The Accidental Public Servant

by El-Rufai, Nasir

  succeeded in having the President consider Ngozi for the position we needed to move quickly.

  Baroness Chalker then immediately placed a call to President Obasanjo who was spending time at his

  Ota farm. She went on to inform him that she had got him a finance minister. She was persuasive in

  establishing the link between the priority Obasanjo attached to the debt relief and the good relations

  Ngozi had with the creditors, by virtue of her position at the World Bank. Obasanjo bought into the

  idea immediately, telling the Baroness that Ngozi worked for him earlier in his first term.

  We ended the meeting in the afternoon of April 23rd 2003, and I left for Washington for other

  meetings with the World Bank, and to put Ngozi on notice that a ministerial offer was likely to be

  made. Oby, whose focus was on the corruption in public contracts, immediately hinted that all she

  wanted to do was continue with the ‘Due Process’ reforms she had been working on. I was indifferent

  because I was advanced in my plans to leave the administration, complete my LL.B degree in London,

  and then go to the Harvard Kennedy School.

  I arrived in Washington and took a cab straight to Ngozi's office. She had been promoted to the vice

  presidency of the World Bank, and had before then chaired an important committee on Low Income

  Countries under Stress (LICUS) whose report I was invited, along with other African reformers, to

  critique in Paris, months earlier. While waiting to see her, she was summoned by Wolfensohn to

  break the news about Obasanjo's request for her to be finance minister. She came back to her office,

  looking visibly shaken and confronted me with the information. I admitted to my role in the whole

  affair and appealed to her to accept the offer. I could see then that she was both excited but subdued

  and reluctant. Excited because it would be a great honour to serve one's nation in that capacity and

  many World Bank/IMF staff had done this, and went on to be prime ministers and presidents of their

  countries. Reluctant because with three children in university, or about to enrol, the cost of tuition,

  even with her neurosurgeon husband's substantial income, would prove burdensome if she accepted

  the ministerial offer and its low pay. She shared these and other concerns right away. One was the

  pay. The other was her limited knowledge of Nigerian politics and public service, and third was the

  need for a competent team, not just a one-person show taking place in the Finance Ministry.

  Based on my experience at the BPE, I knew it was possible for her to get a decent salary in US

  dollars, funded largely by donor agencies, and I told her so. The two other issues we could resolve

  by working to get 'a few good men and women' [44]. Ngozi tasked me to work on them while she

  consulted her husband, children and parents. This aspect of the assignment was easy because as part

  of his rapprochement with Obasanjo, Atiku Abubakar informed Akin Kekere-Ekun and me that he had

  been asked to constitute an Economic Policy Coordination team that will improve improve

  collaboration among the various government departments that were concerned with the economy. The

  final team selected by Atiku to craft the economic strategy and design improved coordination

  mechanisms for the Obasanjo-Atiku second term was chaired by Professor Anya O. Anya, and

  included Fola Adeola, Asue Ighodalo, Akin Kekere-Ekun, Bode Agusto, Bashir Yusuf Ibrahim and

  myself. We met regularly late into the nights working on the policy document which was handed over

  to Atiku just before the elections. Nothing more was ever heard of that plan. But from that interaction,

  I had a shortlist of a few 'good men and women' for discussion with Ngozi almost immediately.

  A couple of weeks later, Ngozi flew into Abuja to discuss and conclude the issues related to the

  appointment with Obasanjo. After cutting through some administrative issues, Ngozi accepted the

  offer, and was set to take the job and Obasanjo now had the task of putting together an economic team.

  Ngozi convinced him first of the need for the team, and he agreed, asking her to come up with some

  names for him to consider.

  “For this to work, we need a team,” she again emphasized to me when her position was all

  settled. “And I do not know many Nigerians so you have to identify the bulk of the people that we

  will bring in to constitute the team.”

  “Ngozi, I will be happy to do a list of prospective team members for you, but mind you, I will not

  be in the next government, because of frequent disagreements with Obasanjo and I am all set to

  leave,” I said. At this point, I believed the prospect of continuing to work for the president to be

  non-existent. “As soon as I finish my term at the BPE in November, I am moving on.”

  Ngozi would not have this. She went to Obasanjo and suggested that with my skills, experience and

  passion, I had to be part of the team. So Ngozi was one of those who made the first efforts to

  reconcile me with Obasanjo because Obasanjo said I was a stubborn and disagreeable person, and he

  wanted to have nothing to do with me, other than send me on intellectual errands to London, I guess!

  Ngozi told me of her efforts, and I told her that she should stop wasting her time and focus on moving

  things on without me. No one was indispensable, after all.

