At a slippery point in time in Nigeria’s history and indeed the
history of Africa, where decent leadership is elusive and desperation
triumphs; where the people have given up on integrity and the
possibility of upright anti corrupt leadership. A time where many ask,
what can be better, and is it possible to deliver more for the people
and less for the cabal; it becomes valuable to revisit the leaderships
of our past and study if possibly there were better legacies, better
examples to compare, and greater natures of human beings to emulate and
seek in the present-future.
Looking not too far into the past, in fact in this very 4th republic,
and from this very currently ruling PDP party, the much overlooked,
abbreviated regime of late President Umaru Yar’adua comes to the fore,
and has recently re-featured in the national immodest crises of the
‘missing’ $20bn, for which external auditors have embarrassingly been
requested to help Nigeria address. A characteristic of a good legacy is
when your valued words and actions of the past are raised as measures
and standards in determination of the problems of the future. Late Umaru
Yar’Adua in this regard, as invoked in the national discussion, left a
good and important legacy.
Late President Yar’adua was elected to power in 2007, sponsored by
another and two time Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo. Umaru
Yar’Adua was in office from 29 May 2007 – 5 May 2010 when he passed
after a chronic illness. Considering Yar’Adua’s reign requires a brief
review of the era before him, that he came to replace.
The democratic regime of Olusegun Obasanjo was very flamboyant and
prestigious. It was Nigeria’s first return to democracy after 16 years
of imposed military dictatorship.
Two of the common credits of the OBJ regime were the reduction in
foreign debt and the establishment of GSM mobile phone networks in the
country. Other things OBJ is remembered for is his campaign of
privatizations and establishment of an anti-corruption agency, the EFCC.
As OBJ’s regime is reviewed in cognizance of its real features and its
future results, as well as the economic and political dynamics of the
time, a few things are notable.
OBJ
rode the oil price waves. OBJ’s regime was not particularly
economically unique, it more accurately was in favorable times and the
economic growth was concordant with catapulting global oil prices. Oil
prices were $16 in 1999 at the start of his tenure and rose rapidly to
double that, $35 in September 2000. By August 2005, oil sold at $65 and
by October 2007, oil prices were $90/barrel. Obasanjo rode these prices
in an ‘oil cruise.’
Contrary to popular narrative, it was late Abacha who introduced GSM
to Nigeria. Abacha awarded the first GSM license to Motophone before he
passed. When Motophone refused to bend to Obasanjo’s requests for 50%
shares in the company as reliable sources detail, Obasanjo cancelled
their award and then awarded 27 licenses of his own to companies he
brought.
One more issue to discuss that was a hallmark of the predecessor
administration was the privatization agenda. Obasanjo built his friends
and sponsors of his party, the PDP; the likes of Dangote and Otedola
were handed chunks of Nigeria in a privatization frenzy. Transcorp was
formed to further facilitate the complete handing over of Nigeria’s
assets to private cronies of the PDP. As Obasanjo failed to secure his
third term bid, he quickly auctioned off Nigeria’s oil refineries to the
same cabal.
Other not so favorable aspects of the OBJ years, including the
‘skewed’ use of the EFCC, the billions allocated for repairing power
plants, the ‘missing’ recovered Abacha loot and the like have been
thrashed suitably in the media.
The rich got stupendously richer during Obasanjo and the poor got poorer. The gap between the rich and poor have since in the 4
th
republic widened to levels never before seen. From 2004, midway into
the Obasnajo tenure, to date after 4+ full years of Goodluck Jonathan,
according to Nigeria’s statistics Bureau, NBS, Nigeria’s destitute,
living under a dollar-a-day have doubled to 100 million, the highest
number of any African nation and one-tenth of the world’s total
destitute.
Enter Yar’Adua, 2007:
Yar’Adua had an uphill task. The first president to publicly
declare his assets,
Yar’Aduawas referred to as ‘go-slow,’ possibly because at the time,
people did not realize what cards he had been handed and also actually
due to his attention to details and due process. He was coming in when
oil prices were dropping during the global recession and Nigeria’s
economy faced testing. The Yar’Adua government had to stabilize the
economy against dropping oil prices and decreased production as a result
of Niger-Delta terror.
Yet, Yar’Adua had been handed two catastrophic problems by the
predecessor Obasanjo government. Movement for Emancipation of the Niger
Delta, MEND was wrecking havoc in the Southern creeks and Boko Haram had
similarly evolved in the north east. Under the Obasanjo regime,
Nigeria’s national security boss, NSA Aliyu Gusau, a Babangida dictator
regime henchman and the man behind most of Nigeria’s sad history of
military coups—who together with Babangida organized the 1983 coup and
displacement of the Shagari civilian regime, in which they put army
senior Buhari in charge and also behind the 1985 coup in which he
removed Buhari and the 1993 coup in which he removed Shonekan and
replaced him with Abacha—had failed to abate the problems in the north
and south. According to reports, Gusau had actually told president
Obasanjo when he asked about Boko Haram, then called, ‘Nigerian
Taliban,’ that ‘no such group existed,’ despite attacks by the group.
