The Accidental Public Servant
Page 12
course of some months, even with our depressed economy at that time. This was the one and only time
that we seriously contemplated living abroad.
Three things I noticed from those first trips to the UK created lasting impressions. The first was,
compared to what I was accustomed to, Londoners were not very friendly. Everybody tended to mind
their own business too much. People did not greet each other, neighbours did not know each other,
and that was very strange to me. Where I come from, you know the name of your neighbours, and you
pop in to share drinks and meals during moments of sadness and joy. In the UK, people did not seem
to know their neighbours and they did not seem to care. Even when people greeted, the accompanying
smile seemed plastic.
The second thing I noticed was that everything was so expensive. With the salary I was offered by the
UK Property Services Agency, which by strict conversion to Nigerian currency looked like a lot of
money, most of it would go towards taxes, utility bills, groceries and mortgage payments. It dawned
on me that in places like the UK, one could have a decent quality of life - the electricity works, water
runs, the trains run, but it really is not possible to save much or accumulate wealth without doing
something really different. Otherwise, one is destined to be middle class at best, and we were not
prepared to just be that and have a good life. We had the ambitions of being something better.
The third observation was how well the public transportation system worked – and this really
impressed me. The trains ran well, the bus system worked, the taxis were designed to take a lot of
luggage and seat five passengers comfortably. I found that very impressive and wished we could have
something like that in our country. However, I also thought London was not pretty. The buildings all
looked the same, particularly the residential areas, which struck me as one massive low-income
housing estate. In most of London, virtually all the buildings looked the same. Coming from Nigeria
where each house stood on its own with its own grounds and fence, I was expecting something else,
something better.
The appeal of the transportation system was really an outgrowth of a broader statement about Britain,
which is that there is a general sense of order there. Everyone joined queues. Traffic rules were
strictly observed, houses were numbered with odd numbers on one side of the street and even
numbers on the other side. This order and predictability appealed to my mathematically-inclined mind
a great deal, and I kept asking myself why we could not have this kind of voluntary orderliness and
rule-compliance in Nigeria. I thought fleetingly at the time, that if they could do it, we must do it too.
On that trip, we stayed in Stratford, East London, E15, with a Nigerian friend of mine who worked
for the BBC at the time. He still lives in that East London neighbourhood, and the last time Hadiza
and I went to visit him, we thought that if we had decided to take that job with the Property Services
Agency, we would probably live in the same neighbourhood. They had moved from the single-room
apartment we knew into a spacious three bedroom apartment in another part of Stratford, and their
lives looked about the same – decent, comfortable and stable. Their children have acquired a sound
education and we could not help but speculate how different our life and that of our children would
have been if we had made a similar choice.
Shortly after our UK trip, the Buhari military government was overthrown in a palace coup and
Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) took over as president. He delivered an inaugural speech that
made everyone adopt a wait-and-see stance, with hopes that things would change for the better. He
released political prisoners, promised to hand over power in 1990 and work out an arrangement with
our creditors. The rest, as the saying goes, is history. However, some of the issues that confronted us
then as a family, as construction professionals and as Nigerians at that time have still not gone away.
One of the biggest issues is that parenting remains as formidable a challenge as ever. Yasmin our first
child, I think was conceived during our honeymoon in London, so I am not surprised that she liked it
there. Yasmin died in her Lisson Grove flat in London on 26th November, 2011. She was buried a
week later in Abuja, Nigeria. Yasmin's death was both sudden and heartbreaking. A sweet child who
had grown into an intelligent, confident and altruistic young lady, Yasmin was the pillar of strength in
our household and carer for all her siblings, including cousins older than her. My wife and I, along
with every member of our family, will miss Yasmin dearly and for the rest of our lives. She had
studied Economics at the University of Bath and completed an M.Sc in Political Economy of Late
Development at LSE. Her sister, Ramla, who studied Economics and earned an M.A. in Development
Economics from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, preferred a life in the UK - individual
differences, I think rather than upbringing! My other children are Aziza who holds an M.Sc in Human
Resources Management from the University of Surrey, UK,Zulkiflu who also studied Economics at
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, USA, Mohammed Bello who is pursuing a Masters’
degree in public relations at Georgetown University and Hamza, an undergraduate engineering major
at the University of Virginia. The younger ones are Bashir Jr., Ibrahim, Ahmad Jr., Bilqis and
Mustapha.
