Warri and made me chair of it, so I ended up having to make three or four trips to Delta state just to
meet with the state government and youth organizations to try replicating the job-creation and
entrepreneurship programmes we introduced in Abuja that spawned many new small businesses and
thousands of construction-related jobs. The flaw in this presidential initiative was that Abuja was a
growing city under construction, enjoying inward migration of skilled people, and lots of construction
workers who had come in looking for work.
Warri is a much older city, then conflict-ridden without any one in charge, and the youths had a sense
of entitlement due to oil exploration and production taking place next door to their homes. Obasanjo’s
stance on it was simply, ‘I want to solve it,’ so we had to go and conduct interviews, engage in
consultations and studies, and submit a report on how to create jobs when the real problem was an
overall governance and accountability deficit. Nevertheless, Ibori welcomed the commission and was
very nice to me. I later learnt that he usually gave cash to visitors like me, but since he knew I would
not take that, he gave me a beautiful bronze statuette as a gift instead. I never had any relationship or
disagreements with him and at that point his issues with the EFCC had not yet emerged – he was still
good friends with Nuhu. His problems started after leaving office, when he lost the immunity from
prosecution he enjoyed as governor.
While people thought Obasanjo was preparing me for something, the truth really was that no
anointment was being contemplated. I knew that I was simply an overworked machine and nothing
more, because I know my boss very well. The truth also really was that Obasanjo would never even
in his wildest dreams think of supporting me to be president, largely because he knows that he would
not be able to control me in that or indeed in any position. If, as president, I were to find that he did
something seriously wrong, he knows as well as I do that I would not overlook it simply on the basis
that he used to be my boss. This professional independence and loyalty to principle, I believe, made
Obasanjo very uncomfortable with me and people like me. My boss is uncomfortable with anyone he
is not absolutely certain he could control. Unlike others who led him on to believe he could control
them, I am incapable of pretending to be servile to get ahead. Only focus on work and the results
constitute my testimonial in any situation, and thus the explanation for the roller coaster relationship I
had with Obasanjo. He loved the fact that I got difficult jobs done but hated my independence of
thought and fidelity to principles higher than blind loyalty to him.
The record of extra-ministerial assignments listed above and the history of my apparent closeness to
the president neither endeared me to Atiku Abubakar, who was estranged from Obasanjo at the time,
nor some of my ambitious cabinet colleagues. In the future, the same reasons made it more difficult
for an insecure Umaru Yar'Adua as president to feel comfortable with me visibly walking around in
Abuja, and hence the need to cut me to size.
The final breakfast
The sentiment of the final breakfast was for the most part upbeat, though it struck me that Obasanjo
that morning looked like he had grown several years older. He looked as if he was about to face death
– his skin was sallow and it was very clear that this was difficult for him, like someone in the final
hours before heading to the electric chair. He did not eat any breakfast, he just had some tea. I never
thought of losing power as being that painful, but he was visibly pained. He delivered a nice speech
about how the administration’s success was due to the efforts of some of us, that people abused him
and said Obasanjo had achieved nothing, yet in the same breath they say Dora Akunyili, El-Rufai,
Ngozi, Nuhu and Oby had really turned things around in their various areas; he gave a nod to Femi
Fani-Kayode, the minister of aviation, for ending the series of plane crashes that had afflicted the
country’s aviation sector; and he said to us that he expected us to remain in the government. Oby had
left for the World Bank by then, so she was not at that breakfast, and of course Ngozi had already
been long gone, thanks to the London fiasco. Obasanjo gave the clear impression that he had spoken
with Umaru Yar’Adua and everyone who wanted to stay in government employment would stay.
Toward the end of the breakfast, as we were preparing to go home and ready ourselves for the
inauguration, Obasanjo called Femi Fani-Kayode to stay on for a few minutes after everyone left.
When Femi joined us at the inauguration, I could see he was upset about something, but he would not
tell me about the incident until some weeks later. The long and short of this brief meeting was that
Femi had had an unpleasant encounter with Obasanjo after we left for allegedly refusing to do
something that Iyabo Obasanjo requested of him as aviation minister..
That final morning, those two faces of Obasanjo – one in which he was sitting with us, praising
everyone and being gracious and the other, exacting retribution from one of his cabinet ministers even
as he was leaving office – was not the first time that I learnt of Obasanjo as being capable of such
quick changes in demeanour. For a while, I simply thought of this as an isolated incident, but I
eventually learned that it was more than just an individual thing. It was actually a recurring
characteristic of such leaders throughout history. However, there were still some other things that had
to happen before I would understand that. Perhaps, these are some of the lessons and experiences
Obasanjo thought I needed to understand.
