Should Nigerians bid President Buhari Farewell as the Germans Did to Angela Merkel?
By Bello M. Zaki
When Angela Merkel was leaving office as Chancellor (Head of Government) of Germany in December 2021 after serving for 16 years, the Germans came out on their balconies and clapped for 6 minutes, giving their departing head of government a standing ovation across the country.
According to the U.S ABC News, the Germans were happy to say goodbye to their leader “who was not tempted by fashion or lights and did buy real estate, cars, yachts and private jets…
“For sixteen years, she never changed the style of her wardrobe. At a press conference, a journalists asked Merkel: We realized you are wearing the same suite, don’t you have another?” She replied “I am a civil servant, not a model”.
“In another press conference, they asked her: “Do you have a housemaid cleaning your house, preparing your meal etc?” Her response was “I don’t have servants or need them. My husband and I do this work every day at home.
“Then another journalist asked: “Who is doing the laundry, you or your husband?” Her response was: “I am fixing the clothes and my husband is the one who runs the washing machine.
“Ms. Merkel lives in a normal apartment like other citizens. She lived in this apartment before being elected Chancellor of Germany. She did not leave it and she does not own a single villa, houses, pools, gardens.”
ABC News concludes this panegyric with a very important pointer to the leaders of developing countries, particularly Africa, thus: “Angela Markel, the chancellor of Europe’s largest economy, will always remain a great example of leadership, driven by values, selfless principles, facts and empathy.”
What I did not bring out from this write-up, and what really touched my heart, is the fact that: “In 16 years of power, Angela Merkel did not appoint any of her relatives to a state position…
“She leaves and her loved ones claim no benefits.”
Let us take on our departing President Buhari on nepotism, which is broadly defined as the “favouring of relatives or personal friends because of their relationship rather than because of their abilities”. President Buhari, who at his inauguration eight years ago, said “I belong to no one, but I belong to everybody”, made Nigerians to expect he would be the Angela Merkel of Nigeria. Also, before he was sworn in, he unequivocally and publicly told both his immediate and extended family members to stay clear from his government, and warned that any family member that uses his name to curry favour would be severely dealt with; but Buhari ended up, right from day one, filling his government with blood relatives, in-laws, family friends, cronies and the members and children of Kaduna Mafia, a clandestine group of elite power brokers he is alleged to belong: In fact Buhari turned the federal government into a portable family business, with its ministries and departments filled with stake holding cronies.
It is more or less a cliché to mention or assess the power and the immense influence Buhari’s 29 year old recharge card selling nephew, Sabiu ‘Tunde’ Yusuf, wields in Buhari’s administration and the stupendous wealth he allegedly acquired by the virtue of being Private Secretary to the president. At inception, Buhari landed in the presidential villa with another nephew, the very powerful Mamman Daura that is said to be the living leader of the six decades old Kaduna mafia: Daura came in with his very close associate and another Mafioso, the late Abba Kyari, who Buhari appointed his Chief of Staff, and Chairman of Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Unlike Kyari, Daura was not given any public position, but occupied a prestigious guest house in the villa, the Glass House, that is situated next to the president’s residence, with all the prepanellia of power – various staffs, security outfits and assorted vehicles etc. The duo filled up all positions of appointment and guided the president on policy matters, and their opinions override those of cabinet ministers and even that of the Vice-President.
There were grudges in the public and musings in the media on this unusual, unprecedented and improper manner of running a government, before in December 2016, barely a year after Buhari had come to power, his wife, Aisha dropped a bombshell in an interview with the Hausa service of the BBC in London: She said that there was a cabal in the villa that monopolises the president, controls the government and appoints strange persons in the government that for her 27 years of marriage to the president she knew nothing about, and were not members of the party, the All Progressive Congress (APC) that brought her husband to office. She warned that if this arrangement continued, she would not campaign for the return of her husband to power again.
Responding to his wife’s vituperations, Buhari told the media that his wife was talking of what she knew nothing about as she has no place in his government, mockingly saying, “her place is in the kitchen and in the other room”. By the ‘other room’ Buhari meant the bedroom: Also in warding off her claims, the cabal nicknamed her “a suicide bomber from Adamawa’. Aisha is a native of Adamawa State.
Farouq Kperogi, an ardent critic of the president, called Buhari’s style of nepotism in government familocracy: Buhari appointed Colonel Lawan Abubakar, who is married to the granddaughter of his elder sister, Hajiya Amadodo, as his Aid de Camp (ADC); he appointed Abdulkarim Dauda, the son of his half-brother from the same father and Mamman Daura’s full biological brother, as his Personal Chief Security Officer (PCSO); he has also appointed Lawan Abdullahi Kazaure, the husband of the daughter of Buhari’s elder brother he brought up, as his State Chief of Protocol (SCOP); and in July 2015 he recalled a kinsman and a townsman from retirement, Lawan Daura, and appointed him Director General of the Department of State Security (DSS).