Prior to her death, from the standpoint of where she wanted to make her life having completed her
master’s degree, and then studying law, Yasmin’s choice was apparently Nigeria, as is her immediate
brother, Mohammed Bello’s. The very existence of this question is certainly a departure from the way
life was when I was their age. Back then, the brightest students got into Nigerian universities and
hardly ever went abroad. The exceptional cases were parents with a lot of money who could send
their kids to Oxford, Cambridge or Imperial College in the UK. Hardly anyone sent children to
America as American education was then considered inferior – the only children that went to the US
for undergraduate studies were those that could not get admitted to Nigerian or UK universities.
Nigerian universities, for those old enough to remember, used to be quite good. For me, when I look
back at my life, I find that a lot of the enduring friendships which contributed to my personal success
had to do with the networks I built in high school and university. I really would have loved for my
children to have gone through the same system, I would have loved for my boys to have gone to
Barewa College, and the girls to St. Louis Girls’ Secondary School in Kano, and for all of them to
have gone to Ahmadu Bello University. Unfortunately, in the 1990s, the sense of order, academic
freedom and the quality of education in our universities collapsed. We began to produce some
graduates who could not construct two sentences in decent English, even though English is the
language of academic instruction in Nigeria. So we were forced to make adjustments in our family
spending priorities to send our children abroad just for them to get a decent quality of education.
Sending them abroad is not only horrendously expensive but that also means depriving them of the
local networks they would have built by g
oing to the same schools as other Nigerians, with access to
Nigerian alumni networks, which are potentially quite powerful. I got a lot of help in my life and
career because I went to Barewa College. The Ahmadu Bello University alumni network is very wide
and quite beneficial as well. My children have been deprived of access to these kinds of networks,
which are important in business as well as politics.
A second issue with this scenario is the risk that one’s children become excessively westernized and
have great difficulty settling back into the society they came from to contribute to nation-building. We
have seen many examples of our friends who stayed too long abroad during those formative years and
they have never really quite come back to face the on-the-ground realities of Nigeria. Many, who
returned, left Nigeria frustrated and went back to the UK and the US where they felt more at home!
So with all this said, it was quite a surprise to me to hear that two of my children - a daughter and a
son, say they both wished to enter public service or run for public office here in Nigeria. I am quite
serious when I say I have not attempted to influence them in any way on this question, but what I have
said frequently to Nigerians abroad is that they should all come back home, but not right away.
How this applies to my own children is that I have told them that I would starve if necessary for them
to have the best education they can anywhere in the world. No matter which school they get admitted
to, I will pay for it all, even if it means selling the last shirt on my back. Not only will I pay the
tuition, I will pay everything because I want them to be more comfortable than I have been. I do not
care about my comfort – that is my gift to them. When I die, I will not leave a big bank account
because that is not what I inherited from my parents. What I give to them is not only an education but a
range of options so that each of them can choose what they want to do. It is their call to choose what
they want to do, and if any one of them asks me for advice, I will advise them based on the
circumstances of the moment. One question I did put to them recently, on the heels of my return from
exile, was, “After the experience we went through as a family - the persecution, the sponsored smear
campaigns in the news media targeted at me - do you still have the courage to go into public service
in Nigeria?”
I found their responses quite surprising. Aziza has an entrepreneurial flair and would prefer starting
her business as soon as she acquires some experience. My deceased daughter Yasmin’s take on it was
simply, “If we do not build on what you and the likes of Uncle Nuhu and Aunty Oby have started,
where will the country be when we have your grand-children?” Her sister Ramla, did not see it quite
that way, and would have preferred to quietly work and live in the UK. Bello is interested in politics:
“You have made a name for us. It is our duty to take that name and leverage it. I could be the first El-
Rufai to be in partisan politics for real, not like you, starting as a technocrat.” His attitude is that
since I have already paid the price, he intended to capitalize upon the name recognition and thereby
build a political career. I am not sure what else to do here but to be as encouraging as I can and
provide whatever they need to do whatever they wish to legitimately pursue.
As I have mentioned, my father died when I was eight, so my memories of him are few, but what I
remember was that he was everything. If I had problems with anything or anyone, I ran to him. He was
next to God. That was how I thought I should be as a father. Although I had my uncle and will remain
eternally grateful for all he did for me, and I have had many people who played very important roles
in my life but I did not have much of a father figure since my father died because no one can really
take the place of one’s father. In general I think a father should be there for his children, ensure they
can get the best in life that he can afford and be protective of them without smothering them to a point
that they become too dependent on him all their lives. Striking the balance between love and
responsibility is incredibly tough, but I hope we have done that pretty well.
