WHY MY MEMO TO BUHARI WAS LEAKED – EL-RUFAI

If I See Something Wrong Tomorrow, I’ll Do Another Memo APC Members With 2019 Presidential Ambition After Me

2017-03-26 - By Abdulkareem Baba Aminu, Lawan Danjuma Adamu and Andrew Agbese

Your Excellency, it’s almost two years since you assumed office as the governor of Kaduna State. Those who knew you when you were the minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) would say that you have changed from what earned you the nick name, ‘Mai Rusau.’ Is it deliberate?

Well, those that used that adjective to describe me did it for political reasons. It was to ‘give a dog a bad name in order to hang it’ when they used it to refer to the work we did in Abuja. But even in Abuja, we did not demolish only, we did a lot of infrastructural development. But you know that in politics you have to frame someone. This is politically acceptable.

In Kaduna, we didn’t deny that we had to demolish. This is so because Kaduna is the first planned city in Nigeria. Lord Lugard signed the town planning order establishing Kaduna in July 1917. So Kaduna has a master plan we have to preserve. We will do so within the limits of what is reasonable. We will be flexible. When we came in, one of the first things we did was to take out the illegal buildings at Al-Huda Huda College because we could not have people building their houses next to hostels. These illegal buildings encroached on educational facilities and we took them out. We will take out all similar encroachments in educational and health facilities.

Yes, there will be some demolitions, but we are not here to demolish. We are here to build and rebuild the society for the progress of the state. And we are committed. I am happy that people are seeing that we are not what we were framed to be. We are concerned with progress, we are concerned with infrastructure development, but we are also concerned with correction and doing the right thing. We want to ensure that our town planning laws are complied with.

Your now famous memo to President Muhammadu Buhari has received many reactions, some of them even hostile. Were these some of the fears you entertained in the memo when you said it would be misinterpreted, misunderstood and even perverted?

First of all, let me say that this is not the first memo I have written to the president. From the time I began to interact politically with him in 2010, anytime I saw a situation requiring advice or change in direction, I usually went to discuss with him. I always said, ‘I will go and reduce it to writing so you can have a document to reflect upon and decide and guide your action.’

This is not even the tenth memo I have written to the president. I have probably written more than 20 memos. I did this at various stages - from our days in the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), before the 2011 elections, after the 2011 elections and during the merger process.

I have always felt that my duty to him as my political leader is to pick up what he doesn’t hear, because as a lower level person, I get to hear more about what is going on. And if I see things going wrong, I have a duty to go to him and say, ‘This is what I’ve heard, the facts I have established and my advice on the way forward.’

They are all problem-solving memos, they identify problems, analyse them and propose solutions. So this is the spirit of all my memoranda to the president from 2010 till date.

I wrote this memo because I felt very strongly at that time that many things were not working as planned. I was part of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Strategic Planning Committee. I am one of the authors of the APC manifesto; I was part of the 34 people that signed the Independent National Electoral Committee (INEC) document to register the party. So I consider the APC one of my children. I know the dreams we had and the very high expectations our people had in Buhari’s government. And I am close enough to the president to know what he is committed to in terms of social justice and progress. I see that people that have been trusted to drive this agenda are not doing it.

They are focused on other things than what is Buharism. And I am a Buharist, I believe in the man. I gave the last seven years of my life working with him and knowing him. From the time we worked in Obasanjo’s government, Oby Ezekwesili and I would always go and confront him when we see something going wrong. When it required writing, we would write to him. This is how I have been. I feel that the first duty of every subordinate is tell the truth to his superior and the superior can take a decision.

Whatever position President Buhari takes I will support him because I know he is more experienced and exposed. He is more like a father to me. My job is to analyse the situation, get all the facts in the streets that he may not hear from the Villa, put them to him and propose a course of action so that he can take a decision. This is what I have always done, and this was what I tried to do in September.

