With
just about three months since power slipped through their fingers, many
PDP stalwarts, and some members of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s
cabinet, who once decreed a thing and it came to pass, have so quickly
melted into oblivion. Tony Egbulefu explores how some of these hitherto
powerful figures are managing the broken pieces of their lives.
Additional reports from Midat Joseph, Abu Nmodu, Okechukwu Obeta, Kola
Eke-Ogiugo, Donatus Nadi, Patrick Ochoga and Kareem Haruna
Since
the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP was dislodged from the nation’s helm
of affairs, certain figures in the party, whose presences were fixtures
in the national power grid have so promptly become relics, receding into
oblivion with the transience of power. Apart from ex-president Goodluck
Jonathan, who intermittently, is seen and heard, and could undoubtedly
be traced to his Otuoke nativity, Bayelsa State, most active players in
both the inner reaches of the power loop and in the corridors in his
government have been plagued by self-effacement. While observers put
this down to low esteem that comes with a grace to grass fall, it is
believed in some quarters that the jolt that came from the beating the
PDP took in the hands of the erstwhile opposition All Progressives
Congress (APC), demanded that the residue of PDP power brokers embarked
on a silent rediscovery.
It is obvious that some members of this
tribe of yesterday’s men and women of consequence are yet to come to
terms with the reality of being bystanders in the power equation. This
line becomes persuasive in the face of the delusionary PDP’s target of
60 years hold on power and the reality check that was the March 28, 2015
presidential poll.
Given their gradual obliteration from national
consciousness, how these men and women, who operated at the commanding
heights carry on with the reverse of fortunes, matter to Nigerians.
There were part time politicians among them, who held powers to swing
things, and were licensed to affront anybody. Some women among them made
men crouch.
Dame Patience Faka Jonathan
She
was the Nigerian first lady from 2010 to 2015. Mrs. Jonathan was a
power broker, a peddler of influence, and indeed the most powerful woman
Nigeria has known since the days of the late Mrs. Maryam Babangida as
first lady. She treaded where her husband, the president, would not
dare. She was a bugbear just as she was a gruff. She would scheme or
muscle her way through, leaving just the devil to care. Since May 29,
when she was eased down from her exalted position, the former first
lady, whose mention was regular on everyone’s lips, and in the media for
the ugly, the bad, and the good, has just so swiftly receded into a
historical piece. Since relocating to her Bayelsa country home, she has
maintained sealed lips in all things, even when she appeared in London
with her husband, shortly after Mrs. Aisha Buhari took over. Lately,
Nigerians heard of her reconciliation with the Bayelsa State governor,
Seriake Dickson. Though widely reported, and attestations to the
reconciliation heard from the governor’s camp, Mrs. Jonathan in her new
tradition of silence has not uttered a word. A glean at her subdued
countenance and the passenger she was at the September 8 governorship
intent declaration of Dickson in Yenagoa, registered aptly in many, that
indeed, empires fall, for others to rise.
Diezani Alison-Madueke
Mrs.
Alison-Madueke served longest in former President Jonathan’s cabinet,
alongside the Minister of Finance, and coordinating Minister for the
Economy, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Ieala. She served as Jonathan’s petroleum
minister in the entire five years of that administration. History
records her as the first Nigerian woman to serve in that crucial
capacity. She superintended all the country’s receipts from the oil and
gas industry, NNPC and NLNG and the cash cows that oversee government’s
petroleum products imports, marketing, gas distribution and crude oil
export; and natural gas exploitation and export respectively. Mrs.
Alison-Madueke’s prime position, and the fact that she shares same
ethnic blood with the president, earned her an inner-circle membership
of Jonathan’s government all through the five years. The former
petroleum minister grew immensely powerful and thick-skinned that she
would easily spurn at attempts to either call her actions to question or
accountability by the legislative arm of government. Apart from her
endless and fruitless bickering with the legislature, the Central Bank
of Nigeria (CBN), under the leadership of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, also had
reasons to have lingering brushes with her, also over issues of
transparency and accountability. What was clear was that in spite of the
deluge of resentments from several quarters against her style of
management of the country’s oil and gas industry, she sat pretty
throughout, and not even for a day was her position in government
threatened by the president. As Jonathan was about to give way, and
sensing a likelihood of trouble for her from President Buhari, Mrs.
