The Accidental Public Servant

by El-Rufai, Nasir

  the Saudis. In January and February alone, high-powered delegations from the ruling party, the House

  of Representatives, the governor’s forum and the abinet were in Saudi Arabia and were denied

  access to Yar’Adua by his strong-willed wife, Turai.

  The story of Yar’Adua’s sudden return, sneaking into Abuja like a thief in the night is the stuff of a

  thriller movie. The only role I will admit to playing in the saga was confirming that the presidential

  jet had indeed left Jeddah, tracking its flight through Sudanese and Chadian air space, and along with

  Yinka Odumakin, Sam Nda Isaiah and Simon Kolawole, ensuring that the local and international

  media, with their cameras, were at the presidential wing of the airport to give Umaru a grand

  reception and welcome. In the end, the airport was thrown into complete darkness as soon as the

  plane completed taxiing, and a hapless and helpless Umaru was lifted like an infant out of the

  presidential jet into the brand new ‘intensive care-equipped ambulance’ that had just been acquired

  for him, and driven into Aso Villa, never to be seen in public until his corpse was buried in Katsina

  on 6th May, 2010. Whatever he may have done to me and others, I prayed for Allah to forgive his

  errors and rest his soul in peace. In the end, we are all mortals – something easily forgotten by many

  around Umaru, once they got drunk with the elixir of unexpected political and economic power.

  March 2010: Meetings with Pastor Bakare, SNG and AC

  Pastor Tunde Bakare and I finally met face-to-face at the end of March 2010 in Dubai. We bonded

  almost instantaneously. I found in Tunde Bakare a forthright and intelligent man, a gifted speaker,

  passionate patriot and one of the most honest men I know. He is straight and courageous in thought,

  speech and action. I knew I had found another elder brother to add to the blessings of Bashir, Ali and

  Sani Maikudi. He flew to Dubai along with Yinka Odumakin, Uche Onyeagocha, Wale Oshun, Jimi

  Agbaje, Dipo Famakinwa and Yinka Quadri, his assistant. On the 3G side, we had Dr. Isa Odidi who

  flew in from Canada, Jimi Lawal, Kalli Alghazali, Akin Osuntokun, Naja’atu Mohammed, Balarabe

  Abbas Lawal, Tijjani Abdullahi, Idris Othman and Salihu Lukman.

  We spent two days debriefing each other and then thinking through options for active engagement with

  the political process. At the end of the meetings, we decided to open discussions with AC and Labour

  Party (LP). The CPC had just been registered, and we agreed to keep it in view after concluding with

  the former parties or otherwise. We recognized even then, that it would take the merger of all the

  parties, or at least an electoral alliance, to successfully confront the ruling party. We also agreed to

  push forward and conclude the registration of a political party for which 3G had already filed an

  application with INEC. [159]

  After the second day of meetings, I went to see Pastor Bakare in his hotel room. He had just ordered

  dinner when I arrived and had Jimi Agbaje keeping him company. I thanked him for coming to Dubai

  to meet with me and our group. I apologized that Nuhu was unable to make it because his family was

  spending the Easter holidays with him in Washington, DC. On completing his dinner, Pastor Bakare

  asked me a straight question. “Who are we doing all this political organization-building for? Who is

  the candidate we have in view for President?” he asked. I replied that I expected whoever we will

  support to emerge from some democratic process within the party we finally join, but added that my

  preferred candidate was Nuhu Ribadu. Pastor was equally quick and sharp. “Nuhu will not be an

  acceptable candidate. He is seen as Obasanjo’s attack dog and has made too many enemies of Lagos

  business elite.” I disagreed and insisted that the perception was wrong. I asked Pastor Bakare how

  well he knew Nuhu and if he had ever met him and he answered in the negative. I, therefore, appealed

  to him to reserve his judgment until he met Nuhu and got to know him better.

  He accepted that proposal and we said our farewells as they left for Lagos the following morning.

  One of the decisions we took was for 3G to meet as soon as possible with the leadership of AC and

  LP and report back. Akin Osuntokun was tasked with arranging the LP meeting while Wale Oshun,

  Babafemi Ojudu and Uche Onyeagocha would be the links to AC. We never heard from Akin

  Osuntokun but within a week, a meeting with AC’s leadership was fixed for 25th April in Accra,

  Ghana.

  April 2010: Meeting with AC in Accra, Ghana

  Nuhu again could not make it to Accra even though the date was fixed with AC subject to his

  convenience and physical availability. I, therefore, led the 3G team to Accra, while National

  Publicity Secretary Lai Mohammed led a smaller delegation[160] representing AC. We met for hours,

  debriefing one another on the situation in Nigeria and agreeing to explore a merger between AC and

  3G. A joint committee of three persons on both sides was constituted to continue meeting in Nigeria

  to negotiate the terms of the merger. But from the very first meeting with Oshun, Ojudu and

  Onyeagocha in Dubai, it was clear that AC wanted 3G to present a candidate for president while they

  would provide a running mate. We on the other hand, perhaps naively so, preferred to collectively

  review the Party’s primaries system to allow greater, more open competition – something AC seemed

  strangely and surprisingly uncomfortable with. Nevertheless, the two delegations then left for Nigeria

  while Jimi and I went back to Dubai after spending a few days with our host Aloy Chife, his lovely

  wife, Gesare and their son, simply known as Papa.

