The Accidental Public Servant

by El-Rufai, Nasir

  earlier, in August 1999, I had married Asia Mohammed Ahmad as my second wife. I met her in 1996.

  Asia was running her law firm in Abuja when she went to the World Bank annual meetings in

  Washington, DC. We met on a KLM flight from Amsterdam to Lagos. Five hours of conversation was

  the beginning of a friendship that became a relationship and then marriage. I, therefore, needed the

  consent and support of my two spouses before accepting the assignment. Happily for me, both Hadiza

  and Asia were supportive, but my children, led by Yasmin, were not too enthusiastic and expressed

  reservations. I explained away their concerns which had to do with reluctance about relocation to

  Abuja and the perception of all public servants as corrupt.

  I returned to Nigeria and made contact with Abdullahi Nyako, the principal secretary to the Vice

  President, to see Atiku. He said he would call back but never did. After two days of waiting in Abuja,

  I called Steve Oronsaye to arrange an audience with Obasanjo. I met him whereupon he confirmed

  that he had approved my appointment as DG of BPE if I would accept. I thanked him and he instructed

  me to "report immediately and get cracking." As I was about to leave the President's office, Atiku and

  his coterie of staff arrived; he was a little surprised to see me there, and requested that I should go to

  his office and wait. I had a short meeting with him in which he repeated his reasons for wanting me to

  lead BPE, Obasanjo's approval and directives to report immediately. I had no letter of appointment,

  no one asked for my resume and that was it. Atiku was not even aware that I had been waiting for two

  days to see him. The appointment was announced in the media (national radio and television) the

  same afternoon of the 7th of November 1999. The print media carried it the next day. I left for Kaduna

  immediately after meeting Obasanjo and Atiku, dozing all through the two-hour drive. My phone - the

  NITEL analogue cellular service “090”, was switched off so the VP's media people that needed some

  biographical information about me could not reach me. They went ahead with the announcement based

  on information given by Dr. Usman Bugaje - who thought I was 43 years old and a lawyer by

  profession. Actually, I was then a law student and more like 39 years of age at the time! I left for

  Kaduna and reported for work back in Abuja two days later.

  Entering the BPE

  On the 9th of November 1999, I reported to the BPE to start what has turned out to be another eight

  exciting years in Abuja - of fast-paced change and growing up in various ways. My professional life

  until then had been spent entirely in the private sector, which gave me a perspective that career public

  servants lack. Specifically, the private sector has a single goal: to make profits for shareholders. A

  single goal makes it easier to focus, and because a private sector actor wants to make as much money

  as possible for partners and shareholders, the most efficient methods possible and the most cost

  effective operations tended to be used. I believed then, and still do now, that that approach can be

  applied to the public sector. Cost cutting, efficient management – these are things required in the

  public sector, even though the purpose of public sector organizations is usually not to turn profits, but

  to provide social goods and services whose benefits are more difficult to quantify in simple monetary

  terms.

  This was the basic attitude I brought into the BPE. It did not always satisfy everyone, but then this is

  the nature of public service and indeed politics – there will always be someone who is ill-served by

  a decision. To the extent that my actions were or are ever governed by a political ideology, that

  ideology is pragmatism. Such is the legacy of spending my formative professional years in the private

  sector. For those who take exception to the way I practice pragmatism, I would respond by saying

  two things: first, I would encourage a close examination of the interests and loyalties held by my

  naysayers over the years – not only do they tend to differ significantly from my interests and loyalties,

  but in many cases also the interests and loyalties of the Nigerian people at large. Second, I do my best

  to keep my word, no matter how inconvenient. I do this as a matter of habit – it is how I was raised.

  Conveniently for me, this matters in politics more than anywhere else. Indeed, one could say the only

  true currency in politics is keeping one’s word, because that is the basis upon which relationships are

  built and agreements are enforced.

  Upon entering the BPE, I, like many other Nigerians, attributed our country’s famous lacklustre

  progress to corruption. What I soon discovered was that corruption is really only a symptom of

  Nigeria’s problems. The true culprit behind our country’s lacklustre progress is actually much deeper

  and even more difficult to identify, but for the time being I refer to it as disastrous political leadership

  and bad decision making leading to a culture of impunity. I did not come around to this assessment of

  our country’s malaise until I was actually in public service for some time. As I was entering BPE, my

  philosophical framework was simply that I knew that the public sector had to work at a basic

  minimum level in order for the private sector to flourish. I came to this realization during the Abacha

  years and it was during his rule that I made up my mind that if I ever got the opportunity to work in the

  public sector, I would not only accept, but would do my very best.