Alison-Madueke became preoccupied with knee-jerk pacific consultations.
Though, she continues to absolve herself of any corrupt entanglement,
the more prominent thing known about her since she left government is
that she is in a hospital bed abroad.
Ali Modu Sheriff
He
defected with fanfare from the APC to the PDP on July 14, 2014. Sheriff
is a very influential politician, not only in Borno State where he
governed for eight years on the platform of the defunct All Nigeria
Peoples Party (ANPP), but in the entire Nigerian political space. His
unending spat with his protégé and successor, Kashim Shettima, partly
informed his reason to switch political camp. Apart from his deep
pockets, Sheriff is known to have grassroots followership. For all
these, the PDP happily welcomed him. Expectedly, Sheriff sought to
unseat Shettima with Gambo Lawan of the PDP in the governorship election
of April 11, in what was described as a gritty electoral duel but this
was never to be as Shettima coasted home to victory in what largely was a
one-sided affair. The defeat of his candidate in the state, and the
routing of the PDP at the federal level, handed Sheriff new unpleasant
realities about his political relevance and survival. In going about
living his life in political humiliation, Sheriff has chosen to return
to running his businesses in Abuja, Lagos, Chad and Europe. Each time he
is around in his Maitama, Abuja home, friends and political associates
still throng his residence to fraternise with him. His associates say he
is studying the political space for his next move. Sheriff, somehow,
still retains some appeal. He was in Maiduguri for a wedding ceremony
recently, where he rather became the centre of attraction, as the crowd
roared in cheers of him. He responded by throwing piles of crisp naira
notes at them. However, the most current national news about him was his
surrender in June to the EFCC; and his subsequent detention and release
on administrative bail over allegation of mismanagement of Borno
state’s federal allocations as governor.
Ibrahim Shekarau
He
was one of the northern politicians who made the Jonathan government
tick, as the clock wound down to the 2015 general elections. He was the
leader and founding member of the APC in Kano State, a state he governed
on the ANPP platform. His ANPP formed part of the nucleus of the
coalition that birthed the APC in 2013. Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, then
governor of the state, and a defector to the APC, practically muscled
him out of the party. Shekarau defected to the PDP in January 2014.
Given his massive grassroots followership in the hugely populated Kano
State, his defection from the APC was considered a huge loss to the
party and what the PDP needed to even out things with Kwankwaso in the
state. President Jonathan rewarded him with the position of Minister for
Education. The elections came, and Shekarau and his PDP lost it all in
the state to Kwankwaso and the APC. It was Shekarau demystified.
The
succour from the federal scene is also gone. Shekarau, today, lives his
live in silence and oblivion. He is marooned, and seems even not to
have the stamina for opposition politics in the state.
Attahiru Bafarawa
What
Shekarau passed through in the hands of then Governor Kwankwaso also
played out between former Governor Aliyu Wamakko of Sokoto State and
Attahiru Bafarawa, his predecessor. Bafarawa governed Sokoto State on
the ANPP platform and partly in his second term, on DPN platform. He was
a founding member, and leader of the APC in Sokoto, until Wamakko,
defected from the PDP and snatched the leadership of the APC in the
state from him. As fallout of this, Bafarawa later decamped to the PDP.
His switch to the PDP bolstered the party’s hope for a good outing in
the state in both the state and federal elections. He backed the PDP all
the way, and personally donated N11.5million to the party for the
conduct of its membership registration exercise in the 27 local
government areas of the state. At the moment, it can be said that all
political activities of Bafarawa in Sokoto state have long come to a
screeching halt. In Sokoto today, Wamakko is the undisputed new
powerbroker.