President Buhari has also appointed Kabiru Daura, the son of Mamman Daura, as his Personal Assistant (PA), and appointed Musa Haro, the son of his biological sister, Haji a Kwalla, as his PA Domestic Affairs. In addition, Haro appointed his cousin, Hamisu, the son of Kwalla’s twin, Hajiya Amadodo, as his own PA.
For appointment of ministers into his first cabinet, Nigerians had to wait for almost six months, and all according to the president, for “careful and deliberate decisions to get far better results”: But what the president unveiled on November 12, 2015 as his ministers was the same retinue of relatives and related coteries; the likes of Suleman Adamu, whose father married Kwalla and acted as Buhari’s guardian and Buhari had remained like a member of the family – Buhari had in 2010 recommended Adamu’s elder sister , Amina Zakari, to President Jonathan as a Commissioner of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC). Zakari’s son, Ahmed Rufa’i Zakari, served in Buhari’s administration as Special Adviser to the President on Infrastructure. Adamu and three of his siblings had served in the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) either as contractors, consultants or staff, while Buhari was the chairman of the Fund.
Adamu Adamu was also in the PTF, he has been with Mamman Daura since their service days in the New Nigerian newspaper in the 1970s, he has since remained in the family; while the likes of Mohammed Belo, the son of Musa Bello reputed to be a co-founder of Kaduna Mafia and very close associate to the president, owe their appointments to the very powerful clique.
Buhari has virtually attached a relative or an in-law to every political appointee: Dauda ‘Zeze’ Habu, the son of Buhari’s nephew, Habu Kurma who is also Mamman Daura’s younger brother, was appointed Personal Assistant (PA) to Abba Kyari; the husband of Fatima, the favourite daughter of Mamman Daura was also appointed as Abba Kyari’s PA; Musa Musa Daura (alias Musa Terror), the grandson of Buhari’s sister, Hajia Amadodo, was appointed as PA to Buhari’s ADC, who is also married to Terror’s biological sister as indicated in the foregoing paragraph. Nuhu Dauda, a full brother to Buhari’s PCSO, and nephew to Buhari was attached to the Minister of State for Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva as his PA.
Buhari also has interceded for relatives and in-laws in both civil service appointments and elective posts: Bashir Yusuf Jamoh, who met and married his wife Zulai, the daughter of Buhari’s sister, in Buhari’s Kaduna house, was in 2015 promoted Executive Director Finance and Administration in Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), from Assistant Director in the organization, and a Diploma holder in Accountancy, ahead of his superiors. When Dr. Dakuku Peterside left NIMASA as Director General in March 2020, Jamoh was immediately pushed to replace him as the new DG. Jamoh is also the father in-law of Sabi’u Tunde Yusuf, Buhari’s very powerful PA and son of his biological sister, Hajia Halima who died in 2018; also, Fatima, the favourite daughter of Mamman Daura, whose husband was appointed Abba Kyari’s PA was appointed a Director in the newly created Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, while he appointed the son of one of his PTF boys, Salihijo Ahmed, as Executive Secretary of Nigeria Rural Electricity Board, despite his young age and insufficient requisite qualification.
Ahmed Rufa’i Abubakar, a former Deputy Director with National Intelligence Agency (NIA) who had three times consecutively failed the qualifying examination to the position of a Director and was compulsorily retired, was made the Director General of the agency in 2018. His appointment was renewed in 2021 by the president despite hues and cries from all parts of the country.
Fatihu Muhammad, a member of the House of Representatives for Daura/Sandamu/Mai’Adua Federal Constituency, that was said to have won his election under the APC allegedly without proper primary, is the son of Buhari’s elder brother of the same father and mother, Mamman Danffale. Also, the legislator’s full blood sister, Rabiya Muhammad Daura, was appointed a commissioner in Katsina State.
As for his cronies, relatives and associates, Buhari used to be unmindful of their soiled antecedents in appointing them into public office: In July 2015, Buhari appointed Mohammed Kari, who was indicted by a panel of inquiry for diverting N50.82b (about US$14m) belonging to the defunct Nigeria Airways, as Commissioner of Insurance and Chief Executive of National Insurance Commission (NAICOM); Kari was the Managing Director and Chief Executive if NICON Insurance when he was alleged to have diverted the sum, in collision with his staff and officials of Nigeria Airways, to a phony company, Alexander Services Limited in the Channel Island, an offshore tax haven. Also, Sadiya Umar Farouq, Buhari’s close associate in his early political days and a social worker alleged to have diverted and resold dates meant for displaced person in Maiduguri during 2027 Ramadan fasting, was appointed minister of the newly created Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs.
