The Accidental Public Servant

by El-Rufai, Nasir

  Ummi, as she is better known, had been in contact with me while I was going through my Mason

  fellowship at Harvard. She was sympathetic to my travails and called regularly to counsel and did

  everything to uplift my spirits. I was convinced that the care and concern she showed for me would

  add value to my family life. Some of my family, friends and children were unhappy with what

  appeared to be a sudden decision, but it was not that sudden. I had thought it through over a three year

  period before deciding. I therefore craved for the understanding and support of my family and friends,

  and we tied the knot in November 2011 in a very quiet ceremony in Abuja.

  With these decisions taken and implemented, I refocused efforts at doing some writing and travelling

  to African countries where I have some contacts to explore business opportunities. In short, I began

  pursuing a new roadmap in which politics was a side show, an incidental activity, and not something

  that would take a lot of my time. I would never have guessed at the time how the next twelve months

  were going to be, but all my assumptions went out of the window on Remembrance Day - January

  15th, 2011.

  January 2011: ACN confirmed Nuhu, Bakare became Buhari’s Running Mate

  In January we all witnessed the conclusion of the primaries of the political parties, and I was under

  increasing pressure from our SNG colleagues to contest the presidency under the platform of the

  Labour Party (with or without Kowa Party). My 3G colleagues and the Abuja group agreed with me

  that the civil society leadership of SNG were getting it completely wrong. Civil society activists go

  into politics to make a statement. Politicians contest elections to win, acquire political power and use

  it for good (or sometimes for bad). I intended to be more of a politician and less of an activist. The

  reasoning, which my 3G colleagues concurred with, was simple and based on answers to basic

  questions. Why should anyone jump into a race that one had not really thought about? Should one

  contest an election knowing that one would lose just to make a point? Was it sensible to contest just

  because there was a free presidential ticket on the table, without the intellectual, emotional and

  resource preparation? Is there anything like a free ticket to contest a presidential election in Nigeria?

  And with my friend Nuhu in the race, what value could we add that could not be achieved by changing

  our minds, and joining and strengthening his campaign? The answers to all the questions were ‘NO’.

  In the end, I wriggled out of the situation without upsetting the SNG leadership by giving them

  ‘conditions precedent’ that I knew they could not meet – related to mobilization and fundraising, and

  then only if Nuhu was unable to secure the ACN ticket – a near impossibility in my assessment! By

  mid-January, I had reverted to my October -end condition and become a free Nasir. My inner circle

  of political collaborators - Pastor Tunde Bakare, Jimi Lawal, Balarabe Abbas Lawal, Husaini Dikko,

  Idris Othman and Tijjani Abdullahi, were either depressed or relieved. Depressed because it seemed

  that the main opposition parties (ACN, CPC, ANPP and Labour) coming together to confront the PDP

  had become an impossibility, but relieved because we all knew we had tried our best to form a

  unified, patriotic platform and failed not due to selfishness or lack of effort. I recalled that Pastor and

  Jimi said we could now move on with our lives, and I responded that we should wait for the next 24

  hours before concluding that it was over. My instincts were that something would happen that may yet

  change our political and personal situation.

  .

  On 15th January, Pastor Bakare received a surprising and unexpected call from Buhari asking him to

  be his running mate. Pastor rejected the offer right away, whereupon Buhari asked him to think about

  it and then call him later in the day. At that point I later learnt that Bakare called me, Jimi Lawal, Oby

  Ezekwesili, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu among others, to inform us all of the

  offer and requested for our views and counsel. I told Pastor right away that he had no choice but to

  accept the challenge. I reminded him that it would be hypocritical of him to decline the offer when a

  few weeks earlier he was advising me and others to contest, or suggesting that Buhari should pick

  Ngozi or Oby as his running mate. In the end, we went to my house in Kaduna late in January 2011,

  prayed for God’s guidance and thereafter a pensive Pastor Bakare met with Buhari and accepted the

  offer, on condition that Jimi and I would be on his side throughout the process. I reminded Pastor

  Bakare that Buhari and I still had some unresolved issues, but undertook to support Pastor Bakare and

  the ticket the best way I could.

  The next few days and weeks were busy as we took over the debate and re-drafting of the CPC

  manifesto, campaign planning and fundraising because Buhari took the unusual decision of appointing

  Bakare to be the chairman of the Presidential Campaign Council. Bakare’s selection as running mate

  and, by implication, the invitation of our group to the CPC met the stiff resistance of Buhari’s inner

  circle, who felt both slighted and affronted that he picked Bakare over and above their preferred

  candidates and was vesting so much responsibility in the Bakare group. [177] We soldiered on

  nevertheless and were active in the campaign nationwide. I joined the campaign train from Lagos on

  15th of March, 2011 and visited most of the south-west states with Pastor Bakare, reached out to

  financial donors, and delivered whatever we could muster to the party. We reached out to old friends

  and compatriots all over the country to support the Buhari-Bakare ticket as the best opportunity to

  change the nation’s governance trajectory. In between these efforts though, many other interesting

  things occurred. The rest of the story of how a small group within the CPC leadership took

  capricious decisions that cost the party dearly in Kano, Katsina, Bauchi, Niger, Kaduna, Kebbi,

  Gombe and Taraba States is best told by the those more closely involved in the party and the

  campaign, some day. We supported Pastor Bakare to do the best we could as late-arrivals to the

  organization and its structures and processes.