Namadi Sambo
Since he
left office as Nigeria’s vice president, Namadi Sambo, is best known to
have been an in-patient in an undisclosed hospital in Washington DC,
United States of America (USA). LEADERSHIP Sunday gathered from an
authoritative source that the former vice president underwent a ligament
surgery on August 18, in the hospital. Fact is that Sambo just waited
for the handover ceremonies to be concluded on May 29, as he departed
Nigeria just three days after. Before settling in Washington for the
surgery, he had shuttled from United Kingdom to United States, then
Saudi Arabia. Umar Sani his former spokesman did not reply inquiries
about Sambo’s whereabouts, sent to his phone by our reporter. The
newest, however, that may trail Sambo in the country is the imminent
anti-corruption peaceful protest to be organised by a coalition of
northern-based civil society organisations against him in Kaduna State.
One of the organisers of the demonstration who didn’t want to be
mentioned in print told LEADERSHIP Sunday that the demonstrators will
make a demand on President Buhari to immediately commence the
investigation of Sambo to specially ascertain his involvement in the
sale and purchase of Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company.
Jerry Gana
Professor
Jerry Gana has been missing in the turf of Niger State and national
politics since May 29. LEADERSHIP Sunday gathered that since the loss of
the general election by the PDP, Gana now prefers to spend more of his
time in Abuja, where he does private businesses and engages in some
intellectual activities. The former information minister currently
maintains a general political low profile. It was gathered that he often
visits Bida and his home town Doko to associate with his people but has
been passive politically. Gana it was learnt, however, still commands
respect among the people of his state, particularly his Nupe speaking
people of Niger-south, whom he represented as a Senator in the Second
Republic. For the 2015 general elections, Gana was chairman, PDP Fund
Raising Committee, which garnered a whooping N21.8 billion for the party
and Jonathan. Gana later emerged, head of Jonathan’s Mobilisation and
Contact Unit for the 2015 presidential election.
Peter Obi
He
is the predecessor of Governor Willy Obiano of Anambra State. Obi
governed the state on the platform of the All Progressives Grand
Alliance (APGA). Shortly after he left office, he defected to the PDP.
For the presidential election, Jonathan’s campaign office, appointed him
deputy director-general, south, a position that made him address all
presidential campaign rallies that took place in all the states of the
south. After the loss of the PDP, Jonathan appointed him chairman of the
board of Nigerian Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). He would
later lose the position after President Buhari disbanded the commission.
Obi coped with the double loss by proceeding to Harvard University,
United States of America for an academic programme. Currently he engages
in educational development initiatives, sourcing funds from
education-friendly organisations and individuals, locally and
internationally, which he distributes to primary and post-primary
schools in rural communities across the country, for the improvement of
their educational infrastructure. Call it charity work. But to many, Obi
is better known now for exchange of brickbats with Obiano.
Ifeanyi Uba
He
was the man behind Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN), which
carried out nationwide direct and hard sell marketing of Jonathan during
the campaigns. TAN ran a massive omnibus campaign programme for
Jonathan, the type hitherto not seen in the country’s electioneering.
Uba, the driving force of TAN, is an oil tycoon. He owns Capital Oil and
Gas. Unlike fulltime politicians, Uba has been carrying on as if
nothing happened, seemingly insulated from the pinch of PDP and
Jonathan’s electoral failure. Rather than being recluse, he has been all
over the place, and has recently ventured into soccer and newspaper
businesses. He bought over former Udoji Football Club and renamed it
Ifeanyi Ubah Football Club. The club features in the country’s
premiership division. Presently, he is building a 50,000 capacity sports
stadium at Nnewi, his country home, for the club.
He has also
established a national newspaper out-fit, titled The Authority. With the
staff recruitment completed about two weeks ago, the newspaper is
slated to debut on October 1, 2015. In his latest press interview, he
sounded off that he had no regrets, forming TAN, and campaigning for
Jonathan.