As if parenthood was not already tough as it is, the environment in which we bring up children now
makes it even tougher. Technology, lots of television and the internet have made parenting really very
difficult. The cost of bringing up children has also risen astronomically. If I were getting married for
the first time, and I were to bring up children now, I would not have so many because it is a huge
challenge and horrendously expensive to bring up children the way one would want these days.
Frankly, considering the environment they grew up in, I am surprised that my children are all avid
readers and most of the older ones are not really into television or video games. The world is
changing which means parenting will have to change I suppose. Nevertheless, I am a little scared of
the environment in which parents now must bring up children.
Hamza Zayyad
As I stated earlier, since my father died, I have had a handful of men who became role models. My
elder brother Bashir was certainly one of them, as was my cousin Yahaya Hamza in Kaduna. With my
marriage to Hadiza Isma came a third one - unwittingly, Dr. Hamza Zayyad, Wazirin Katsina .
Dr. Hamza Zayyad was Nigeria’s first privatization czar and at one point one of the most influential
people in Nigeria. I got to know him and we got very close when Hadiza and I married because it
happened that Dr. Zayyad was a very close friend of her late father's and was the one who stood in as
her father during our wedding. We therefore became family members and he became very much my
father-in-law. For this reason, we visited the Zayyad household regularly and he got to like me. I
would go visit him virtually every Sunday and we would have lunch and just chat. He was a chartered
accountant by training who spent most of his life in public service in finance functions and grew to be
very influential. In his lifetime, there was virtually no one that Hamza Zayyad could not call in
Nigeria and arrange an appointment with, from the president downwards. He had at different times
telephoned at least four presidents of Nigeria in my presence. In his life time, I believe he knew
everyone of substance in Nigeria.
I once asked him, “What is the secret? Should I go back to school and be a chartered accountant?” His
response I have kept in mind through all the years since. “The first secret is Barewa College,” he
said. Like me, Zayyad was a Barewa old boy, as were four or five Nigerian heads of state. At the
time that Zayyad attended Barewa, it was without a doubt the premier high school in the northern
region. So the Barewa network was one secret. “The second” he continued, “is, developing people.
In my career I developed people; I hired good people and trained them to be better. I trained many
people, I made sure I educated more and more people; these people tend to grow in their careers and
one can always draw satisfaction from that.” Finally, he said, “Maintain your friendships.”
He then explained to me that when he was head of the New Nigeria Development Company – the
NNDC – and when he was the chief financial officer of Ahmadu Bello University, he made sure that
all those that worked for him obtained degrees and professional qualifications that they did not
previously have. He sent them to the best institutions like Harvard Business School, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), and such other places for professional development and training.
Many of those people eventually became successful in their private and public lives and they owed
part of their success to him, so he could call anybody when needed. Even through my time at Barewa
College, the old boys’ network mostly worked that way – General Gowon was Zayyad’s senior and
head boy, Murtala Muhammad, I think was his classmate. So Hamza knew several Nigerian
presidents, either through being classmates/schoolmates, or via the influential alumni association - the
Barewa Old Boys' Association (BOBA). Fast forward to our generation, the Barewa tradition and
networks were sustained - Umaru Yar’Adua was Sani Maikudi’s cousin, who was in turn my
guardian, so we were linked. Afakirya Gadzama was my house prefect, General Luka Yusuf was a
Barewa Old Boy - President Umaru Yar'Adua appointed Gadzama head of SSS, and Luka to head the
Nigerian Army!
Hamza Zayyad also assisted our consulting business in a significant way because whenever we came
across any public or private institution undertaking a major construction project that we had no direct
contacts with or did not know well enough to approach on our own, he would call and set up an
appointment for us to go, market our services and make a presentation. We got a lot of work that way
and our business grew with his kind assistance. So he was really a mentor in addition to being father-
in-law and a role model.
It was also Hamza Zayyad who interested me in privatization and encouraged me to enrol in a
certificate course in privatization with the Arthur D. Little School of Management. As the head of the
TCPC and its successor, the BPE - the federal privatization agency - he got me involved in the work