The Accidental Public Servant

by El-Rufai, Nasir

  elections and on the day of the election so that government agents and the security agencies could

  move around freely while everyone was grounded, and rig the elections without any challenges by the

  ordinary citizens – and all of these restrictions have no basis in any law and clearly violated the

  constitutional right of movement, association and assembly. The rest is now history that is better told

  by others.

  The last-ditch efforts by the CPC and ACN to negotiate an electoral alliance also failed, thus giving

  the PDP free reign to rig the elections not only in parts of the north (to get Jonathan 25% of the total

  votes cast all costs), but even in the more difficult south-west where the ACN virtually abandoned its

  candidate, Nuhu Ribadu, in favor of allowing the PDP to win! [181] Once again, the story of the failed

  attempt at an alliance is better told by those more closely involved in the negotiations. I just got to

  know about it only in the last two days of the process when Pastor Bakare came to my house around

  11pm to let me know that he had just left Buhari and they have agreed that if we won the election,

  Pastor would resign as VP within three months to give way for an ACN nominee for the position, as

  the party’s sacrifice to enable the ACN/CPC alliance come into effect. Pastor Bakare who had

  always been a reluctant running mate, had no issues with that, and we agreed to meet early in the

  morning to draft a carefully worded letter that would be acceptable to both the CPC and ACN. The

  letter was to be ready for a meeting fixed for 10 am the next day.

  The wordings of the letter needed careful drafting because if Bakare signed the letter as Vice

  President (before being elected) it would constitute some legal violation and so on. By 8am, we had a

  suitable draft ready and GMB came to Pastor’s hotel room in person about 9 am, collected three

  signed copies and handed Pastor ACN’s draft alliance agreement and their preferred wordings of the

  “resignation” letter. The two drafts were referred to ACN and CPC’s lawyers and negotiators to

  discuss and agree. The chairman of the ACN, national leader Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, governors

  Fashola, Aregbesola, Oshiomhole and Fayemi, among others, were in Abuja to conclude the alliance.

  CPC’s team consisted of Sule Y. Hamma, Chairman Tony Momoh, Engineer Ife Oyedele and CPC

  national secretary Buba Galadima. Behind the scenes were General Ibrahim Babangida, Atiku

  Abubakar and Aliyu Mohammed Gusau, acting as interlocutors and honest brokers to nudge both sides

  to a deal. GMB took a back seat, and Pastor Bakare was not at the negotiating table. None of us was

  involved until the talks had broken down – largely on the exact wordings of the “resignation” letter,

  the leakage of the details to several newspapers by PDP agents in both the ACN and CPC that wanted

  the prospective deal scuttled, and late delivery of Bakare’s letter to the ACN. Buhari and Bakare

  were both incensed by the leakage, and it raised GMB’s suspicions about the intentions of both the

  ACN and the team of interlocutors. It never occurred to any of us that our guys may have been the

  source of the leak as well.

  It was about 3pm in the afternoon of that fateful Wednesday that Sarki Abba, Buhari’s loyal, trusted

  and reliable personal assistant came to Pastor Bakare’s hotel room and asked to see me alone. He

  told me that the alliance being negotiated was about to collapse and GMB had become quite upset by

  the turn of events and no longer cared if it did. He implored me to see him right away and intervene to

  bring things back on track. I drove straight to the house in Asokoro that was rented for Buhari and

  sought to speak to him. We spoke for about an hour after which he was convinced that the alliance

  talks must be concluded at whatever cost, called up Sule Hamma who was leader of the delegation

  and instructed him accordingly. I left and immediately called the Oba of Lagos, Rilwan Akiolu,

  requesting his intervention to get Tinubu and his team back on the negotiating table. He directed me to

  see Tinubu and talk to him in Abuja, while promising to call Asiwaju and put him on notice. I placed

  similar calls to my father and one of the most respected traditional rulers in Nigeria, the Awujale of

  Ijebuland, and sought his assistance as well. I called two other friends with links to Tinubu and the

  ACN leadership and got their tacit support to bring pressure to bear on Tinubu and the leadership to

  do a deal. I guaranteed all these people that Buhari has assured me that he wanted the deal and will

  honour every commitment, written or unwritten, that would arise from the deal. I further assured

  everyone that as one of the closest people to Bakare, I guaranteed that he was willing to do whatever

  was needed as long as he is not required to break the law or his professional calling as an

  evangelical pastor. I then went to Lagos House in Asokoro to meet with ACN leader, Asiwaju Bola

  Tinubu. We talked for two hours and he briefed me on the circumstances that compelled him to seek

  for an alliance in the first place after several failed efforts to merge with the CPC earlier in the year.

