The Accidental Public Servant

by El-Rufai, Nasir

  It was impossible before because of the sprawl of the shops, so parking took place a kilometre or so

  away.

  The overwhelming response to the restoration of Wuse Market was positive. The demolition

  exercise, while more vital to the safety and functioning of the city, did not intuitively make sense to a

  lot of people and I recognized that. It took us another two years before we were able to restore some

  of the parks though. When we started recovering parks in Abuja, everybody said I was crazy, that

  Nigerians were too busy trying to earn a living to go to parks, or that Nigerians were too poor to care

  about going to parks or engage in any family relaxation in such parks. But we recovered the parks,

  planted grass, flowers and trees, and got wireless Internet hotspots[57] installed. And guess what

  happened?

  Once the parks were commissioned, the citizens of Abuja trooped there in large numbers. The parks

  were full all the time. Many people could not believe it. Yet some people kept telling us then that

  Nigerians were too busy to go to parks! One of the parks, Millennium Park, the largest park in the

  city, gets so busy on Saturdays and Sundays that a traffic jam around it develops in the mornings and

  evenings as people arrive and leave.

  With the demolitions, the restoration of Wuse Market and the parks behind us, cleaning the streets of

  unsafe motorcycle taxis - the ubiquitous okada was a piece of cake. This just had to be dealt with,

  because having motorcycle taxis carrying multiple passengers, unlicensed, unregulated, was just

  reckless and dangerous no matter which way you looked at it.[58] Furthermore, by the time I

  approved the proposal to ban them, they had become tools of bag snatchers and armed robbers. They

  were operating illegally anyway, in violation of the Road Traffic Act 1961, but had done so because

  nobody had been in charge of transportation regulation in Abuja. More disturbing were reports from

  the police and hospitals, indicating that a large proportion of fatal accidents were okada-related. I

  began consultations on how and when to ban them.

  I distinctly remember the chairman of the ruling party in FCT telling me we could not ban them. Even

  my politically-savvy friend, Bashir Yusuf Ibrahim, thought that such a decision would not only fail but

  amounted to political suicide. When I asked the FCT PDP chieftain why not, his meek response was

  simply that the motorcycle taxi association – the okada association – was the most powerful political

  force in Abuja and we needed them for a variety of events around the city. In short, they had the

  capacity to make the city ungovernable. I retorted that there was no way anybody would make Abuja

  ungovernable under my watch. For me though, the overriding consideration was to reduce fatalities on

  our roads connected with the reckless behaviour of the okada riders.

  Before we set the deadline for the okada ban, we put in place three bus concessions, concluded the

  deal to construct the Abuja Metro System and introduced the Abuja Green Cabs scheme. Then we

  announced three months in advance that on the first of October, 2006, we were giving the people of

  Abuja an independence anniversary present: there will be no more okada in the city of Abuja. From

  the day we made that announcement, huge trailers started moving motorcycles out of Abuja. In the

  final three days, it was a scramble, most okada left town.. Of course, we were ready, we had the

  police, the VIOs, Road Safety officers and traffic cops ready; we had everyone standing by on the

  first of October and in the first week we seized about 600 motorcycles that violated the ban. By the

  end of December 2006 we had seized 5,000 motorcycles. They never stopped trying, but the bulk of

  the okada riders, over 80 percent, left the city. The direct result of this was that fatal accidents

  associated with motorcycles decreased from the rate of 140 per month in September 2006 to just 14

  in October 2006, – a 90 percent drop.

  There is an old saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Well, since we left office, at

  least nine other states in Nigeria have copied what we did with the okada ban, with varying degrees

  of effectiveness. Even Lagos, ground zero for okada drivers, has announced that it is banning them

  from plying major roads.

  Keeping the Capital Safe

  Our aggressive first steps, as any mayor in the world would tell you, would have been impossible

  without the cooperation of the police. How does one get the Nigeria Police Force to cooperate in

  Abuja, and indeed anywhere else? Honestly, a lot of it comes back to certain core principles of

  leadership.

  Specifically, I believe a large percentage of leadership effectiveness is signalling. When a leader is

  appointed or emerges atop any organization – that organization could be a club or a country – the

  leader’s subordinates are looking to see what signals the leader sends that define the sort of person he

  or she is; the limits of the leader’s will; and the leader’s boundaries and power. Does the leader have

  the will to do what he or she promises to do? If the leader does something politically risky, will the

  political master or masters support his position or sacrifice the leader? Subordinates will be

  watching out for these things in the first few days or weeks or months on the job.