  Obasanjo Makes an Interesting Move

  The period between 15th January and the deadline for submission of nominations by political parties

  to INEC had its own version of intrigues. Pastor Bakare had not immediately accepted the offer to be

  running mate, but the media was awash with speculations that Buhari had chosen him. On 25th

  January, I was summoned by former President Obasanjo to his hotel room at the Hilton for reasons he

  said were both urgent and important. On arrival, I exchanged pleasantries with Steven Oronsaye and

  Akin Osuntokun in the living room and we went straight into his bedroom.

  After greetings, Obasanjo asked if I was still in touch with Buhari. I replied that I was not directly but

  could reach him anytime I wished. He then asked that I resumed my role of emissary between the two

  of them and wished to know quickly if I could reach Buhari with a message. I responded that I could

  do so pretty quickly. Obasanjo then said that he concurred with my earlier belief that Jonathan would

  not make a competent president and that the best presidential candidate of the whole lot was Buhari.

  He expressed willin
gness to support Buhari and go public with it if CPC and Buhari are willing to

  consider his suggestions and implement them. Obasanjo suggested that I should convince Buhari to

  pick Ngozi as his running mate, enter immediately into an alliance with the ACN and ANPP, and then

  offer the Senate President’s position to the South-West to secure Tinubu’s support. If Buhari agreed to

  these proposals, Obasanjo undertook to get three or four unnamed wealthy people to help with

  funding the CPC campaign, and Obasanjo would try bringing Labour Party to endorse the Buhari-

  Ngozi ticket. Obasanjo promised to resign from the chairmanship of the Board of Trustees of the PDP

  and announce his support for the ticket if it would be helpful. I took notes on the hotel notepaper and

  left, promising to report back the next day.

  It was fortuitous that both Buhari and Pastor Bakare were in Abuja, so along with Pastor Bakare we

  met Buhari and delivered Obasanjo’s message. Bakare, who until then was a reluctant running mate,

  saw the Obasanjo offer as good for CPC and Buhari, and hoped it would free him from the burden

  that Buhari had imposed on him. He added that since Buhari had not yet officially announced his name

  as running mate, he would be happy to step aside for Ngozi. I was simply an emissary so I was silent,

  hoping that Buhari would accept so I would be free of my commitment to be at Bakare’s side! Buhari

  smiled and asked for my opinion as someone that knew Obasanjo pretty well. I told both of them that I

  thought Obasanjo was being honest in his recommendations as I would urge Buhari to take similar

  steps of merger with other parties and so on. I doubted if Obasanjo would deliver on the monies

  promised and the resignation from the PDP Board of Trustees, and did not even think the latter would

  help the CPC and GMB in anyway. I also added that Obasanjo’s faction of the Ogun PDP had just lost

  all their tickets to contest the next elections and should this situation change, Obasanjo would renege

  on everything he had committed to. Obasanjo may also be making another strategic move of removing

  Bakare’s name from the ticket, in addition to responding to Jonathan’s failure to ensure that his faction

  got the ticket by hook or crook – something Jonathan simply refused to do, preferring to support the

  state governor, Gbenga Daniel and his faction.

  Buhari restated that he thought long and hard before deciding on Bakare and would not change his

  mind. However, we all agreed to continue to engage Obasanjo and encourage contacts with Ngozi,

  while pushing to see real movement towards the financial and other political commitments made. The

  same evening I returned to Obasanjo to brief him. He was excited and promised to contact

  Ngozi, [178] Labour Party, the ANPP leadership and a few wealthy benefactors.

  February 2011: Obasanjo’s Wild Goose Chase Ends in Abeokuta

  Some days later, on 1st February, I got a call from Professor Julius Ihonvbere requesting a meeting to

  follow up on my discussions with Obasanjo on Buhari. We met in the 3G offices on 2 nd February

  with Julius and Festus Odimegwu on the same subject. We exchanged information and updates on the

  political situation and ended with the question posed by Obasanjo to me, and then to Julius and Festus

  – “How do we stop Jonathan from getting elected, and thereby saving the country from state failure?”

  We discussed various steps, but unanimously recognized that Obasanjo would abandon the plan as

  soon as his temporary disagreement with the Jonathan administration was resolved. Since we

  believed in what we were doing, we agreed to soldier on under whatever scenario.