I saw these things going on and decided that I would have a comprehensive discussion with him. I raised many of the issues in the memo in previous discussions with him because every once in a while I go to the president with my list of issues.

When I visited him in Daura during the last Sallah day, in the company of Pastor Tunde Bakare, his running mate in the 2011 presidential election, I shared some of the items on the memo with him. So three of us sat with the president and went through the first draft of the memo. We looked at it and debated. He gave his views about some aspects of the memo. This was about seven months ago.

I have done my bit. I have put on the record what I think is not going the right way. It is the president’s call to move the agenda forward. If you look at some aspects of the memo you would see that he has begun implementing some. He may not implement all, it’s his call, he is the president and has more information and experience than I have. So he may accept some and reject some. That’s normal.

It is believed in some quarters that you leaked the memo probably because it wasn’t getting the desired result. Did you?

As I said, I have written several memos to the president. This is the first one that has leaked. I can state categorically that I did not leak it. If I did I would say so. I wrote the memo, it’s my own, I could make it public if I chose to, but I did not. It was a private communication and I can’t understand the motives of those that leaked it. I don’t know who leaked it. But who knows? In these days of Wikileaks, even if it is in your computer it can be hacked and taken out. I don’t want to speculate on who leaked it or whatever, what I am surprised at is those that are attributing motives to the memo without even reading it.

If you read that memo you would see that there’s no bad motive. There’s nowhere in the memo that I said the government has failed. It’s our government; if it fails then I have failed too. But there’s a lot going on. We are on the political terrain and I am the target of many people for reasons I may come to know later.

But anyone that reads that memo will see that I did not intend it to be anything other than a private memo to the president. Secondly, my advice or analysis or opinions were based on what I believe to be the truth and what I think will advance the cause of the president. There’s is nothing in that memo that is advancing the interest of Nasir el-Rufai or even Kaduna State. It’s about Nigeria, the president’s success and our party.

Why would anyone take that memo and say I have any ill motive? The reason I said in the memo that it would be misunderstood is because of experience. As I said, I have been with the president since 2010, and anytime I write anything and he discusses it with his inner circle, they always say I am very ambitious.

I have always been accused of having presidential ambition since 2007. I have suffered from these accusations. The late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua exiled me because of it; former President Goodluck Jonathan tried to imprison me because everyone around him told him to keep me busy or I would contest against you in 2015.

But what I spent all my time doing from 2010 until President Buhari got elected in 2015 was to make the CPC and later the APC to be a strong party and for Buhari to be president.

I spent two and half years to convince President Buhari to run, and he has made that public. I believed that the future of the country rested on a party we could organise around Buhari. I believed that only Buhari could have chased Jonathan out. I worked for it, not because I wanted anything. But people around the president kept telling him that I joined the party to run for presidency. What they didn’t know was that in our private discussion, I was the one pushing him to run for the fourth time.

I am forever grateful to the president for the faith he had in me. In spite of what people around him were trying to do to cut me down, he still appreciated who I really am.

I know that no president or governor works alone. Whatever you write to him, if it is going to be implemented, he has to minute it to someone and that person may read the memo and come back to the president and say, ‘Look, this is the motive.’ That was why even in the memo I said, ‘I know that this may be misunderstood. I know that I may be accused of ambition, but Mr. President, between me and you, you know the truth.’

I am the governor of Kaduna State today because the president himself called me and said I should run. I had no plans to run for anything. I had never contested elections. But that has not stopped the conspiracy theory. That is seven months ago. If I had wanted to leak the memo I would have done that immediately. Somebody leaked it for whatever reason.

This is a memo from an APC governor to an APC president, but who is shouting more than everyone? It is the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) people that are trying to describe who I am to an APC president. Many of these things going on are being driven by the PDP, who think that they have got something to mind. Secondly, within our party, there are people that have started running for the presidency. There are people that think Buhari is finished and will not run for a second time, blah blah blah. They are running for 2019, so they will do everything to twist what is in that memo.

