Ummi, as she is better known, had been in contact with me while I was going through my Mason
fellowship at Harvard. She was sympathetic to my travails and called regularly to counsel and did
everything to uplift my spirits. I was convinced that the care and concern she showed for me would
add value to my family life. Some of my family, friends and children were unhappy with what
appeared to be a sudden decision, but it was not that sudden. I had thought it through over a three year
period before deciding. I therefore craved for the understanding and support of my family and friends,
and we tied the knot in November 2011 in a very quiet ceremony in Abuja.
With these decisions taken and implemented, I refocused efforts at doing some writing and travelling
to African countries where I have some contacts to explore business opportunities. In short, I began
pursuing a new roadmap in which politics was a side show, an incidental activity, and not something
that would take a lot of my time. I would never have guessed at the time how the next twelve months
were going to be, but all my assumptions went out of the window on Remembrance Day - January
15th, 2011.
January 2011: ACN confirmed Nuhu, Bakare became Buhari’s Running Mate
In January we all witnessed the conclusion of the primaries of the political parties, and I was under
increasing pressure from our SNG colleagues to contest the presidency under the platform of the
Labour Party (with or without Kowa Party). My 3G colleagues and the Abuja group agreed with me
that the civil society leadership of SNG were getting it completely wrong. Civil society activists go
into politics to make a statement. Politicians contest elections to win, acquire political power and use
it for good (or sometimes for bad). I intended to be more of a politician and less of an activist. The
reasoning, which my 3G colleagues concurred with, was simple and based on answers to basic
questions. Why should anyone jump into a race that one had not really thought about? Should one
contest an election knowing that one would lose just to make a point? Was it sensible to contest just
because there was a free presidential ticket on the table, without the intellectual, emotional and
resource preparation? Is there anything like a free ticket to contest a presidential election in Nigeria?
And with my friend Nuhu in the race, what value could we add that could not be achieved by changing
our minds, and joining and strengthening his campaign? The answers to all the questions were ‘NO’.
In the end, I wriggled out of the situation without upsetting the SNG leadership by giving them
‘conditions precedent’ that I knew they could not meet – related to mobilization and fundraising, and
then only if Nuhu was unable to secure the ACN ticket – a near impossibility in my assessment! By
mid-January, I had reverted to my October -end condition and become a free Nasir. My inner circle
of political collaborators - Pastor Tunde Bakare, Jimi Lawal, Balarabe Abbas Lawal, Husaini Dikko,
Idris Othman and Tijjani Abdullahi, were either depressed or relieved. Depressed because it seemed
that the main opposition parties (ACN, CPC, ANPP and Labour) coming together to confront the PDP
had become an impossibility, but relieved because we all knew we had tried our best to form a
unified, patriotic platform and failed not due to selfishness or lack of effort. I recalled that Pastor and
Jimi said we could now move on with our lives, and I responded that we should wait for the next 24
hours before concluding that it was over. My instincts were that something would happen that may yet
change our political and personal situation.
.
On 15th January, Pastor Bakare received a surprising and unexpected call from Buhari asking him to
be his running mate. Pastor rejected the offer right away, whereupon Buhari asked him to think about
it and then call him later in the day. At that point I later learnt that Bakare called me, Jimi Lawal, Oby
Ezekwesili, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu among others, to inform us all of the
offer and requested for our views and counsel. I told Pastor right away that he had no choice but to
accept the challenge. I reminded him that it would be hypocritical of him to decline the offer when a
few weeks earlier he was advising me and others to contest, or suggesting that Buhari should pick
Ngozi or Oby as his running mate. In the end, we went to my house in Kaduna late in January 2011,
prayed for God’s guidance and thereafter a pensive Pastor Bakare met with Buhari and accepted the
offer, on condition that Jimi and I would be on his side throughout the process. I reminded Pastor
Bakare that Buhari and I still had some unresolved issues, but undertook to support Pastor Bakare and
the ticket the best way I could.
The next few days and weeks were busy as we took over the debate and re-drafting of the CPC
manifesto, campaign planning and fundraising because Buhari took the unusual decision of appointing
Bakare to be the chairman of the Presidential Campaign Council. Bakare’s selection as running mate
and, by implication, the invitation of our group to the CPC met the stiff resistance of Buhari’s inner
circle, who felt both slighted and affronted that he picked Bakare over and above their preferred
candidates and was vesting so much responsibility in the Bakare group. [177] We soldiered on
nevertheless and were active in the campaign nationwide. I joined the campaign train from Lagos on
15th of March, 2011 and visited most of the south-west states with Pastor Bakare, reached out to
financial donors, and delivered whatever we could muster to the party. We reached out to old friends
and compatriots all over the country to support the Buhari-Bakare ticket as the best opportunity to
change the nation’s governance trajectory. In between these efforts though, many other interesting
things occurred. The rest of the story of how a small group within the CPC leadership took
capricious decisions that cost the party dearly in Kano, Katsina, Bauchi, Niger, Kaduna, Kebbi,
Gombe and Taraba States is best told by the those more closely involved in the party and the
campaign, some day. We supported Pastor Bakare to do the best we could as late-arrivals to the
organization and its structures and processes.