  At this point, Oby Ezekwesili and her husband Chinedu[45] got involved in the same cause. They

  spoke to me on the need to accept to be in the administration if Obasanjo made the offer and suggested

  that we see Obasanjo together to discuss our seemingly irreconcilable differences. We then had what

  Oby calls till today a lengthy ‘reconciliation discussion’- we had been estranged for a very long time

  - and that meeting lasted quite a while with lots of bantering before Chinedu then said, "Baba, we

  have brought your son back to you," and Obasanjo said, “Do not mind the stupid boy! He is just

  argumentative and self-opinionated." Oby and her husband then left the two of us to talk. We had our

  fill of trading issues as to who upset whom the most. I realized then that the man really liked me, had

  a soft spot for me even, because he thought I reminded him of a younger version of Obasanjo in one

  way - he saw a lot of his youthful stubbornness in me, and paradoxically that was the side of me he

  despised. In Obasanjo’s eyes, I was an enfant terrible. But that meeting cleared the air and prepared

  the ground for Obasanjo to nominate me to the cabinet. A few weeks later, he informed me and Oby

  that he was sending me to go clean up the nation’s capital.

  So depending on who tells the story, both Ngozi and Oby can claim some credit for the reconciliation

  that led to my nomination. The chief of staff, General Abdullahi Mohammed, also counseled Obasanjo

  on my personal courage and effectiveness in getting difficult things done. Atiku Abubakar told many

  people that Obasanjo wanted a 'madman' to clean up the FCT and he suggested me, and so on and so

  forth. What I know for sure is that both Ngozi and Oby made a determined push to ensure that I

  remained in the administration.

  Ngozi's initial preference was for me to be the Petroleum Minister so that together we would clean up

  the nation's finances. She even approached and convinced Atiku of this because he told me soon after

  quite authoritatively that he had agreed with Obasanjo that I was going to the Petroleum ministry, to

  which I had no response, as Obasanjo h
ad already told me he was posting me to the FCT. Frankly,

  until Obasanjo told me of his intention to assign me to FCT, I thought I would end up being Ngozi's

  Minister of State. Shortly before we were sworn in, Obasanjo revealed to me and Ngozi the portfolio

  assignments and his decision to have Nenadi Usman in that position instead. Interestingly, a couple of

  days before we were sworn in, Obasanjo informed Ngozi of a change in portfolios. He was now

  assigning another woman minister as her Minister of State on Atiku Abubakar's insistence. Ngozi

  drafted me to persuade Atiku to drop the idea because she had got used to Nenadi by then and had

  taken a liking to her. Besides Nenadi was much younger, and appeared more humble and deferential.

  The other woman was a retired permanent secretary, older and more experienced than Ngozi. I went

  to Atiku and made a pitch and he changed his mind. Ngozi and Nenadi went on to work well together

  until the former was reassigned to the Foreign Affairs ministry.

  Ngozi proposed that the economic team meet twice weekly - with the president early morning on

  Wednesdays before the plenary meeting of the Cabinet with other cabinet level 'members', [46] and in

  her office on the same day at 3pm. The inner core of five also met at least once a week, in her house,

  no matter how busy we were, to review everything going on in the nation's political economy. She

  also made us commit to a pact of sorts. We had to have absolute trust in one other. If anyone came to

  Ngozi and accused anyone of us of any wrongdoing, the default position should be not to believe it,

  and for her to defend the person under attack without reservations. The same applied to each one of

  the five of us and other members of the economic team. Ngozi’s thinking, and I agreed fully with it,

  was that nobody outside our team should see any signs of rift among the five of us.

  We also committed to the principle of all for one and one for all. For example, if circumstances

  required one of us to resign, then we would all resign collectively and leave the government. For us

  to resign collectively, we had to have a discussion. If anyone felt he or she needed to resign, we

  would discuss and agree that the situation justified that person resigning, in which case, all five of us

  would resign together. She felt that in an administration surrounded largely by corrupt, self-seeking

  politicians, we would not survive without one another. She opined that the reforms we planned to

  undertake would be very difficult, going against the tide, against entrenched interests and they would

  fight back. So we would have to face the situation with a united front.

  Ngozi was visionary. Her intelligence, sound education and World Bank exposure made her

  appreciate ahead of many people the challenges that we would face and the price we would pay in

  undertaking reforms, particularly economic reforms. Ngozi also had a preference of negotiating and

  winning over adversaries rather than confronting and fighting them. Whereas Oby and I would prefer

  to confront, fight and defeat an adversary, Ngozi preferred to be nice, sidestep and move on anyway.

  Her approach was that often 100 percent victory is impossible or too costly, but if 60 percent victory

  can be achieved without too much blood on the floor, then we could compromise with the bad guys,

  and should still move on. As an illustration of this, Ngozi had a very good relationships with all

  manner of politicians, including the likes of the convicted felon and then governor James Ibori, and

  she indeed had excellent relationships with some of the 'corrupt' legislators and governors, many of

  whom the rest of us would not say hello to. She is a realistic student of power and wanted to be on the

  side of the powerful - the winning side, all the time. A few contradictions that irked us were

  persistent rumours that her brothers were doing deals in the ministry of finance and making money and

  she did not think it necessary to seriously investigate such allegations.