  He dispelled the stories going round about his vice-presidential aspiration as the deal-breaker in the

  negotiations. He agreed that the alliance was necessary to save Nigeria from imminent collapse in the

  hands of Jonathan and the PDP, but regretted that the ACN team had already left for Lagos, feeling

  angry and slighted that once again, Buhari and CPC had failed to fulfill their promise to table an

  acceptable resignation letter by 2pm that day. He informed me that ACN had already addressed the

  media, informing supporters that the talks had failed. He asked why Buhari refused to lead the

  negotiations, or have me included in the team. He thought that if we were there and proffered the

  reasons I passionately made before him, the alliance may have been consummated.

  I appealed to him to get the ACN leadership to reconsider the position taken, but he felt it was too

  late. With only two days to the presidential elections, he thought the voters would be further confused

  by any last-minute alliance announcement. I did not buy that, but seeing that his mind and that of the

  ACN was made up, I left depressed about the outcome of the elections and what it could mean for

  Nigeria’s future. The Asiwaju left one opening though – he felt that based on the election results it

  would appear that there would be a run-off since he felt it was unlikely for Jonathan to win the

  plurality of votes on the first ballot. He therefore suggested that we resume our conversation

  immediately after the first round of the presidential elections. There was nothing to report to Buhari

  and Bakare that evening. I just went home, stayed in and tried to have an early night. It was one of the

  worst days of my life in recent times. The rest of course is history. My hope is that those more deeply

  involved in the failed negotiations will document the experience and throw more light on what went

  wrong so that we can all be better informed, and learn for the future.

  Just before the elections, I had been invited by the Atlantic Council, a Washington DC think tank, to

  speak on the outcome of the elections. The event was organized on the mistaken belief of the

  Americans that Goodluck Jonathan was going to win the election fair and square and the seminar was

  expected to be merely celebratory, congratulating Nigeria and INEC for conducting cle
an elections. I

  did not know if there was any agenda and did not care, as we agreed, Buhari, Bakare and my humble

  self, that I should attend. I accepted to speak but informed the person through whom I was invited me,

  former US Ambassador Robin Sanders that I did not have a valid US visa. She intervened to have one

  issued.

  I left the morning after we had all cast our votes in the presidential elections and the results were

  being released. It was the early morning BA flight from Abuja and I found myself seated next to a

  leading PDP apparatchik from my home state of Kaduna. After we exchanged pleasantries, he

  informed me of riots in Kaduna, with homes of PDP leaders and the palace of the Emir of Zazzau in

  Zaria, surrounded by angry youths. I had no clue at all that by then, these riots had broken out in

  several states. He admitted to me that they expected something like this happening in Kaduna, and the

  VP Namadi Sambo and many of his inner circle had left the city after voting, with their prized

  possessions – family members, the SUVs and other valuables. I was dumbfounded and asked him

  why. He confessed that they had added about 800,000 votes to Jonathan’s real votes so that he could

  get at least 25% of the total votes cast. According to him, they did this because VP Namadi Sambo

  was determined not to be disgraced in his home state. Later, I found this pattern all through the

  northern states and this misconduct became the remote cause of youth anger and this was expressed

  through the spontaneous riots in at least twelve states. At the time, I did not realize how bad and

  widespread it was. My prediction at Chatham House in March 2011 had eerily come to pass in a way

  that no one realized. I had written then that:

  “If the 2011 elections turn out to be as flawed as those of 2003 or

  2007, I do not think the opposition candidates have sufficient

  confidence in the Judiciary to take their complaints to the Courts.

  In fact one of them has publicly declared that he would not. In that

  case, the discontent will spread to the streets of the major urban

  centres. I predict massive protests in various parts of the country,

  as we have witnessed recently in Cote D'Ivoire and some countries

  in North Africa and the Middle East, until those that steal the

  elections vacate office. ” [182]

  I slept on the flight and arrived at Heathrow with only one hour to make my connection to Washington.

  As soon as I switched on my phones, my Etisalat Dubai phone was ringing incessantly, while on the

  Heathrow transit train. It showed a blocked number so I thought I did not need to pick the call. After

  seven call attempts, I reluctantly answered to hear a clearly agitated Obasanjo on the line. “Where are

  you?” he asked in his standard line from my ministerial days. I said London. He then requested me to

  contact Buhari right away and tell him to come on national TV and radio to appeal to his supporters to

  stop rioting. Obasanjo told me that twelve states were on fire, and the north was in turmoil. All the

  governors had gone into hiding, many of the traditional rulers were holed up in their surrounded

  palaces, and President Jonathan and his security agencies were taken aback by the spontaneous

  response to the announcement that afternoon of Jonathan as the winner of the election. I told Obasanjo

  that I was en route Washington, had one hour to catch my connection but would try to reach Buhari. I

  told Obasanjo that I did not think it was Buhari’s supporters doing the damage but a sense of general

  outrage at the blatant faking of results that occurred during the elections.