I believe I am a target because there is a pattern and I can give you few examples in the last two weeks. I am a target because I made everyone that has the ambition to run for the president of Nigeria know that I am a Buharist. As long as Buhari is around, there is no point even talking to me. So I am a target. And those that have these ambitions know that when 2019 comes, by the grace of God and President Buhari says he wants to run, I will be at the frontline fighting for him.

If by 2019 President Buhari says, ‘I am not running, this is the person I am supporting,’ they know I can die to make sure that person becomes the president. They know that I will follow Buhari.

So I have no friends among those with presidential ambition. This is what is going on. I can go on and list examples. In the last three to four weeks, someone planted a story that the Kaduna State Assembly wanted to impeach me. It’s totally false. Someone planted a story on the social media that I collapse from time to time since I went for primaries in Kogi. And I said, ‘I have never collapsed in my life, never.’

In the last three weeks again, this memo was leaked and there are stories that I leaked it because I want to distance myself from the government and I have this or that ambition. If you read that memo you would see that one of my concerns is that we need to clean up our political space so that President Buhari would run again. This is my aspiration. There were stories that I refused to receive the president.

I have enrolled in a part-time PhD programme at the University-Merit in the Netherlands. It was the vice president that wrote the recommendation for me to get admitted into the programme, so I am not doing it without the knowledge of the authorities. It is a programme that requires me to go to the Netherlands for two weeks and most of it is research-based. I do the research in my spare time. That was where I was when I got a call from the president that he would be returning to Nigeria on Friday. I was in the Netherlands, but I did everything, including getting a friend of mine with a private jet to send me a plane so I could come back and receive the president, but it was simply impossible because even if he sent the jet, the pilot must rest for some hours. In this state, we already have a system in which whenever I am not around, the deputy governor becomes acting governor. This has happened at least 15 times. I write to the state Assembly just like the president wrote when he was going. So, I got the consent of the president to have the deputy governor receive him while I continued with my programme. That was what happened. Many of the things you see going on, even the situation in Southern Kaduna, there are people with presidential ambition that are investing in it to make it look worse, to target me.

We read yesterday that my former chief of staff, Hadiza Bala Usman, had given people 25,000 dollars. Hadiza is in Senegal or somewhere attending some official events and I called her and told her: ‘You must sue the paper, let them prove their case.’

You said when you wrote the memo, things were not working well. What is your assessment of things at the federal level, and what aspect of your memo has Buhari started implementing?

One of the issues that concerned me in September when I wrote the memo is the slow pace of budget implementation, seeming lack of coordination between monetary and fiscal policies and the absence of a comprehensive economic programme. A few things we could have done to solve our exchange rate problem to boost our foreign reserve are all in the memo. Since then, the federal government has done the five-year economic recovery and growth plan, which is one of the things I recommended. People need to see the plan for getting out of recession so that if they have to make sacrifices, at least they should know why they are making it. That has been done. The budget implementation has been significantly improved. The minister of state for petroleum has gone to India and is talking to China about oil to raise billions of dollars to boost our reserves. So, some of the economic issues have already been implemented. Many of the political issues I identified and recommended to the president are being implemented too, but the president said, ‘Let’s wait until after the Edo and Ondo elections. Let’s focus on winning these elections.’

You have seen the improvement in the exchange rate, you’ve seen the support the federal government has given states to clear arrears and reflate the economy. All these are things that we discussed and I put in the

memo. Those that want to give the memo a colouration are not looking at the message but the messenger. But it is alright, I am used to that.

I will never stop giving our leader an honest advice in the interest of his success and the country. Anything I see something wrong I will do a memo to him, and if they leak it after seven months, it is alright. I will not relent.

Some say you are equally guilty of some of the things you raised in the memo, like appointing people that did not contribute to the success of the party in government.