Faced with these unique, entrenched challenges, Yar’Adua selected a
National Security Adviser, Major Gen. Sarki Mukhtar, who is remembered
for opposing Abacha on coup plotter treatment in the 90s, and had the
commitment and wherewithal to intelligently and appropriately combat the
two terror problems.
The Yar’Adua administration with NSA Mukhtar immediately approached
the MEND crises with an understanding of the pressing situation. An
Amnesty was worked out for the agitating youth who had reduced Nigeria’s
oil output by almost half, and Nigeria invested billions in training
and rehabilitating these youth. Peace that eluded Obasanjo was restored
to the creeks.
Faced with a different terror uprising in the north, Yar’Adua with
his apt NSA Mukhtar swung into action, again properly considering the
dynamics of the northern question. Poverty is predominant in Nigeria’s
north, however poverty and/or misguided fanaticism is no excuse for
terrorism and murder of innocent civilians and security officers. The
nation’s security men were sent to sack the Boko Haram camps in a swift
and efficient operation. In one of the few times in recent global
history, the terror mastermind, Mohammed Yusuf himself was caught and
killed as ‘he attempted to escape.’ Over 700 Boko Haram terrorists were
massacred in the operation of July 2009.
Having established calm and restored security to Nigeria, late
Yar’Adua continued with managing other pressing crises he had inherited
from the previous administration.
Another battle Yar’Adua had to face was the recovery of Nigeria from
the cabal. Obasanjo had literally sold Nigeria to private friends of his
and his party. Tycoon Dangote had been selected and favored by
president Obasanjo not only during his second appearance in civilian
regalia but from his first show as military dictator when he gave
Dangote exclusive importation rights. With the sale of Nigeria’s
refineries to Dangote and Otedola, Dangote owned as much as half of
Nigeria’s assets, which included Nigeria’s cement plants, a telecoms
licence and mining concessions. Bashani Aminu had revealed as relayed in
Wikileaks, that Dangote once gave Obasanjo a 35 million dollar private
jet as thanks for his fruitful partnership.
In July, 2007, barely two months into office, Yar’Adua summoned the
Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE), to query the sale of Nigeria’s
refineries to Dangote and co. And to the praise of Nigeria’s Labour
Congress (NLC) Yar’Adua overturned these privatizations for being
corrupt. Yar’Adua was next going after the Transcorp purchase of Abuja
Nicon Hilton. Though Obasanjo had put Yar’Adua into office against
Yar’Adua’s wishes, he having objected to contesting on health grounds,
Yar’Adua was determined to rescue Nigeria from the paws of the cabal,
even his sponsors, Dangote, who financially sponsored his campaigns and
Obasanjo who orchestrated his selection.
But this was not even the half of Yar’Adua’s war against corruption.
There was the kerosene subsidy scam, through which the fourth republic
stole and still steals 10 million dollars every day from the Nigerian
masses. Yar’Adua who was battling with a chronic allergic disorder and
had intermittent kidney failure, took this matter as no joke and not a
matter to delay on. Within his short tenure, he went hard and firm
against the subsidy fraud, sending 4 directive communications to
immediately seize the fake subsidy that ‘was not reaching the
beneficiaries, the Nigerian masses.’ Yar’Adua’s Principal Secretary,
Mr. David Edevbie conveyed the directives.
The government spent/spends millions of dollars everyday subsidizing
kerosene that was/is sold to the masses at unsubsidized prices in an
elaborate, cheap scam. In this scheme Yar’Adua met on the ground, and
that is by all means one of the most gigantic fraud scams in recent
world history, the government states that it imports 10 million liters
of kerosene everyday at the cost of N156/liter. It then claims to
subsidize this to N40.9/liter to be sold at N50/liter to the masses. The
NNPC now sells the kerosene to a handful of cabal portfolio marketers
at the N40.9/liter and allows them sell it at N150+/liter to the masses,
an unsubsidized price, raking in a whooping N100 on the liter for 10
million liters a day and billions of dollars a year [Reference CBN
governor Sanusi’s ‘missing’ $20bn alert].
President Yar’Adua on June 15, 2009 gave a clear directive that NNPC
should cease subsidy claims on kerosene. Kerosene fraudulent subsidy
claims run up to the tune of N300 trillions per year. This was going to
hurt Obsanjo and his cabal cronies.