  In our case, as I mentioned before, I came to the FCT with a lot of credit in the sense that I had

  already made a name in the BPE as a stubborn no-nonsense manager that is willing and able to take

  difficult decisions, and this is why Obasanjo sent me to the FCT. The FCT staff, whether good or bad,

  would start by looking closely and trying to figure out how much they could compromise me with

  some of the things I was not privy to while in the BPE. [59] It was a constant game of sending signals

  and receiving them. I also had the advantage of coming in with a reputation, for better or worse, of

  being a little crazy – I privatized government companies and fought openly with cabinet ministers,

  even though I was a level below a federal minister, and survived. Meanwhile, some of those

  ministers I fought with like Kema Chikwe and Ojo Maduekwe lost their jobs. When that scare factor

  precedes a leader’s entry to a job, it tends to make people a bit apprehensive in facing him and come

  down a notch - then they watch how the leader takes the first steps. Coming back to the police, as any

  Nigerian knows instinctively, they are hardly a well-resourced and motivated force. The centrally

  controlled administrative structure, as opposed to its duties which are local, further complicates

  matters. The commissioner of police for the FCT (as with any state), was neither employed by nor

  subordinated to me but to the Inspector General. The police commissioner was expected to cooperate

  with me, but he’s not directly accountable to me. He too - like others - will be searching, though,

  asking himself, ‘Can this guy El-Rufai get the president to direct the inspector general to reassign me

  to a less important job? Can he influence my promotion? Can he provide resources that will enable

  me succeed?” If I could do any or all of these, then as far as the commissioner was concerned, I was

  indeed a surrogate for the president, deserving of cooperation.

  Early in my ministerial tenure, a memo came to my desk requiring me to approve an eight million

  naira payment to the police. I asked what this wa
s for and was told it was what the FCT ministry paid

  the police every month from our N600 million ‘security vote’ for the 2003 fiscal year. I asked to see

  the commissioner to ascertain why and what he needed the funds for. The commissioner came along

  with his deputy in charge of operations and a mutual friend of mine and Nuhu Ribadu's, Danjuma

  Ibrahim.

  “What is this for?” I asked.

  “Well you know, we moved a couple thousand mobile police officers before the 2003 elections

  to Abuja to enhance security and this is their relocation per diem.”

  “Well, send them back, elections are over. I am not approving the payment of this from next

  month,” I said.

  “Sir, I need these men to continue to maintain law and order in Abuja,” he said.

  I asked if he was sure the mobile police officers actually received the stipend. He said he was.

  “If I call them, any of the policemen, will they confirm to me that they get the money?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ok. What else do you need to support our work in Abuja? What are your problems and

  constraints?”

  “I do not have vehicles.”

  “How many vehicles do you need?”

  “Sixteen. I need sixteen cars, all our cars are old and breaking down, they are always in

  the garage.”

  So one of the first things we did was to approve his eight million naira, bought him 20 cars and many

  pick-ups. We also got my former employer, Motorola, to donate communications gear, and install

  some additional transmitters to improve police internal communications. On the police

  commissioner's suggestion, we commenced the design and roll-out of a phased closed circuit TV

  system that would cover the whole city footprint by 2010. All these were accomplished within 12

  months of my reporting for duty in the FCT. As soon as these steps were concluded, we called him up

  for a security review meeting.

  “We have addressed all the logistics, communications and critical financial needs of the Police in

  FCT. Now, the Police have everything needed to ensure and enhance security in Abuja so you

  have to deliver without fail. Is there anything else you need?”

  The response was negative, so I went on.

  "If you fail, I will go to the president and request that you be posted to another state. I hope we

  understand each other. Ok?”

  Thus, began my relationship with the commissioner of police in Abuja. We gave him the support he

  needed and more, but demanded from him the results needed. We also increased the monthly

  allowances payable when requested, and extended the gesture to other law enforcement agencies like

  the SSS and even the EFCC. I chaired monthly security committee meetings to discuss routine security

  matters and be proactive on others. I received regular security briefings from the FCT Director of the

  SSS and read them carefully, noting and taking actions, and ensuring follow-up. One of the earliest

  incidents I recall was a security report of repeated theft of explosives from various construction

  company stores in FCT. This also coincided with a report from the FCT Immigration office of an

  observed influx of ‘North African and Arab’ nationals into Abuja a few months before the All-Africa

  Games and the Commonwealth Heads of Government meetings within the last quarter of 2003. I

  convened an emergency security committee meeting to get to the bottom of it. This is an instance

  where "the security vote" is supposed to be used to facilitate the work of the SSS[60] agents, and also

  pay off the 'informants' - commercial sex workers, bartenders, hotel receptionists and the like.