Obasanjo Makes an Interesting Move
The period between 15th January and the deadline for submission of nominations by political parties
to INEC had its own version of intrigues. Pastor Bakare had not immediately accepted the offer to be
running mate, but the media was awash with speculations that Buhari had chosen him. On 25th
January, I was summoned by former President Obasanjo to his hotel room at the Hilton for reasons he
said were both urgent and important. On arrival, I exchanged pleasantries with Steven Oronsaye and
Akin Osuntokun in the living room and we went straight into his bedroom.
After greetings, Obasanjo asked if I was still in touch with Buhari. I replied that I was not directly but
could reach him anytime I wished. He then asked that I resumed my role of emissary between the two
of them and wished to know quickly if I could reach Buhari with a message. I responded that I could
do so pretty quickly. Obasanjo then said that he concurred with my earlier belief that Jonathan would
not make a competent president and that the best presidential candidate of the whole lot was Buhari.
He expressed willin
gness to support Buhari and go public with it if CPC and Buhari are willing to
consider his suggestions and implement them. Obasanjo suggested that I should convince Buhari to
pick Ngozi as his running mate, enter immediately into an alliance with the ACN and ANPP, and then
offer the Senate President’s position to the South-West to secure Tinubu’s support. If Buhari agreed to
these proposals, Obasanjo undertook to get three or four unnamed wealthy people to help with
funding the CPC campaign, and Obasanjo would try bringing Labour Party to endorse the Buhari-
Ngozi ticket. Obasanjo promised to resign from the chairmanship of the Board of Trustees of the PDP
and announce his support for the ticket if it would be helpful. I took notes on the hotel notepaper and
left, promising to report back the next day.
It was fortuitous that both Buhari and Pastor Bakare were in Abuja, so along with Pastor Bakare we
met Buhari and delivered Obasanjo’s message. Bakare, who until then was a reluctant running mate,
saw the Obasanjo offer as good for CPC and Buhari, and hoped it would free him from the burden
that Buhari had imposed on him. He added that since Buhari had not yet officially announced his name
as running mate, he would be happy to step aside for Ngozi. I was simply an emissary so I was silent,
hoping that Buhari would accept so I would be free of my commitment to be at Bakare’s side! Buhari
smiled and asked for my opinion as someone that knew Obasanjo pretty well. I told both of them that I
thought Obasanjo was being honest in his recommendations as I would urge Buhari to take similar
steps of merger with other parties and so on. I doubted if Obasanjo would deliver on the monies
promised and the resignation from the PDP Board of Trustees, and did not even think the latter would
help the CPC and GMB in anyway. I also added that Obasanjo’s faction of the Ogun PDP had just lost
all their tickets to contest the next elections and should this situation change, Obasanjo would renege
on everything he had committed to. Obasanjo may also be making another strategic move of removing
Bakare’s name from the ticket, in addition to responding to Jonathan’s failure to ensure that his faction
got the ticket by hook or crook – something Jonathan simply refused to do, preferring to support the
state governor, Gbenga Daniel and his faction.
Buhari restated that he thought long and hard before deciding on Bakare and would not change his
mind. However, we all agreed to continue to engage Obasanjo and encourage contacts with Ngozi,
while pushing to see real movement towards the financial and other political commitments made. The
same evening I returned to Obasanjo to brief him. He was excited and promised to contact
Ngozi, [178] Labour Party, the ANPP leadership and a few wealthy benefactors.
February 2011: Obasanjo’s Wild Goose Chase Ends in Abeokuta
Some days later, on 1st February, I got a call from Professor Julius Ihonvbere requesting a meeting to
follow up on my discussions with Obasanjo on Buhari. We met in the 3G offices on 2 nd February
with Julius and Festus Odimegwu on the same subject. We exchanged information and updates on the
political situation and ended with the question posed by Obasanjo to me, and then to Julius and Festus
– “How do we stop Jonathan from getting elected, and thereby saving the country from state failure?”
We discussed various steps, but unanimously recognized that Obasanjo would abandon the plan as
soon as his temporary disagreement with the Jonathan administration was resolved. Since we
believed in what we were doing, we agreed to soldier on under whatever scenario.