  I had already decided that I would return to Nigeria by the end of that month of April 2010. I had,

  therefore, booked a one-way flight to London en route Abuja on British Airways. Apart from

  informing my daughter Yasmin, and a couple of others, I shared my travel plans with no one until I got

  to London and was a couple of days away from arriving in Abuja. Many of my close friends, Nuhu

  included, were incensed at my ‘sudden decision’, but it was neither sudden nor impulsive. I had

  simply learnt lessons from the last ambush led by Nuhu to frustrate my planned return to Nigeria. I

  was determined, at the risk of being accused by my friends of not trusting them, not to provide another

  opportunity this second time.

  One of those I shared my plans with was Dele Olojede of Next newspaper because of his constant,

  unbending and committed support during the most difficult period of my life. Ne x t and other

  newspapers[161] broke the story of my planned arrival. At Heathrow Airport on 30th April 2010, the

  night of my departure, I called General Aliyu Mohammed Gusau, [162] then Jonathan’s national

  security adviser, to confirm that I was on the BA flight to Abuja. He was pleased that I was coming

  home and said I was being expected. He requested that I should visit him to catch up as soon as I

  settled down in Abuja.

  May 2010: On May Day, I Returned to Face Umaru Yar’Adua, but…..

  Jimi Lawal and I arrived in Abuja the morning of May Day, the first of May 2010. I was cleared

  through immigration without any incident, pulled my trolley bag and stepped out to the warm embrace

  of a crowd of family, friends and political associates. [163] The person responsible for my 23 months

  of exile, Umaru Yar’Adua, had returned in the da
rkness of the night of 23rd February, but no one had

  seen him – not even acting President Jonathan. He was holed up in the Villa, with Turai organizing

  visits of Muslim and Christian clerics to give the never-ending impression that he was going to be

  miraculously fine the next morning and would appear in his office to chase Jonathan away. Since we

  were still better informed than most about Umaru’s pathetic,medical condition, we did not believe

  any of the fabrications emanating from some of the clerics. Meanwhile, I was alive, at home, healthy

  and receiving an endless stream of visitors – friends, family and even curious well-wishers. I remain

  grateful to God for His mercies.

  On Tuesday, 4th May 2010, I drove to the EFCC office in Wuse to meet with my traducers at about 10

  in the morning. Our session was uneventful as they had exhausted their investigation and in frustration

  found nothing to nail me. By one o’clock in the afternoon, we were done, but they made a show of

  detaining me till evening so the newspapers would report that I was grilled for nine hours. The

  questions they asked me were comical, some even ridiculous. I was amazed at the extent to which

  supposedly serious organizations relied on unfounded rumours as basis of law enforcement work! I

  was asked if I owned the NEXT newspaper which had been at the forefront of exposing the corruption

  within the EFCC since Nuhu was forced out of the institution for Farida Waziri to take over. They

  also thought that since I played a central role in nurturing the UAE-Nigeria relations that led to the

  grant of a telecommunications license to Mubadala,[164] I must be the real owner of Etisalat, or at

  the very least, a major shareholder in the company. It appeared that as far as the EFCC was

  concerned, that was how senior officials were expected to conduct government business – an

  incredulous assumption!

  Now, even a brainless person knows that Etisalat is a state-owned telecom company based in Dubai,

  with operations in a dozen countries, and how I could suddenly own it in Nigeria only reminded me

  of Atiku’s tale to Obasanjo that my brother owned ten percent of Motorola, Inc.! In any case, since I

  had filed suits against the EFCC and the federal government challenging some of these wild and

  defamatory accusations, it was sub-judice to ask any questions on those but they tried. I reminded

  them that they could not ask any such questions, but go to court and tell the judge what they knew. The

  leader of the team, Abdulkadir Jimoh, was gracious, even apologetic, implying that he did not believe

  in all the persecution but was “merely doing his job.” I was released on ‘administrative bail’ in the

  evening. The criminal charges filed against Altine Jibrin, Dr. Ismail Iro and I were to be heard on 6th

  May anyway, so we were all to meet in court in a couple of days.

  The next day, the 5th of May, I went to another court, this time the Code of Conduct Tribunal, to

  witness proceedings in the case filed by the Yar’Adua administration against Nuhu for allegedly not

  declaring his assets, a case that was withdrawn by the Jonathan government and was accordingly

  dismissed that day. I then joined Pastor Tunde Bakare at the launch of Save Nigeria Group’s

  “Contract with Nigerians” at the Abuja Hilton Hotel. We spent the rest of the afternoon meeting with

  other civil society leaders like Solomon Asemota, SAN, and later in the evening with Pastor Bakare,

  preparing for a planned meeting between SNG and the then acting President Jonathan that day.