Look, there is a lot of ignorance in what many of these people write. In our government, everyone you see either contributed to the party or our election, or has skills. Whether he contributed to the party or not, whether he is from Kaduna or not, if he has skills we think can contribute to the progress of Nigeria, we use him. That is why in this state, I have many people from other parts of Nigeria working. I think what matters is the progress of the state, not the so-called indigenes.

I will talk about Jimmy Lawal. Those that said he did not contribute to our election are totally ignorant. He was a member of the CPC from 2010. He was in the presidential campaign council of President Buhari in the 2011 elections. After we lost the election and started the process of merger, he was in the renewal committee. He was a member of the APC Merger Committee under the chairmanship of Tom Ikimi, representing the CPC.

The people who are making that claim are those from the PDP who joined the party after we had struggled and formed it. They don’t know the history. One of them is Tijjani Ramalan, who wrote and I responded to say: ‘When Jimmy was working for the CPC and was in the APC merger committee, you were in another party. That’s why you don’t know. The fact that you don’t know doesn’t mean you are right. If you don’t know you should ask.’

There are people who were not part of our campaign; they were not even members of our party, but we made them commissioners. We were looking for people like Dr Ya’u Usman, who has a PhD in Physics and was a director in the Federal Civil Service. We were looking for somebody with those kinds of skills to be appointed as commissioner for environment. I did not see him until the day I swore him in as commissioner. We just looked at his curriculum vitae and appointed him. Government has to have a mix of that.

What I observed in the federal government was that people who were in the PDP were brought in and given positions of responsibility that should have gone to longtime APC members with similar or even better skills. But those that were saddled with the task of recommending those to be appointed did not even know the history of the APC. These mistakes were made.

This is what I wanted us to avoid because many longtime party members are complaining. If anybody says this is happening in Kaduna, I will say that it is just sour grapes. I picked people I knew could deliver.

You talked about certain people like the Chief of Staff to the President and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) wielding power and shielding people from the president. Could it be possible that this is happening only to El-rufai?

No one shields me from seeing the president. When I see the president, it is between me, the president and God. There is nobody that even sits with us unless I go with somebody.

I want to make that clear that Abba Kyari, who is an old friend of mine, was not part of the formation of the APC, so he doesn’t know

the respective contributions of some of the people he see around. He was not part of the Presidential Campaign Council that Rotimi Amaechi chaired, so he will not know who contributed actively during the election. In my opinion, some mistakes were made in appointments. Some people who made significant contributions to the party and are competent and qualified have been passed over for those that have done nothing for the party. This is my point. What I wrote was that the chief of staff is clueless about how the party was formed, how the campaign went, and for that reason, cannot know certain things. I did not say that he was clueless. Abba Kyari and I have been very close, but this is a blind spot on his part. He can rectify it by being more inclusive and consulting more widely. That was not done in the beginning and I had to put that on the record.

I was a minister over a decade ago. As a minister I called former President Obasanjo. I could go and see him directly. Of course, I had to check if he was free to see me, but there was no one in-between. It is only when there were disputes between a minister and a minister of state that they were referred to the chief of staff. That is the system I know. Many ministers have complained to some of us who are said to be close to President Buhari that they are being shielded from having direct contact with the president, and that needs to be corrected. A minister should be able to walk up to the president and talk to him. I feel very strongly that it is something that can be corrected; that is why I wrote it there.

Has it caused any strain in your relationship with some of the persons you mentioned?

No. I know Abba Kyari very well, he will not disagree with what I wrote there. He knows it to be true and he is not hearing it for the first time. Many people have complained about this, so I don’t think it will cause a strain in my relationship with the chief of staff because we have been friends for so many years. But anyone that feels that he is upset because of what I have written, so be it. It is my opinion; I can say it to his face. But it is not personal. I have nothing to gain from writing what I wrote, other than providing the president with some ideas to make things better.

In the days of the PDP, governors controlled everything and this did not go down well with people. Now, your memo seems to be saying that governors are not being carried along, are you suggesting a return to that system?