But Yar’dua was not stopping here, late Yar’Adua gave executive
orders to the EFCC to go after anyone, bar none. Obasanjo was in his
crosshairs. Obasanjo panicked!
Ambassador Maitama Sule revealed that Obasanjo was scared Yar’Adua
would soon come after him and AC’s Garba Shehu said Atiku warned
Yar’Adua that Obasanjo was plotting to remove him for his “treachery.”
WeeklyTrust in their one year tribute, remeber him thus:
Yar’adua deconstructed power. He was not
intoxicated by it, a fact that even his critics had attested to. He
operated within the realm of the law. He didn’t pay lip service to the
rule of law and due process he preached. The courts regained the freedom
they lost during his predecessor’s tenure. They handed down verdicts
that cancelled political victories even though his party, the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) was the victim.
Despite his ill-health, he pioneered
laudable projects across the country. He initiated the dredging of River
Niger, a project that was abandoned for decades. He started the
reinvigoration of the abandoned rail system. He brought Sanusi Lamido
Sanusi to head the Central Bank, thereby saving the country from a
looming financial crisis.
He was bold enough to reverse President
Olusegun Obasanjo’s decisions considered to be against the national
interest. He saved the country’s three refineries from being auctioned
to businessmen, who could not establish theirs. The nation’s comatose
telecom giant, NITEL was not auctioned at least during his time.
He fought corruption in his own ways. He
pioneered the policy of returning unspent funds to the national treasury
at the end of the fiscal year even though the policy regrettably died
with him. He prosecuted and jailed those believed to be above the law.
His party chieftain, Chief Olabode George was convicted during
Yar’adua’s adminitration. He did not create political enemies who he
needed the anti-graft agencies, notably the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission (EFCC) to humiliate as Obasanjo did.
After his assumption, he saved the jobs
of over 160, 000 federal workers pencilled for sack under various
pretences. Not only that, he released the N10 billion Lagos State local
government councils’ funds which Obasanjo sat fat on despite court
orders. Yar’adua went ahead and reversed the increment of Value Added
Tax (VAT) from 10 percent to five as well as the hike in fuel price from
N75 to N65.
Read full
There are many more instances of Yar’Adua’s stunning and committed
actions in total war against corruption. But as he waged this war he
suddenly took seriously ill. Yar’Adua suspected he was poisoned. As
relayed in Wikileaks cables, Professor Ukandi G. Damachi, an insider and
confidant to Babangida and other Nigerian top elite, claimed that late
Yar’Adua suspected he had been poisoned by his kitchen staff who he
inherited from the former president, Obasanjo. This belief was grave
enough according to Professor Ukandi G. Damachi, that Yar’Adua fired all
the kitchen staff and replaced them.
Suspicion of poisoning has been rather common in Nigeria’s story, and
Shehu Musa, Yar’Adua’s elder brother, was believed to have been killed
by poisoning in jail as also it is believed late president elect MKO
Abiola was.
Yar’Adua’s wife, Turai is also reported to have believed her husband
was poisoned, and this was done to speed up his death. [Fresh Facts, May
2010: “They Killed Yar’Adua”].
When the Goodluck Jonathan administration took over, during a
valedictory session in Yar’Adua’s honour, a motion to investigate the
conditions of Yar’Adua’s death was raised by senators who alleged that
the circumstances leading to the death of Yar’Adua were suspicious, but
this motion to probe did not pass the floor and so this possibility was
never investigated.
With the death of Yar’Adua, his deputy, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan took
over the presidency and things pretty much went back to how they were in
the Obasanjo years… or actually worse. Boko Haram recouped and resumed
in full swing, MEND and MEND related terrorists including a revised form
as oil bunkerers, high sea pirates and pro-presidency thugs, got
reactivated to hold the nation to ransom, with terror reigning supreme
from north to south; and fraudulent, non-people beneficial
cabal-privatization (cabalization) and corruption were the order of the
day. Unlike the Obasanjo administration, recognized for utilizing the
EFCC at least for witch hunting the corrupt in bad taste with the
president, the EFCC was practically retired to petty cases and authority
grand robbery with impunity reigned.
I believe one can admit late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to the
fold of late General Murtala Mohammed and Idiagbon/Buhari, whose regimes
were marked by total intolerance to corruption and also marked by their
assassinations during rule and after (as happened in the case of late
general Tunde Idiagbon who was poisoned in Abuja in early 1999, paving
the path for the return of Obasanjo by NSA Gusau and Babangida).
Nigeria’s political parties, APC, PDP and the rest can yet find
another Murtala, Idiagbon/Buhari or Yar’Adua to restore sanity, decency
and global respect to the nation.
Dr. Peregrino Brimah