  Chapter Four

  Taking Charge of Privatization and Policy Reform

  “Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention,

  sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many

  alternatives – choice not chance, determines your destiny.”

  ― Aristotle

  As I stated earlier, I returned to Abuja on 9th November 1999 without a letter of employment or any

  formal introduction, to report at the BPE offices then located within the NDIC building. I was in the

  office by 8am, and it was virtually empty. None of the staff was at work except an assistant in the

  DG's office named Effiong. He welcomed me and asked who I wanted to see. I informed him that I

  wanted to see Mr Bernard Verr, the outgoing DG. He guided me to a visitor's seat and said Mr Verr

  will be in the office soon. Within the hour, Ibrahim Shehu Njiddah, then a Deputy Director and who

  knew me well from my previous interactions with the BPE, sauntered in, identified who I was and all

  hell broke loose. The directors then came over to say hello, and suggested I move to the DG's office. I

  declined and waited instead in Ibrahim's office until Mr Verr arrived an hour or so later.

  The hand over was very brief. I was given the balances in all of BPE's accounts and a short

  inspirational speech not to be intimidated by the directors that were all older and more experienced

  than I was! Mr Verr said he was appointed DG at 39 years of age as well, so I had nothing to worry

  about. With that, he left and I never saw him until a couple of years later. Within days, a memo to pay

  his severance and terminal benefits was brought for my approval, which I gave immediately and it

  was settled the next day. Then the acting director of finance and administration, Mrs Modupe

  Abiodun-Wright, sought to take me through what were my entitlements as DG, and asked permission
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  to book me into the Hilton Hotel immediately for the first 28 days at government expense which I was

  entitled to as a new senior government appointee. I declined since I had a home in Abuja where my

  bride, Asia, lived along Amazon Street in Maitama. I paid little attention to the levels of pay and

  allowances, as I knew they would not add up to much. I had already arranged with El-Rufai &

  Partners to pay me a quarterly supplemental to augment what I knew would be my low, government

  pay. I had to start looking for a house as my first wife, Hadiza, wished to relocate to Abuja. My

  second wife, Asia, never enjoyed a real honeymoon period, because another bride - the BPE - came

  into our lives less than three months after we got married!

  The heads of departments - the directors - I think four in number at the time, now began briefing me in

  detail. In terms of privatization activities, there had been none the previous five years under Abacha.

  The organization had so many deputy directors (over 20 in number) mostly doing little or nothing. I

  found that all the staff of BPE originated from only 22 states of the federation, so 14 states and the

  FCT had no representation. While the BPE had some incredibly competent people at all levels, the

  quality of some of the more recent employees left much to be desired. More importantly, the most

  experienced staff had no idea how to do privatization transactions involving core investor sales as

  they were largely familiar with listing shares on the Stock Exchange or sale of assets in liquidation

  situations. A lot of new hiring was needed, and intensive training for existing staff. I knew from day

  one that I would have to bring into the BPE many good people and from each state of the federation to

  satisfy the 'federal character' requirements of our sometimes cumbersome constitution. The BPE

  needed re-engineering, revamping and skills development. In a few days, I had to brief the

  Privatization Council chaired by Vice President Atiku Abubakar on the plans for the implementation

  of Phase 1 of the programme.

  I had attended a programme on practical approaches to privatization at the Arthur D. Little School of

  Management in 1992, and had the privilege of serving as a member of a Study Group on Socio-

  Economic and Related Problems of Privatization and Commercialization in 1991. I had also served

  as Member and Secretary of two committees set up by the governors of the northern states to

  restructure the operations of the northern regional development finance company - the New Nigeria

  Development Company (NNDC), so none of the challenges in BPE was brand new or difficult to

  understand. The draft of the privatization implementation programme was presented to me by the two

  directors, Salisu Liadi (privatization) and Okpa-Obaji (commercialization). It was a good plan on the

  whole, and I reworked it overnight, introduced the concept of at least one high-profile, ‘flagship

  transaction’ each year to measure our success. The national carrier, Nigeria Airways Ltd., had

  already been so identified for the 1999-2000 year, and the IFC, the private sector investment arm of

  the World Bank, had been enlistedas advisers a couple of weeks before my appointment. I proposed

  that NITEL be our flagship divestiture for 2001. The revised plan was presented to the NCP early in

  December 1999, and it was approved. Before then, I had to learn how to write and present

  government memoranda (memos), how they all ended with a summary and ‘prayers’ and BPE's unique

  style of presentation developed by my mentor, Hamza Zayyad. It was a great learning experience and

  I could see that the council was impressed with my first outing as DG. The next day, we had to brief

  the media and announce the kick-off of the second privatization and commercialization programme of

  the federal government of Nigeria.