My Relationship with Yar’adua Pre-Nomination
Leading up to Umaru’s elevation to the presidency, I would not say we were very close, but we were
very cordial to each other. Any time he came to Abuja, which was not often - he would send his aide
for me and I would go visit him at the governor’s guest house, we would have dinner and catch up on
things. I never went to Katsina just to visit him. In fact, he hosted me only once while he was
governor. [128] Nevertheless, we always had a decent, professional relationship, sort of a brotherly
relationship.
This brotherly relationship went back many years, to when we first met in late 1972. I had just been
admitted to Barewa College in January of that year and he had just graduated from Barewa a month
earlier. Even though he had already graduated, since he was the immediate past house captain in my
hostel – Mallam Smith House - he was liked by everyone, I heard a lot about him. His nickname was
“Bad Man” – he drank all the time, smoked a lot, was not a strict disciplinarian at all and that was
why all the students loved him. He was quite bright though, and despite reportedly sleeping away his
two years of A-Levels and mostly missing classes, he still made good enough grades to be admitted
into university at a time when most people failed all four A-level papers. During his time in
secondary school at Keffi and later at Barewa College, he got involved in student politics and
eventually ended up as president of the Katsina students’ union. [129]
The reason I got to meet him was because his cousin, Sani Maikudi, a mentor, who later became a
partner in our consulting f
irm, became my senior guardian in school. While we were at Barewa, Bad
Man had enrolled at Ahmadu Bello University to study chemistry-education, so Sani used to take me
along to go visit him during the next two years that Sani was in Barewa. Bad Man was always a quiet
type of guy, measured with his words and would not really say much unless he was with people he
knew for a long time. What struck me when we first met was his austere, untidy appearance and the
debilitating skin disease – some kind of eczema that gave him a blotched, discoloured aspect. I got to
know him, I concluded that he was very untidy, dirty even, rarely bathing and never caring to ever
dress neatly.
It was precisely those characteristics that many of us admired about him because in our minds that
sort of comportment connoted someone who was down to earth and humble. His father was a first
republic minister and his brother ended up being the number two man in the Obasanjo military
government. He came from an important and well known family, but refused to let it get in the way of
how he wanted to be seen. Because brothers of military governors and heads of state and generals in
those days drove fancy cars in universities and wore expensive designer clothes, we interpreted
Umaru’s austere bearing as modesty and humility and it was quite endearing. Those of us from more
modest backgrounds were always put off by rich boys showing off their family’s money. To meet
someone who could have done that but chose not to amounted to a breath of fresh air. As a result, I
always saw him as a much revered older brother and related to him as such. I respected him as much
as I respected Bashir El-Rufai and Sani Maikudi. All of them were more than brothers to me – they
were mentors that I never saw as competitors at all.
Years later, Bashir drew my attention to the relationship between Umaru’s father and our father.
Apparently, they not only worked in the same ministry but had a student-teacher relationship. The
letter evidencing this, written by Musa Yar’Adua in 1953 to our father to sympathise with him over
the loss of some of his cattle, is in Appendix 13
Umaru was also very shy, particularly with girls, but when he and Turai married, I recall being
invited to attend the wedding because of my closeness to Sani Maikudi. I did not know this until much
later in 2007, but at some point around 1997, he and Sani had a bad falling out. Neither Sani nor
Umaru mentioned the estrangement to me at any time and I maintained my relationship of respect and
affection for both.
Knowing Umaru better over time and longer than most people that worked with him as president, I
was convinced that working with him would damage our cordial relationship. One of Umaru’s basic
problems was that he was insecure and could therefore be irrational about many things. Part of the
reason I think he failed as a president was that this deep insecurity prevented him from surrounding
himself with enough numbers of competent, independently-minded people who could disagree with
him. This is because good people often have strong opinions and necessarily disagree with others,
including their leaders. They are naturally confident, outspoken and will not always agree with the
leader’s views and will say so. Umaru had no tolerance at all for people who argued or disagreed
with him. Once a person disagreed with Umaru once or twice, that person would never have access to
him ever again, he just blocked him out. These deep insecurities led to all kinds of things and I think
maybe Sani took many things for granted that may have led to the falling out.