On 7th February, we all travelled to Abeokuta to meet with Obasanjo. Odimegwu and Julius had
developed a clear roadmap about remedying the weaknesses in Buhari’s organization and campaign
for Obasanjo to play his lead role in the anti-Jonathan effort. By then, a weird Federal High Court
ruling had restored the tickets of Iyabo Obasanjo and other members of their faction in Ogun State. So
true to form, Obasanjo simply back-tracked, rejected the roadmap he had asked us to prepare, and
said we should now explore ways of “remedying Jonathan’s weaknesses” and supporting his
candidature. His commitments to Buhari vanished that day, just as we all predicted on 25th January. It
was a very depressing drive late at night to Lagos for the five of us – Professor Julius Ihonvbere,
Festus Odimegwu, and Professor George Obiozor with Otunba Akingboye driving. We lamented
Obasanjo’s consistency in putting his personal interest before that of the nation and agreed that never
again will he get another opportunity to waste our time the way he just did.
We spent most of February 2011 getting the manifesto of the CPC drafted, debated and approved.
Jimi Lawal did most of the initial drafting with the input of Suleiman Adamu, Professor Olivet
Jagusah, Professor Okunnu, Lanre Tejuosho and Dr. Anthony Kila. Nuhu had sent me his draft
manifesto for comments as an email attachment. I printed it and sent it back with handwritten
comments. Jonathan and the PDP neither prepared nor published a manifesto. Only the CPC had a
proper manifesto[179] with clear policies, programmes and timelines for implementation.
Unfortunately, the elections were not decided on that basis.
March 2011: Meeting Ibori in Dubai Jail and Speech at Chatham House
Early in March, I went to Dubai for a short break, and to write a bit. Former Delta State governor
James Ibori had been in the custody of the Dubai Police since the 12th of May 2010 and I had quietly
made a mental note to locate and visit him sometime. As I had planned to be in Dubai for about ten
days, I decided this was sufficient time to try seeing James. This happened twice, on the 7th and 14th
of March. We chatted about the past and the present, and how and why his circumstances changed
overnight in Nigeria. James also threw some light on why Umaru Yar’Adua and his group went after
me, confirming much of what Mike Aondoakaa shared with me in August 2010.
The Royal Institute of International Affairs, the world famous think tank better known as Chatham
House, invited me to speak on Nigeria’s democracy and prospects of the 2011 elections. [180] The
presentation focused on the risks and opportunities the country faced at the time, but I made the
flawed assumption that a biometric and accurate voters’ register existed and that Jega and his staff in
INEC were truly committed to conducting decent elections. I was confident then that it was unlikely
for Jonathan to win the presidential election in the first ballot; that electoral fraudsters will be
exposed in the tribunals using the biometric register and ballots as foundational evidence; and
violence was likely to result if the elections ended up being manipulated or rigged as we witnessed in
many states in 2007! I was wrong on the first two, but was sadly vindicated on the third when at least
twelve states recorded outbreaks of avoidable violence – wanton killings, widespread arson and
targeted attacks on political leaders, traditional rulers and marabouts suspected of being sympathetic
to the PDP.
I returned from Chatham House to join the campaign actively starting with Lagos, and then moving
through virtually all the states of the south-west. We travelled to Jos with Pastor Bakare to reach out
to voters in that state after Buhari’s successful campaign visit. Pastor and Jimi held meetings
with
electoral aspirants from Katsina and Kano to try resolving the crisis that arose from inconclusive or
multiple primaries in these states. Bauchi was another state where the confusion over who was the
legitimate candidate of the party for the governorship election was being addressed all through
March. In the end, these acts of omission or commission led to the confusion that may have
contributed to the CPC’s loss of the governorships of Katsina, Kano, Bauchi, Kebbi, Kaduna, Taraba
and Niger States to the PDP.
April 2011: Elections and Post-Election Violence
We went into the general election with the optimism that it would be much freer and fairer than past
elections due to the confidence we all had in Professor Attahiru Jega and his team of INEC national
commissioners. In the event of fraudulent elections, we relied on the availability of thumb-printed
ballot papers for digital matching to the biometric register of voters to expose any corruption of the
election process. When the first round of elections for legislative offices started on 2nd April, CPC
virtually led in all constituencies in the north. It was going to be a landslide sweep amounting to near-
control of most of the seats in the two houses of the national assembly. If that election had been
concluded, CPC and ACN would have taken more than two-thirds of the House and Senate. The
election was aborted and the partial results, made available by INEC to Jonathan and the PDP to the
exclusion of other parties, sent shockwaves to those in power. Jega’s decision to reschedule the
elections gave the PDP adequate warning and time to re-arm and implement a desperate election
rigging strategy. The first step was to militarize most of the states where CPC was likely to win
landslide victories. The second was to send huge sums of money – three billion naira election ‘gift’ to
each state governor in Nigeria of whatever party - to ensure that all agents of the state were
adequately paid to look the other way. Third was to restrict general movement the night before
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