concerned, I have my candidate for
president, and that is Nasir El-Rufai. I am going to have to speak to Obasanjo about this.”
When Yar’Adua left Nuhu’s office, Nuhu immediately called Obasanjo to see if he was available to
talk. Obasanjo invited him over, but by the time Nuhu got to the Villa, Nuhu was not allowed past the
gate. For two days, Nuh
u tried to see Obasanjo and Obasanjo avoided seeing him. When they finally
saw each other, Nuhu demanded to know how and why he would make such a choice. Nuhu’s logic
was that if we had performed creditably at the federal level, Obasanjo should pick the successor from
amongst officials at the federal level, not anoint someone from amongst those he considered to be
poorly-performing state governors. Obasanjo initially denied that he invited Yar’Adua to run. He said
Yar’Adua came to him like everyone else and said he wanted to run, but Obasanjo did not invite
Yar’Adua to run. Nuhu was relieved and left Obasanjo in peace. He then called me up directly after.
“Umaru was lying! Obasanjo did not ask him to run for president!”
“Nuhu, I have known Umaru since 1972. He would not come to my house and lie about
something like that.”
“So are you saying Obasanjo is lying to me?”
“Yes, Obasanjo is lying to you. I am sure of it.”
It took sometime before Nuhu figured out Obasanjo’s games and what was really happening. Nuhu’s
instinctive reaction was that of a typical policeman - dust off EFCC files and comb for petitions
against Umaru. Nuhu did not realize it at the time, but he was the one in trouble, not Obasanjo or
Umaru. He dusted off all his files and found petitions against the Katsina state governor and launched
investigations. He even arrested some local government chairmen from Katsina as part of his
investigation of diversion of local government funds by the state governor. He was clearly trying to
take Yar’Adua out of the race and narrow all options to zero except for El-Rufai. This was all a one