  I called Buhari and passed on Obasanjo’s message. He expressed sadness at what was going on, and

  agreed with the need for it to stop. But he prophetically warned that if he came out to appeal to the

  rioters, and the rioting somehow stopped, he or the CPC would be blamed for the whole unfortunate

  event. I noted his concern, but asked him to consider doing so along with other national leaders, just

  to save innocent lives and property. I called back Obasanjo and relayed Buhari’s concern and told

  him that he would reflect and decide what to do. Obasanjo insisted that I should not get on the flight

  unless Buhari spoke, but I told him that I would not miss my connection for that reason. I felt I had

  done all I could. I switched off my phones, got on my flight and was incommunicado for the next eight

  hours. In the end, Generals Gowon and T Y Danjuma joined in appealing to Buhari to speak, which he

  did. Unfortunately, as he predicted, Jonathan and the media he had under his wings sought to blame

  everything on Buhari and the CPC, completely ignoring the blatant malpractices[183] that led to the

  violence in the first place. Jonathan even set up a commission of inquiry and tried to influence the

  outcome in that predetermined direction but failed. This kind of conduct was to emerge as a

  behavioural pattern of the Jonathan administration: create an avoidable crisis, run for cover while

  the crisis festers, beg others to help the administration out, avoid any responsibility, use money,

  religious or regional sentiments to procure the media to suppress the truth of what went on and then

  blame anyone naïve enough to help the administration out as ‘the real cause’ of, or the ‘faceless’

  person(s) behind the crisis. From the post-election violence, to fuel subsidy removal protests, and the

  intensified Boko Haram insurgency, Jonathan and his team have continued to behave in accordance

  with this oft-repeated and worn-out script! It is no wonder no one - except the gullible or those

  greedy for governmental hand-outs or attention - offers ever to help Jonathan and his crisis-prone

  administration! Those who offer do so at their peril!

  My speech at the Atlantic Council was an anti-climax for the Jonathan celebrants that assembled on

  that day to endorse the cleanliness of the elections. [184] Jonathan’s aide Oronto Douglas, in a

  somewhat misplaced triumphalism, asserted that they had succeeded in redrawing the map of Nigeria,

  with a new northern boundary that included only the “Muslim” states. My speech questioned the

  credibility of the election, and assured the audience that the tribunal process would prove the massive

  rigging in many states. I thought the rigged election was a lost opportunity for Nigeria and meant

  every word. I cautioned against unnecessary triumphalism as that will further erode the social

  cohesion needed to govern decently and in peace. The Nigerian ambassador, Oronto Douglas, Reno

  Omokri and some of their American believers, merely suggested that we (the CPC, the north) were

  simply sore losers!

  I returned to Nigeria immediately to review all that occurred – the elections, the violence that

  followed, and the contrived and sponsored script playing out in the media to place the blame on GMB

  and the CPC. I joined Yinka Odumakin, who was Buhari’s spokesman during the campaign, and

  Rotimi Fashakin, the CPC’s national publicity secretary, to oppose the carefully designed onslaught

  against our party and its leadership. I appeared on several radio programmes – both local FM stations

  and international – BBC Hausa Service, the VOA, Deutsche Welle and Radio France International –

  explaining how the elections were rigged, why there was spontaneous violence in the north and why

  Jonathan and PDP should be held responsible rather than the CPC and Buhari. I spoke to several<
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  newspapers, notably ThisDay, the Sun, Vanguard, Leadership and The Nation along the same lines.

  Many others spoke out, but my voice, as a former member of the PDP and minister for Abuja, stood

  out slightly more than the message others and I were articulating.

  May 2011: Jonathan sworn in and I wrote an FT Op-Ed

  In no time, I began to be referred to variously as a CPC chieftain, opposition leader and so on.

  Frankly, I was just angry at how everything went, and how those whose actions and inaction led to the

  deaths of many Nigerians, the maiming of others and destruction of property, were using the media to

  narrow the whole tragedy to the deaths of youth corpers in one state, Bauchi, and ignoring acts of

  violence and murder elsewhere whose victims didn”t exactly fit the preferred script. Yet, some

  gullible citizens, blinded by tribe or faith, were accepting it hook, line and sinker, without regard to

  any facts or logic. I felt that our common humanity required that we acknowledge and reflect upon

  every tragedy, and all victims.

  On 29th May, Jonathan was sworn in as President. The CPC refused to congratulate him or accept the

  legitimacy of his election. We also declined to participate in his cake-sharing ‘government of national

  unity’, along with the ACN. We also primed our members in the legislature to collaborate closely

  with the ACN members to provide a bulwark against the dictatorship of the PDP. This was to prove

  decisive in defeating the PDP’s plan to impose a south-west member as the Speaker of the House. We

  worked with independent-minded PDP members, the ACN and some ANPP members to support the

  emergence of Aminu Tambuwal as the Speaker later in June. On my part, on the 5 th of May, I drafted

  a discussion memo to GMB and Pastor Bakare on the way forward for our party. The memo and many

  others were carefully studied by GMB as he thought about the next steps for the party. He had

  undertaken not to challenge the results of the election if he lost, but the party’s NEC overrode him and

  decided to challenge the results. As party leaders, we insisted on this to prove the depth and breadth