Tony Anenih
Age has
already emasculated “Mr. Fix It,” the Iyasele of Uromi. With the loss
and domination of his Edo State by Governor Adams Oshiomhole and the
APC, Anenih’s political influence, had even vapourised before the many
losses the PDP suffered in the 2015general election. Citing “the current
state of affairs in the party,” Anenih had to resign as chairman of
PDP’s board of trustees, nine days before Jonathan left office. He was
indisposed during the electioneering and as such could not play any
meaningful role in Jonathan’s campaigns but Anenih was so sure that the
election would go the way of Jonathan, and was quoted in the media as
saying that whoever thought otherwise was mad. He is credited to be the
man behind the PDP’s decision for automatic ticket for Jonathan against
the wish of some northern heavy-weights in the party.
Anenih was
spotted at the September 8, 2015 declaration rally of Governor Seriake
Dickson in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State. Surprisingly, Anenih, LEADERSHIP
Sunday was told, is presently engaged in strategising across the country
to reposition the PDP for future electoral conquest. A close source to
the politician, who prefers anonymity, told LEADERSHIP Sunday that “the
leader is very relevant in party politics in the country. People are
consulting him and he goes to wherever he is needed. He is strong and
getting stronger. I know he is in Abuja attending to business and
political interests.”
Edwin Kiagbodo Clark
The
octogenarian is the leader of the Ijaw nation. He took upon himself the
role of a father figure and ethnic guide to Jonathan, while his
presidency lasted. Within the North, Clark’s overly visible influence in
the Jonathan government earned him a good measure of scorn and bile,
but he cared in the least. Clark made no pretences about pushing
Jonathan to damn the consequences and take a shot at a second term.
Given the way he often went-over-the-top in advancing issues on the side
of the former president, many outside the South-south came away with
the adverse impression that what was in place was an Ijaw presidency.
Clark is currently the chancellor of his own university, Edwin Clark
University, located in Kiagbodo, Bomadi local government area of Delta
State. The former federal commissioner for Information in the then
Mid-western Region, LEADERSHIP Sunday can reveal, carries on as a happy
man, and remains a political godfather within PDP members in the state.
Sources close to him say Pa Clark as he is fondly called, currently
takes strong interest in the administration of his university.
Godsday Peter Orubebe
He
is of the Ijaw ethnic nationality in Delta State and served as minister
of Niger Delta in the Jonathan administration. The federal government’s
amnesty programme cash cow was under his overall superintendence.
Though he was not a member of Jonathan’s kitchen cabinet before he
resigned to contest the governorship of his native Delta state, the
blood of ethnicity drove him to assume the role of Jonathan’s attack
dog. Nigerians would not forget in a hurry how he ignited disarray at
the INEC presidential election result collation centre as the defeat of
Jonathan starred him in the face. At present, Orubebe runs his private
business with his wife. Orubebe sources say has his eyes trained at the
Delta State Government House, come 2019.
Labaran Maku
He
was a former Minister of Information in the government of President
Jonathan, before he voluntarily left to pursue his political dream in
the twilight of that administration. He attained political reckoning
with his involvement in the Jonathan government, but parted ways with
the PDP after he failed to clinch its gubernatorial ticket in his
Nasarawa State. Maku joined APGA and cross swords with his former party,
but never against Jonathan’s re-election. He stood with Jonathan. With
APGA, which he introduced almost brand new in the state, Maku came
second behind the incumbent Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura of the APC,
dusting the better established PDP to a distant third; yet his political
opponents in the state, appear more convinced that he is only a noise
maker. Maku has been preoccupied with courtroom duels since the
conclusion of the gubernatorial election in the state. His party
supporters who usually come to the tribunal venue in their numbers,
recently caused a stir in the state when after a sitting, they went to
town making victory laps over an alleged Maku’s courtroom victory
pronouncement. The claim spread like wild fire, throwing residents of
the state in confusion. Maku had to fight a reputational battle recently
by addressing the press to state his case against an allegation that
over N30 billion was discovered on his farm in Akwanga. Despite his
failure at the poll, Maku’s political image seems to be on the rise and
gearing to overtake that of Solomon Ewuga as the leader of his Eggon
tribe in the state.