  On the whole, she turned out to be a sensible strategist and a good leader and galvanizer of people to

  achieve set goals. She did not do much day-to-day work, personally, making her really more of a

  coordinator-in-chief rather than executor. But her strength I think derives from her exposure and

  experience in development matters, knowing in advance where the reform challenges are likely to be,

  and because she had access to the information and institutional memory of the World Bank and other

  multi-laterals, she came across as knowing quite a lot. Where she proved invaluable was in

  leveraging her personal contacts within the international financial institutions to get increased donor

  attention to Nigeria, and assistance to fund the economic reform programme. The concessions we got

  from the Paris Club were in large part because she knew how to get everyone in the Paris Club, all

  the G7 finance ministers, and Gordon Brown of the UK became a strong supporter and advocate, and

  remains a personal friend of her’s.

  Unfortunately, in the end, our relationship took a turn for the worse beginning from the fateful day

  Obasanjo moved her to the foreign affairs ministry. One morning, in May of 2006, shortly after the

  third term effort collapsed, Obasanjo called me aside after the economic management team meeting

  and said he was going to reshuffle the cabinet that day. The plan he had, he confided in me, was to

  move Ngozi to the ministry of foreign affairs to fix some persistent problems in our international

  relations, Oby to the ministry of education and Nenadi Usman, who was Ngozi’s number two, to take

  over from Ngozi as full cabinet minister of finance. Obasanjo said he needed me to help manage the

  emotions and reactions of those affected. Taken together, these three were known as ‘my sisters’ in

  the cabinet. He also knew that Ngozi, Oby and I, were the three independent and 'uncontrollable'

  ministers in the cabinet. If he had reshuffled without warning us, we may well have responded by just

  saying, “Thanks Mr. President, we quit,” and he did not want that embarrassment, so he needed to do

  this the way he did it - recruiting me as the interlocutor and persuader.

  So about half an hour to the commencement of the cabinet meeting, I called Ngozi and Oby aside,

  outside the Council Chambers for a chat. I broke the news of the impending reshuffle to them. Oby

  who had just undergone stress sorting out the Solid Minerals ministry through an intense reform

  agenda, was both angry and sad that she was being thrown into another tough assignment. She was

  terribly unhappy, tearful and nearly broke down. "Why am I being thrown to another zoo again? Why

  is Baba doing this to me?” she said amidst tears. I counseled her about the importance of education to

  our nation's future and why she needed to be there to begin to get the place sorted out. She calmed

  down and subsequently with the intervention and support of her husband, quickly adjusted to her new

  assignment. Ngozi was shocked as well, but as a pragmatic student of power, recovered almost

  immediately and asked me who would then chair the economic team. I did not have an answer so I

  went back to Obasanjo to ask. He said that Nenadi as minister of finance must chair the economic

  team, unless she was unwilling to do so. I then went up to Nenadi who seemed to have a

  foreknowledge of the reshuffle and looked like she knew she was going to replace Ngozi, and talked

  to her. I confirmed to her that Ob
asanjo had just told me about it and we needed to meet to agree a

  few housekeeping issues. She followed me to the location outside the Council Chambers where Ngozi

  and Oby were tearfully talking in inaudible tones. We then had a four-person meeting where Nenadi

  agreed that Ngozi should not only continue to chair the economic team, but maintain the interface with

  international financial institutions until she felt ready to take that over. I reported our consultations

  and decision to a reluctant Obasanjo, who agreed to the arrangement but only as "an interim measure".

  This would be the beginning of our team tensions. This arose largely because unlike Oby and I, who

  clearly put our feelings on the table, subsequent events showed that both Ngozi and Nenadi were not

  entirely happy with the arrangement, but merely pretended to be. Ngozi never ceased to think of

  herself as finance minister to the exclusion of Nenadi, and Nenadi resented the suggestion that she

  could not chair the economic team. The seeds of failure were already sown.

  Rearranging the power structure of any organization is rarely smooth, and this was no exception.

  While the president’s objectives may have been legitimate, they posed some issues for us as a team.

  This reshuffling opened the question of who was going to chair the economic team – this was where

  the power was, and Ngozi, as both the team’s conceptual founder and minister of finance, was the

  official and unofficial chair. Furthermore, Ngozi, as a student and strategist of power, was not likely

  to give up this position easily. There was the additional question of whether or not Nenadi was ready

  to be both minister of finance and chair of the economic team, should Ngozi have no problem giving

  up the chairmanship and should Nenadi be comfortable taking on that role – neither of which held to

  be true. I was put in a very difficult position. To begin with, Nenadi Usman, the junior minister of

  finance, a younger politician from my home state, was receiving a promotion, so I was elated, and did