  Internally, we initiated the process to recruit more staff - entry level, senior and directorate grades. I

  approached several friends and ex-classmates to join the BPE as directors to help me. I approached

  Bature Shehu Garba, who held a Masters in Construction Management and had been a commissioner

  of water resources in my home state of Kaduna but he declined. So did Dr. Mansur Mukhtar, a first

  class economics graduate and our chief economist in PIMCO who was then working for the World

  Bank. Dr. John Ayuba, another first class marketing graduate then working with a commercial bank,

  also declined. Only Tijjani Mohammed Abdullahi, an accountant and banker, who was then deputy

  managing director of one of our leading merchant banks – First Interstate Merchant Bank - accepted to

  work with me. I think it is difficult for classmates to work under one another, but this was not

  apparent to me when I made the approach to several of them! Those that declined all had good

  reasons other than serving under their somewhat erratic former classmate! I believe strongly though,

  that the people you know best are those you went to school with or worked with in near-equal

  capacities, so in whatever position I found myself, I always tried bringing in some former

  schoolmates and classmates to help out, and many accepted and we worked beautifully with little or

  no tensions.

  We hired Bashir Yusuf Ibrahim’s New Paradigm Consultants to review BPE’s structure, staff and

  training needs and make recommendations for improvement. On the basis of the final report of the

  consultants, we fired many of the directors and deputy directors, and began a transparent hiring

  process with an advertisement in the national newspapers inviting applications from people with first

  degrees or equivalent. We were looking to hire about 108 people but received over 3,000 qualified

  applications. The short-listed applicants sat a GMAT-type aptitude test and were hired on the basis

  of best three scores from each state. We did not hire anyone that failed the aptitude test. Some states,

  notably Bayelsa, Rivers, Zamfara and Yobe, had no qualified candidates, so we had to head-hunt for

  them by making contact with the governors of the states, but insisted that the candidates must meet our

  minimum requirements - upper second class degree or better in any field, to be considered. Many of

  these young people turned out to be BPE's best and brightest, and this goes to show that when merit

  trumps caprice in staff selection, the results can be phenomenal.

  The consultants observed that our staff compensation levels were poor compared to the private

  sector. The BPE staff housing loans scheme and the institution's pension fund were both in financial

  deficit. Certain that by the time our staff get well-trained, many investment banking and consulting

  firms would lure them away, we submitted proposals to the privatization council to raise the pay and

  allowances of BPE staff to levels near to those of financial institutions, and to acquire our own

  offices. The council approved our proposals. The compensation structure needed to be ratified by the

  National Salaries and Wages Commission to take effect, which was done. In 2000, we acquired the

  building that we named Hamza Zayyad House on Osun Crescent in Maitama District. Over time, we

  extended the building slightly, building a staff canteen and crèche, while the Muslim staff contributed

  and built a small mosque for the two afternoon prayers. I ate lunch regularly in the canteen thereby

  compelling the caterer to whom we outsourced it to maintain quality and good prices. Apart from

 
providing the canteen building rent-free to the caterer, nothing else was subsidized. We also insisted

  that no senior staff would have exclusive toilets, thus ensuring that the environment was kept clean by

  outsourcing the function as well to a cleaning company. BPE operated like a private sector

  organization but we still had a skills-gap problem.

  In addition to all these, there were no operating manuals for transactions and no serious diagnostics

  on the enterprises scheduled for divestiture or restructuring. To make matters more complicated, the

  BPE had no funds available to do most of these important preparatory activities. It was at this point I

  began to approach donors for support.

  USAID to the Rescue

  Early in 2000, I called for a meeting with the Mission Director of USAID in Nigeria, Tom Hobgood,

  and asked to present the outlines of our federal privatization programme. We met him in Lagos (for a

  few minutes because he had to leave for another meeting but handed us over to Mrs Ravi Aulakh, his

  number two) and our presentation and subsequent discussions led to a grant of US $10 million for

  BPE in support of the privatization efforts of the government. The funds would be administered by a

  USAID-appointed consultant, IBTCI of Fairfax, Virginia. We proposed to hire some staff as

  'consultants' and then IBTCI placed the advertisements, short-listed candidates, interviewed them and

  fixed their hourly rates of pay. We did not even know how much the consultants were paid! For me,

  as long as I could get Nigerians at home and in the diaspora to assist the implementation of the

  programme, I was interested in nothing more. That was how we began the two-track system of staffing

  the BPE - the regular, permanent and pensionable staff of BPE, and the ‘core team’ consultants whose

  pay was much higher but whose contract of employment was neither permanent not pensionable, and

  indeed could end whenever funds terminate! Some of the regular BPE staff like Roz Ben-Okagbue and