Thinking back and recalling that evening in 2006 when Umaru came to my house asking for help – this
was not a political thing, but just a show of support that he was requesting, which, all things
considered given our past together, was a totally reasonable thing to do. I even managed to get Nuhu
to come around and support Umaru’s candidacy in the end, though I do not think Umaru ever really
forgave Nuhu for that first reaction – first impressions, after all, last forever. In the end, virtually each
one of us supported Umaru’s candidacy and Obasanjo then established a presidential campaign
council and then proceeded to appoint all but one of the members of the council. As Obasanjo was the
one who picked these people, Umaru did not feel it was his campaign council and therefore needed a
smaller team of his own to be thinking about the campaign. This led to my second meeting with Umaru
after a dinner in my residence with Tanimu Yakubu in tow. Umaru then asked Bukola Saraki, Aliko
Dangote, Andy Uba and James Ibori to invite me and Nuhu Ribadu to another “inner circle formation”
meeting in Andy Uba’s house a couple of weeks later.
It became clear, at these meetings, that Umaru did not have access to the campaign funds Obasanjo
was raising purportedly on his behalf. He was finding that he had to hire aircraft to take him to
various places and he could not pay. He called me and mentioned this, then sent Tanimu to ask for
financial contribution. We ended up raising N50 million (then about half a million dollars) twice, and
both times got the money handed over to Tanimu Yakubu in cash.
There also came a point at which Umaru confided in me that he was not happy with the
communications strategy that his campaign was implementing and asked for help. I suggested that the
Yar’Adua team hire a team comprising a British campaign strategist, Nigerian communications
consultants and an American pollster to review and revamp the Yar’Adua campaign plan. The
campaign spent some two million pounds sterling to do extensive polling nationally, undertake focus
group sessions that led to the production of multi-lingual radio jingles, videos and a comprehensive
campaign strategy for candidate Yar’Adua, all paid for by a friend of mine who still prefers
anonymity. Apart from the instances when Umaru requested me personally to assist, I did not have any
hand in the campaign’s strategy, which was neither here nor there as far as I was concerned. My role
in his presidential campaign, to the extent that I had any, was coming up with the ideas, contacts and
resources and handing them over to his team, and on one occasion campaigning with him and
Obasanjo when the campaign team spent the day in Abuja. Given the many other things I had on my
plate at the time, I was perfectly fine with this level of contribution.
President-Elect Yar’Adua
Immediately upon announcing Umaru’s election victory, I congratulated him and informed him of my
medium-term plans, mainly because I did not want him to offer me a job that I would have to say no
to. I explained to him that I had a law degree to finish in London followed by attending a graduate
programme at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.
“But I am going to need you here,” he said.
“Well, I will be available by phone or email any time you need me but I need to do this,” I
told him. “This is my life that I have put on hold for nine years.”
“Mallam Nasir, you know I can’t do this job alone, I need experienced people around me and
I was relying on you to be there.”
“Sir, you know I will always be there, just a phone call away. I am available to research and
write a paper on any problem. Just anything you want as long as I do not have to take a full
time job.”
H
e indicated that he did not like this answer, but we agreed to discuss it again when things became
more settled.
Two days later, he called with a request to initiate a transition committee to begin planning how he
would take over and he wanted me to co-chair it along with one other person. He gave me the names
of those he wanted to be on the committee and we started meeting up. After two or three meetings, I
noticed that Tanimu Yakubu, who was one of the closest people to Yar’Adua, and Aliyu Modibbo,
who was supposed to be my co-chair, [130] stopped attending the meetings. Clearly, I concluded,
Yar'Adua was no longer interested in this transition committee.
When a new president is elected, many people come to him seeking influence, seeking relevance, and
expecting a job in the administration. There may have been some people convincing him to set up
another transition committee without some of us as members. I did not think much of it at the time as I
had enough other work to do and if Umaru was not interested in what we were doing, we might as
well get on with our lives. Our committee stopped meeting and eventually I went to see him to discuss
the matter.
“Mr. President-elect, it does not seem to me this transition committee is working because your guys
have been too busy to attend and we cannot do it well without the input of people from your side,” I
said. “So we will just tidy up whatever we have done and I will hand it over to you and you can
continue from there.”
His response was brief and telling – he basically just said that sounded fine and thanks, which
confirmed to me that this was what he wanted. There was no explanation. We assembled all the
reports and sent them to him and that was it. This was the first sign that something was amiss.
Nevertheless, Yar’Adua continued to consult me on other matters including some key appointments.
The Accidental Public Servant Page 54