  Within two weeks, suspects were arrested. To our relief, we discovered these were mostly petty

  thieves selling explosives to other smaller construction companies and stone quarries. We

  approached security issues with single-minded focus because in my view, the first and most important

  duty of any leader is to make his community more secure.

  Any time the security agencies had a problem, we took care of it because I realized that was the way

  the system worked. As a result, the police acted on any law enforcement request we made.

  I had the misfortune of having to deal with three different commissioners of police for various

  reasons, and not necessarily because I wanted them moved, but because of one incident or the other or

  they had served out their tour of duty. In one particular case, there was a case of opposites when my

  friend, Danjuma Ibrahim, one of the senior policemen in te FCT, was allegedly involved in

  extrajudicial killings, so the commissioner of police and all the top echelon had to be removed by the

  inspector-general of police on the orders of the president and posted to other states. Danjuma and

  some of his subordinates are being prosecuted for the homicide as I write this. Apart from that, I tried

  my best to politically protect all the commissioners I worked with, and when one of them was going

  to be moved from Abuja by police headquarters, I went to the president and asked that he should not

  be moved. I was enjoying working with him and he was going to retire in less than a year, so why

  post him out and dislocate his family? Why not let him stay out his time in Abuja till he retires? The

  president overruled the inspector general of police and the officer remained and became one of the

  best commissioners of police FCT ever had.

  Proud Moments

  Of all the things we did during my tenure at the FCT, the four things we did that I am without a doubt

  proudest of came about halfway through the term. One was giving up – or as the chief of staff to the

  President put it at the time - ‘donating’ - the Dornier 228 aircraft of the Ministry of the FCT to the

  presidential air fleet, thereby saving at least N150 million per annum in overhead cost.

  Another was the street naming and house numbering system that we implemented, enabling easier

  identification and location of residences and facilities and delivery of mail and goods. Abuja is till

  today the only city in Nigeria with such clear addressing system. The third was a freak incident. And

  the fourth had to do with addressing the water supply challenges in Abuja.

  The ‘Orphanage’

  A friend of Jimi Lawal's, Ms. Sonia Chikelu, who lives in London came home to Abuja in December

  of 2004 for the Christmas holidays to give presents out at orphanages listed on her local church’s

  registry, as she had done every year. As she approached one of the orphanages, she saw right in the

  window a child that really looked on the verge of death. The owner-manager of the orphanage was

  nowhere to be found and the staff on hand was not at all helpful. When she went back the next day, not

  only did she see more of the children, several of whom looked really on their last breaths, but when

  the orphanage’s owner-manager finally came around, she was not at all open to receiving Christmas

  gifts – quite the opposite of what one might expect from someone in such a position. What we

  eventually discovered was that this was a private orphanage run by a woman who was in the business

  of collecting abandoned children and pregnant young girls who did not want their pregnancies to be

  made public. She would pay these young mothers, take their babies and starve the infants sufficiently

  so that she could use photos and videos of them in donor campaigns to get western organizations[61]

  and countries to give her 'aid' -
free money for the running of the orphanage. She was actually making

  a lot of money doing this, but for her to make the case that she needed the money, she decided she had

  to starve the children. The more malnourished they looked, the more pity and guilt the foreigners felt,

  and the more money she received. She was the ‘Reverend’ Frances Charity Ibe.

  On learning of the condition of the children, I sought permission to leave a cabinet meeting early and

  drove to the orphanage accompanied by a distraught Sonia Chikelu and a very angry Jimi Lawal. We

  immediately took three of the most malnourished children from the orphanage straight to a private

  hospital because FCT doctors were on strike at the time. We then ordered the Social Development

  secretariat to undertake a detailed investigation into the matter. We discovered that apart from the

  fact that this ‘orphanage’ was not licensed, the building was an illegal structure that had no title and

  no building plan approval.

  Unfortunately, there was no legal framework enabling me as minister of FCT to take compulsory

  possession of the children for their safety. The only lawful option available was to remove the

  building housing the orphanage, being an illegal structure, but this may put the children under greater

  risk. We had to be creative - finding a legal way to protect the children, within the provisions of the

  Child Rights Act.

  Enabling the evacuation of the children required me as Minister of FCT to acquire the powers of the

  Minister of Women Affairs in the FCT. Since the president was empowered to assign responsibilities

  to ministers at will (See section 315(2) of the Constitution and section 2(1) of the Minister's Statutory

  Powers and Duties (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act), I approached him with a detailed brief on the