  It was while in the midst of this that a call came through from the National Security Adviser, General

  Aliyu Gusau, to inform us that Yar’Adua had died a couple of hours earlier. He further informed us

  that he was on his way to pick Jonathan so they could pay a condolence visit to Turai Yar’Adua. He

  promised to keep us updated on developments. After absorbing this unsurprising yet unexpected piece

  of news, I quickly placed calls to three of my friends in the media – Ben Bruce of Silverbird

  Television, Sam Nda Isaiah of Leadership, and Nduka Obaigbena of ThisDay to break the news to

  them. Silverbird TV was the first to break the news, ahead of even the government-owned Nigeria

  Television Authority. We were all pensive for the next hour or so, and we knew that the planned

  meeting with Jonathan was not happening anytime soon.

  In the end, Pastor Bakare and the SNG leadership met a few more times with Jonathan until 28th

  November 2010 when he sent Niger Delta minister Godsday Orubebe and Tony Uranta to give them

  an envelope that was found to contain $50,000 as ‘transport money’ back to Lagos. That ended any

  further interactions with Jonathan and any hope that he would be anything other than the usual

  transactional Nigerian leader! Perhaps, one day someday, Bakare will tell his story of the various

  meetings SNG had with Jonathan until they gave up on the man. [165]

  Jonathan was sworn in as president on the 6th of May, 2010. A couple of days later, I met with him in

  the ADC’s lodge in the Villa, with my old friend and his principal secretary, Hassan Tukur. It was a

  brief meeting. He looked tired and sleep-deprived. He welcomed me back home and promised that

  all the Yar’Adua persecution would be terminated since he had now fully taken over. He promised to

  make more time over the weekend so we could talk about pressing national issues. I thanked him for

  making time to see me, but suggested that he should not interfere with any investigations or

  prosecutions as I preferred to prove my innocence in court, rather than to appear ‘guilty as sin, but

  saved by his friend’. I told him I looked forward to a longer meeting but added that I had no intention

  of returning to full-time public service any time soon. The next day, my state governor, former

  colleague and acquaintance from our ABU days, Namadi Sambo, invited me to accompany him, the

  Emir of Zazzau and others on a condolence visit by the people of Kaduna State to President Jonathan.

  I did and met Jonathan again briefly where he reiterated that he would set aside a weekend for our

  promised meeting. At the close of the visit, I was asked questions by State House press corps on

  many issues and once again my views about zoning.

  My responses were widely reported, with Jonathan’s sympathizers interpreting the views to be in

  support of Jonathan personally rather than any leadership selection principle, while the self-

  appointed defenders of ‘northern interest’ attacked me for being bought by southerners. One of my

  historically-consistent critics, Mohammed Haruna, wrote a very angry syndicated column[166]

  attacking me and chastising Sambo and Jonathan for inviting me to the Villa. As far as he was

  concerned, I was a fugitive from justice until recently and since in his peculiar type of jurisprudence,

  I must be presumed guilty unless I proved my innocence, the State House should be off-limits to me,

  and Jonathan and Sambo must keep a safe distance from felons like me! Jonathan clearly took the

  warning seriously and we never met again until October 2010, when he was looking to recruit me to

  support his presidential aspiration – something that I was unwilling and unable to do by then as I will

  explain shortly.

  The PDP Reform Forum and Aftermath

  Just before I returned to Nigeria, two of my 3G compatriots had formed the PDP Reform Forum, an

  association of ruling party members that were unhappy with t
he stranglehold of the state governors on

  the party. A new president, not particularly well-regarded by the PDP state governors, presented a

  window of opportunity for driving through internal reforms of the party. They invited my friend and

  former chief of staff, Balarabe Abbas Lawal, to join the steering committee, chaired by Senator Ken

  Nnamani. Former speaker Aminu Masari was the vice chairman. The governors-controlled National

  Working Committee of the PDP was sufficiently rattled by the emergence of the forum, such that the

  leaders and ‘suspected financiers’ were suspended from the party. Nnamani and Masari, both

  members of PDP’s National Executive Committee, had promptly challenged the decision in

  court. [167] I was invited to join the forum’s steering committee the moment I returned to Nigeria. I

  attended my first meeting on 12th May, 2010, and thereafter every week until August when the forum

  went voluntarily into abeyance.

  Over the next few weeks, we worked hard at designing internal democratic processes that will

  remove control of the PDP from the godfathers, the governors and unelected apparatchiks and restore

  it back to the ordinary membership. The foundation of such a system is a clean, fraud-resistant

  biometric membership register of all party members nationwide. We approached several technology

  companies to propose solutions that would enable this and publicized our proposals in the print

  media. The forum leadership, consisting of Senator Nnamani, Speaker Masari and Dr. Raymond

  Dokpesi, kept briefing Jonathan on the direction of the reforms, persuading him that it was through

  implementation of these ideas that he would successfully wrest control of the party from the

  governors’ forum which had been pro-Yar’Adua all through till the very end, and vest it in the

  membership. Our proposals were easily accepted by the PDP National Caucus and recommended to

  the Board of Trustees for consideration.

  I was mandated to meet with BOT chairman Olusegun Obasanjo to brief him on the forum’s activities