Ahmed Gulak
He
was the political adviser to former President Jonathan. He assumed the
seat way back in 2010, until he was eased out in 2014. Gulak was part of
the PDP’s strategists that coordinated the 2011 presidential election
successfully for Jonathan. Though he left Jonathan’s government well
ahead of the 2015 general election, it was a fiasco for the PDP and
Jonathan. He strived with former Governor Ngilari to deliver Jonathan to
Adamawa state’s electorates. He failed. Working as the president’s
political adviser, Gulak was one of the hard-hitters against anyone that
breathed a word against Jonathan. He took a shot at becoming a senator
in the last election and also failed. He is one of the few Jonathan’s
men that have embraced active internal politics of the PDP. Recently, it
emerged that he is interested in filling the position of the national
chairman of the PDP, left vacant with the exit of Adamu Muazu. In
advancing his interest for the position, he stormed the national
secretariat of the party, demanding that members of the national working
committee of the party, led by Uche Secondus as acting chairman, should
resign for election to be conducted. His ambition to take over the
leadership of the PDP is a legitimate one, given that the zoning formula
of the party, which gave the slot to Gulak’s North-east subsists in the
party.
Bala Mohammed
As minister
of the Federal Capital Territory, Bala Mohammed occupied a prime
position in the Jonathan administration. In effect, he was the governor
of the federal seat of power. The centrality of his position in the
political space demanded that he worked closely and in sync with
President Jonathan and the PDP in every facet of his duty. Land, which
is a premium item in the FCT, was entirely his to divvy and farm out.
His juicy position also meant that he wielded power and influence and
had massive revenue at his control. He however, could not harness any of
these for his ambition to become governor of Bauchi state. The same can
be said of Jonathan and PDP’s electoral success in his Bauchi state.
Working in disunity with the former Bauchi State governor, Isa Yuguda,
he failed abysmally in his state to deliver any meaningful electoral
harvest. Mohammed could, however, partly lay claim to the lean measure
of success the PDP scrapped out in the general election in the FCT.
Though Mohammed left with Jonathan, indications are that the politician
is not yet done with politics and the PDP, the party that brought him
fame and fortune, after he canvassed for the now famous doctrine of
necessity that saw to President Jonathan’s emergence as acting
president, as a senator. He was elected to the Senate on the ANPP’s
platform but defected to PDP soon after Jonathan’s emergence as
president, following the demise of former president Unaru Musa Yar’Adua,
thus paving the way for him to be appointed minister. Insight gathered
by LEADERSHIP Sunday indicates that he is gearing to bite the bullet for
the position of PDP national chairman, which behoves on his North-east
zone to produce. He was recently in Ekiti State where he canvassed the
support of the state governor, Ayo Fayose, for his ambition to head the
PDP as its national chairman.
Given that he is no longer seen or
heard, Mohammed in the meantime, is fast fading in the consciousness of
Abuja residents. This is just as he remains largely unpopular in Bauchi
state where the APC holds the reins of power.
Ahmadu Ali
He
has held all sorts of positions in the Nigerian entity, some of which
predate the Second Republic. As at the last count, he was the
director-general, Jonathan/Sambo Campaign Organisation for the 2015
presidential election. For the sake of Jonathan’s re-election, Ali
sundered his age-long close friendship with former President Olusegun
Obasanjo. Before he re-emerged on the scene to drive Jonathan’s
re-election bid, many had already consigned Ali to the cast of political
relics in the country. How the lot for such a high-pressure job that
demand jet-age acumen fell on septuagenarian Ali remains a hard nut that
brain boxes in the political space have not been able to crack. Since
the loss of the election by the PDP and Jonathan, a litany of blames
from PDP members has trailed the path of Jonathan’s campaign office. The
Ali-led campaign organisation has been accused of placing the cart
before the horse in its method and tactics, corruption, ineptitude, and
in fact, a bare-faced inability to tell apart their left hand from the
right as a campaign office. Fact is that since Ali failed, he has snuck
back to where Jonathan dusted him from. Having not been seen or heard
since he failed, there is little doubt that his 2015 presidential
election job and activities may be his swan song in the political arena.