The opposition PDP, had in May 2021 accused Buhari of allegedly “shielding fraudulent individuals because of their reported closeness to Mr. President” in the case of Bashir Jamoh, Buhari’s in-law and NIMASA Managing Director allegedly involved in stealing N1.5 trillion and US$9.5m of his agency; the party also cited the case of another Buhari’s in-law, the husband of his daughter Fatima and the former Managing Director of the Federal Mortgage Bank, Gimba Ya’u Kumo, who was in the same month declared wanted by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) for alleged misappropriation of US$65 million National Housing Funds. Sabi’u Tunde Yusuf has also secured employment with the NIA and was posted to London, purportedly to evade arrest after Buhari has left office. Yusuf who had never worked anywhere except in his recharge card kiosk, was employed as an Assistant Director without attending the agency’s compulsory training, a position a graduate recruit in a normal circumstance will take 16 years to attain.
Also, in a situation similar to that Yusuf, in February 2021, Buhari appointed his former Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai as an ambassador to shield him from being taken to the International Crime Court (ICC) in Hague to answer charges for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Besides turning the federal government into a private enclave, President Buhari had successfully turned Daura, a sleepy town before his ascension to power, the largest recipient of federal infrastructure in the country. In June 2020, Emmanuel Onwubiko, The Guardian newspaper columnist had expressed concern with “the dizzying speed that ministries and government agencies have since set up strategic national projects in all parts of Daura thereby creating the impression that Buhari’s administration is for Buhari’s hometown”. A multimillion Naira Helipad inside Buhari’s Daura countryside home was set up even before he named his first cabinet.
A Federal Polytechnic was established in Daura in 2019; this was followed by a University of Transportation, and a school for people with special needs. in 2018, the near moribund Directorate of Employment (NDE) said it had trained over 1000 women on cosmetology in Daura town and has freely gave each a cosmetology pack, and has set up a centre at the town’s Ganga area, in addition to undertaken several works of rehabilitation, expansion, reactivation and completion of abandoned and existing projects such as roads, schools, drainages and water projects. Also, a Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Skills Acquisition Centre a long Zango Road was established, while severally SDG school projects were also executed in Daura and the neighbouring villages; Sir Emeka Ofor E-Liberary was also established, while Daura Mini Stadium was expanded and upgraded.
For health and other social amenities, a 50-bed Maternity Centre was built and equipped in Daura General Hospital as First Lady’s project; a Women and Children Hospital was also constructed and equipped; Sabke Dam that was under construction was completed to supply 1 million litres of water daily to Daura and the nearby villages, while a 400,000 litres capacity solar powered water project was constructed by the NNPCL jointly with Balema Oil and Jack-Rich Tein Foundation.
As regards industrialization, a 150,000 barrel per day private sector driven petroleum refinery was established in Mashi, a village few kilometres west of Daura on the road to Katsina, expected to be completed by 2021 according to the former minister of State, Ibe Kachukwu.
With Buhari’s presidency, a military presence also came into being in and around Daura town: Nigerian Airforce Reference hospital was built; Nigerian Airforce Response Air Wing was established; while Nigerian Army 171 Battalion Base, and a Forwarding Operation Base were also established.
As for roads and other infrastructure, the 72 kilometre Katsina-Daura road was dualised; the dualisation of 131.4 kilometres Kano-Kazaure-Daura-Kongwalam awarded by the Federal Government at the cost of N115.4 billion in February 2022, is in progress; also, the 283.75 Kano-Kazaure-Daura-Maradi (in Niger Republic) standard-gauge rail line at the cost of US$1.959 billion is under construction. To boost power supply in Daura and its vicinity, a 73 kilometre 132KVA power line from Katsina to Daura was constructed and supported with two 30MVA and 40MVA transformers, and a 330KV/132KV power substation.
Lastly, at the valedictory sitting of the Federal Executives Council (FEC) meeting last Wednesday, presided by President Buhari, the EFC approved multi-billion contract to boost power supply in Daura, Damaturu in Yobe State and Sapede in Ogun State.
Late Dr. Junaidu Mohammed, a medical Doctor and Second Republic member of the House of Representatives, who was also an ardent supporter of Buhari and later turned to his critic, accused Buhari with corruption for condoning nepotism on such a grand scale, that nepotism compromises Buhari’s ability to fight corruption. He rightly and conclusively said in a July 23, 2016 interview with The Punch Newspaper that: “In fact, in the history of Africa, let me make bold to assert that I have never seen any level of nepotism that has equalled or surpassed this in my entire life – I am now in my 67th year.”
