Date Published: 06/12/09
Deconstructing Umaru Yar’Adua
by Jideofor Adibe ( pcjadibe@yahoo.com)
Umaru Yar’Adua remains largely unknown despite occupying the most powerful position in Nigeria in the last two years. Relatively obscure before Obasanjo catapulted him into that position, his taciturn nature has led to several speculations about him and his idiosyncrasies. Who is really Umaru Yar’Adua? Is he an intensely insecure and diffident man as he sometimes comes across, or a very deep, thoughtful but simple Fulani man who has very little appetite for the flamboyant life style of his predecessor - as some of his supporters claim? Is the office of the presidency just too big for him or is he just a Fabianist, a slow starter, who believes in investing as much time as possible in planning and strategising before executing? Is Yar’Adua really a servant-leader, someone who was reluctantly thrust into the position he now occupies or a manipulative power hawk, who read Obasanjo very well and aptly positioned himself for the position he got?
A recent article by Nasir el Rufai, entitled “ Umaru Yar`Adua: Great Expectation, Disappointing Outcome”, and published on a number of websites recently could perhaps help to provide answers to the above questions. The former boss of the Federal Capital Territory tells us he has known Umaru Yar’Adua since 1972 and had played some key roles in making him president after he was drafted to fly the PDP flag. El Rufai, who has been declared wanted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for alleged large scale corruption, also claims to have played a crucial role in reviewing drafts of the inaugural speech delivered by the president elect on May 29, 2007.
It is possible that el Rufai’s article was spurred by a certain need to fight back a man he felt he contributed in making the President but who chose to keep mute, if not silently connived, in his perceived persecution by the EFCC. But what can we learn about Umaru Yar’Adua from el Rufai’s article – regardless of the author’s motive?
One, is a possibility that Yar’Adua could surprise everyone by suddenly over-performing expectations. Currently nicknamed “Baba Go Slow” for his lacklustre performance, el Rufai concedes that after eight months of similar non-performance as Governor of Katsina state, things had suddenly picked up. He admitted that though Yar’Adua inherited “an empty treasury, a bloated civil service, huge pension arrears, and many construction projects” that were abandoned halfway, he was to prove his critics wrong because within two years, “the books had been balanced”, and “Katsina State Government cleared the pension arrears, reconciled domestic debts, and began the completion of abandoned projects.” El Rufai also concedes that though Yar’Adua’s achievements as Governor were mixed, what “is not in dispute was that the quality of schools and hospital buildings, urban and rural roads and fertilizer distribution system improved dramatically under his watch.” Coming from an aggrieved enemy of the regime, this acknowledgement of competence could be a source of hope for Nigerians frustrated at the president’s snail pace of governance. The flipside to this however is that Yar’Adua’s supporters could also use it to canvass for a second term for him, claiming that he had merely used his first term in office to plan and strategise, and would use his second term to execute his policies.
Two, though Yar’Adua sometimes comes across as an insecure and diffident man, passages from el Rufai’s article suggest the opposite. For instance el Rufai narrates that in May 2007, he received a letter from the President-elect asking him to send the names and resumes of three people to be appointed into ‘senior government positions’. Obviously el Rufai read more to the letter, so rather than send the nomination to Yar’Adua, he requested a meeting with the President elect to “ascertain what positions he had in mind.” Yar’Adua told him he had written a similar letter to “every State Governor or PDP Chairman as appropriate as he intended to nominate Ministers, Ambassadors and Chairmen of Statutory Corporations from the list.” An obviously disappointed and deflated el Rufai, who perhaps expected a slot in the regime, then concluded that that “distributive state-of-mind was the first sign for me that Yar’Adua was not on the right track. I suggested that if he chose his cabinet that way, he would end up with ‘not the best people’. He listened and thanked me for my views, but explained that his election was made possible by State Governors and PDP leaders and his first priority was to keep them on his side, for the time being.”
That Yar’Adua may not be easily swayed by opinions once he has made up his mind could also be illustrated by his refusal to exercise his prerogative of mercy on Amina Lawal, an unmarried woman from Bakori who was sentenced to death by stoning by a Sharia court for adultery – despite the strong international condemnation the case attracted. Luckily the Court of Appeal quashed the case. Katsina was the fifth Northern state to introduce the controversial Sharia Law in 2000.
Three, contrary to the image of a reluctant President, Yar’Adua could in fact be a power hawk. From Rufai’s article we see a man who actively sought and plotted for power. He was Katsina State Secretary of SDP and a member of the party’s National Caucus. Though he contested the Governorship of Katsina State in 1991and lost, his ambition for power did not die with that defeat. He positioned himself and was nominated to run again in 1999, and won. Even after he was hospitalised for six months in Germany in 2001 for renal failure, he returned, not to retire from politics, but to resume as Governor. He also quickly arranged for the Deputy Governor, Tukur Jikamshi, who became the Acting Governor in his absence, to be impeached on grounds of abuse of state resources but perhaps to prevent a potential challenger in the 2003 election, which he also won. These are hardly the moves of someone who does not hunger for power.
The story of how he emerged as the PDP’s presidential candidate also suggests a man who had cleverly studied Obasanjo and plotted ways of warming himself to him and the then power establishment at Abuja. El Rufai tells us that around 2002 Yar’Adua claimed “to have had a very vivid dream that he will be elected president to succeed President Obasanjo in the near future”. Apparently Yar’Adua’s strategy of actualising that dream included giving unalloyed support to Obasanjo’s policies while distancing himself from the Ota farmer. Here he seems to believe the cliché that familiarity breeds contempt and revelled in the friends-winning formula of projecting a persona of an “undemanding, simple and humble” Governor. But while keeping a distance from Obasanjo, he directed his Katsina caucus group, the K-34, to fully support Obasanjo and his policies – at a time when Obasanjo had become a pariah in the North. He also directed all Katsina State representatives in the National Assembly to support the “proposed Constitutional Amendment and expelled Aminu Bello Masari from K-34 for non-compliance with his wishes.”
What could therefore be surmised from Rufai’s article is that Yar’Adua could be a determined but foxy politician, whose political skills may be underrated – pretty much the same way some had underrated Obasanjo to their peril.
Jideofor Adibe is editor of the multidisciplinary journal African Renaissance, and publisher of the London-based Adonis & Abbey Publishers Ltd (www.adonis-abbey.com) .