Bamanga Tukur
He
was the powerful third national chairman of the PDP, Jonathan worked
with, and whom incidentally, most members of the party believe ran the
PDP aground. Tukur was unyielding in the manner he went about advancing
Jonathan’s interest amidst the infighting that erupted in the party in
2013, over which zone in the country would produce the party’s
flag-bearer for the 2015 presidential election. Without recourse to
proper procedures, Tukur would deploy punitive measures against any
governor in the party whose body language he read, jarred with
Jonathan’s desire to nick the ticket. Under his watch, the New PDP, a
parallel party was formed out of the original PDP. The resentment of
Tukur and Jonathan degenerated to the exit of five governors on the
party’s platform in one fell swoop to the APC, followed by massive
membership haemorrhage of National Assembly members of the party. To
save the situation, Tukur was asked to leave in January 2014. Tukur’s
battles against those who stood against him in the party, curiously was
not for his personal gain, but to ensure that the coast was clear for
Jonathan’s re-nomination by the PDP in 2015.
“We had told them
then that our focus for the future should be about consolidation and
continuity and that goes beyond the plans of our opponents that PDP will
fail,” Tukur said as the infighting continued.
Tukur stayed aloof
and watched Jonathan’s 2015 re-election campaign from a distance. In
what appears as gloating, he is yet to express pains at PDP’s loss of
power at the centre and the electoral failure the party recorded across
board. In a twist of irony, Tukur has more than once expressed support
for President Muhammadu Buhari, and believes that the president is
treading the path to the heart of Nigerians with his war against Boko
Haram insurgents and corruption. Speaking to the media last week, he
expressed his belief that the electoral fortunes of the PDP would have
been different, if he had led the party into the 2015 general elections
battle field. He said he would not contemplate quitting the PDP. Tukur’s
primary occupation since he relinquished the mantle of the party’s
leadership has been the running of his businesses. He will be 80 on
September 15, and plans to celebrate.
Adamu Muazu
Popularly
dubbed “the game changer” by his admirers within the PDP fold, he took
over from Tukur as a consensus choice of PDP’s apparatchik in January,
2014. Muazu then, came off to opinion leaders in the party as a
bridge-builder and level-headed. The party needed such a man, not just
to mend the cracks that plagued it following Tukur’s alleged
high-handedness, but for a holistic rebuilding, and positioning on
winning ways for the 2015 general election. Calm returned to the party
soon after Muazu took ove, and the PDP which was only experiencing the
effluence of its members, began to attract defections from National
Assembly members into the party. In praise of Muazu, he was branded “The
game changer,” by the happy party members, including Jonathan and his
wife, Patience. Nothing was seen wrong with Muazu’s leadership of the
party, and possibly, nothing went wrong with it until he led the PDP
into the 2015 electoral field and got a thrashing by APC. For the
party’s failure, strong voices of dissent rose from within against
Muazu. Resignation was the chorus. The decibel rose so high and with
succour from no quarters, Muazu threw in the towel on May 20, 2015.
Since his exit, Muazu has gone out of circulation.
Even before the
end of the Jonathan administration on May 29, the “game changer” under
whose watch the “change agents” wrested power from his party, left the
country. According to his aides in a statement on May 12, he was sick
and had gone abroad for treatment. This was in apparent response to
comments by governor Fayose that he (Muazu) had secretly travelled to
Singapore for treatment during the elections, without the knowledge of
the party’s presidential candidate, Jonathan.
LeadershipNewspaper