  On 7th February, we all travelled to Abeokuta to meet with Obasanjo. Odimegwu and Julius had

  developed a clear roadmap about remedying the weaknesses in Buhari’s organization and campaign

  for Obasanjo to play his lead role in the anti-Jonathan effort. By then, a weird Federal High Court

  ruling had restored the tickets of Iyabo Obasanjo and other members of their faction in Ogun State. So

  true to form, Obasanjo simply back-tracked, rejected the roadmap he had asked us to prepare, and

  said we should now explore ways of “remedying Jonathan’s weaknesses” and supporting his

  candidature. His commitments to Buhari vanished that day, just as we all predicted on 25th January. It

  was a very depressing drive late at night to Lagos for the five of us – Professor Julius Ihonvbere,

  Festus Odimegwu, and Professor George Obiozor with Otunba Akingboye driving. We lamented

  Obasanjo’s consistency in putting his personal interest before that of the nation and agreed that never

  again will he get another opportunity to waste our time the way he just did.

  We spent most of February 2011 getting the manifesto of the CPC drafted, debated and approved.

  Jimi Lawal did most of the initial drafting with the input of Suleiman Adamu, Professor Olivet

  Jagusah, Professor Okunnu, Lanre Tejuosho and Dr. Anthony Kila. Nuhu had sent me his draft

  manifesto for comments as an email attachment. I printed it and sent it back with handwritten

  comments. Jonathan and the PDP neither prepared nor published a manifesto. Only the CPC had a

  proper manifesto[179] with clear policies, programmes and timelines for implementation.

  Unfortunately, the elections were not decided on that basis.

  March 2011: Meeting Ibori in Dubai Jail and Speech at Chatham House

  Early in March, I went to Dubai for a short break, and to write a bit. Former Delta State governor

  James Ibori had been in the custody of the Dubai Police since the 12th of May 2010 and I had quietly

  made a mental note to locate and visit him sometime. As I had planned to be in Dubai for about ten

  days, I decided this was sufficient time to try seeing James. This happened twice, on the 7th and 14th

  of March. We chatted about the past and the present, and how and why his circumstances changed

  overnight in Nigeria. James also threw some light on why Umaru Yar’Adua and his group went after

  me, confirming much of what Mike Aondoakaa shared with me in August 2010.

  The Royal Institute of International Affairs, the world famous think tank better known as Chatham

  House, invited me to speak on Nigeria’s democracy and prospects of the 2011 elections. [180] The

  presentation focused on the risks and opportunities the country faced at the time, but I made the

  flawed assumption that a biometric and accurate voters’ register existed and that Jega and his staff in

  INEC were truly committed to conducting decent elections. I was confident then that it was unlikely

  for Jonathan to win the presidential election in the first ballot; that electoral fraudsters will be

  exposed in the tribunals using the biometric register and ballots as foundational evidence; and

  violence was likely to result if the elections ended up being manipulated or rigged as we witnessed in

  many states in 2007! I was wrong on the first two, but was sadly vindicated on the third when at least

  twelve states recorded outbreaks of avoidable violence – wanton killings, widespread arson and

  targeted attacks on political leaders, traditional rulers and marabouts suspected of being sympathetic

  to the PDP.

  I returned from Chatham House to join the campaign actively starting with Lagos, and then moving

  through virtually all the states of the south-west. We travelled to Jos with Pastor Bakare to reach out

  to voters in that state after Buhari’s successful campaign visit. Pastor and Jimi held meetings
with

  electoral aspirants from Katsina and Kano to try resolving the crisis that arose from inconclusive or

  multiple primaries in these states. Bauchi was another state where the confusion over who was the

  legitimate candidate of the party for the governorship election was being addressed all through

  March. In the end, these acts of omission or commission led to the confusion that may have

  contributed to the CPC’s loss of the governorships of Katsina, Kano, Bauchi, Kebbi, Kaduna, Taraba

  and Niger States to the PDP.

  April 2011: Elections and Post-Election Violence

  We went into the general election with the optimism that it would be much freer and fairer than past

  elections due to the confidence we all had in Professor Attahiru Jega and his team of INEC national

  commissioners. In the event of fraudulent elections, we relied on the availability of thumb-printed

  ballot papers for digital matching to the biometric register of voters to expose any corruption of the

  election process. When the first round of elections for legislative offices started on 2nd April, CPC

  virtually led in all constituencies in the north. It was going to be a landslide sweep amounting to near-

  control of most of the seats in the two houses of the national assembly. If that election had been

  concluded, CPC and ACN would have taken more than two-thirds of the House and Senate. The

  election was aborted and the partial results, made available by INEC to Jonathan and the PDP to the

  exclusion of other parties, sent shockwaves to those in power. Jega’s decision to reschedule the

  elections gave the PDP adequate warning and time to re-arm and implement a desperate election

  rigging strategy. The first step was to militarize most of the states where CPC was likely to win

  landslide victories. The second was to send huge sums of money – three billion naira election ‘gift’ to

  each state governor in Nigeria of whatever party - to ensure that all agents of the state were

  adequately paid to look the other way. Third was to restrict general movement the night before