No. I am one of those that supported and even encouraged the president not to allow governors nominate ministers. Ministers are the president’s direct employees, so he should pick his ministers, just as I insist on picking my commissioners. I agree with that entirely. However, in the PDP the governors were everything, even party meetings were held in Government Houses and governors controlled the party tickets, but look at where they ended up. But let me also say that for governors to be totally excluded from decision making at the federal level is a mistake. You are moving from one bad extreme to another.

What is pragmatic is something in-between. I’ll give you an example. The president sent a list of ambassadorial nominees, two from Kaduna. I knew one of the names on the list. She was part of us from the CPC days. I had no problem with that. But the other name, who was speaker twice under a PDP government in this state, has never joined the APC. Actually, during the 2015 elections we had to take extraordinary measures to contain him because he was reputed to be a rigging center for the PDP.

Now, the danger of not consulting the governor is that you can appoint a person who is an enemy of the president into the government. All I suggested to the president then was that when he decided to appoint somebody, he should just call the governor to know what they think. This is because the governors have local knowledge. People sitting in Abuja do not have local knowledge. The case of Kaduna it is different because Buhari spent most of his political career here, so he knows the terrain.

But he cannot know who is his friend or adversary in Cross Rivers State unless he consults somebody on the ground. This was what happened in the case of the ambassadors and I protested and said, ‘Where is this coming from? This is the profile of the person you are appointing and there is the danger that our supporters from the grassroots know for how many years people like that have been oppressing them, rigging elections and cheating them, then all of a sudden, the Buhari they think is their liberator appoints such a person.’ In other cases, you had a situation where the governor, minister and the ambassadorial nominee were all from the same local government. There was another case in which the ministerial nominee and three of four federal appointees were all from one part of the state that did not even vote for the party. That is the case in Benue. But if you consult the governor he would be able to tell you this and that for balance. I did not say the APC governors should be allpowerful like the PDP governors because the concentration of power in governors at the PDP made them what they are today. And we don’t want to end that way. Anybody sitting in Abuja and making any claim is lying. I can tell you on a chart those who contributed and those that sabotaged us. I know because I was here.

Having said that, let me make a disclosure here. Every appointment I make here I clear with the president for two reasons: he has lived here and he knows the politicians here more than I do. When I got in here, I did not know them, but President Buhari lived in Kaduna almost all his political life, so he knows those that served the ANPP, CPC and the APC. So I went to him with the list. He sent it back to me and said, ‘This is very good, go ahead,’ I did not send it to the State Assembly. Recently, I did a cabinet reshuffle when the president was in London. I did not announce it until I sent the names to him. It took some days before he called back and said, ‘These are good people you are bringing in, go ahead Malam.’ I consult him even though I don’t have to, but I believe that since he is my leader and has lived in Kaduna, he should have a say. It is because of my relationship with him. I’m not saying other governors should do that. There is nothing wrong with consultation, you get more value. But consultation should not mean dictation because in the case of the PDP, the governors were dictating.

So you don’t consult stakeholders in the state?

I consult them. But I consult those I believe are stakeholders. You can claim to be a stakeholder even though I know you took money from the PDP to sabotage our efforts. You can go on radio and claim to be a stakeholder, but we know ourselves. We know those that worked with the PDP till the last minute but are now going round claiming they are stakeholders.

What basically is the problem in Southern Kaduna and what are you doing differently?

Southern Kaduna, as I said repeatedly, is a problem that has lingered for 37 to 38 years. And we have been doing our best to resolve this. We believe very strongly that the basic problem in Southern Kaduna is that of impunity. People have been killing one another and destroying properties. Commissions of inquiry have been established, people that have committed crime have been identified, but none has been prosecuted. So people have become convinced that any time there is a crisis, they should destroy as many as possible because nothing happens after that. But we are rectifying that. We have identified a threeway process. We are almost done with the first phase. The first is to stabilise the place, reduce or eliminate the violence, enhance security presence and the militarisation of the three local governments affected. We have more or less achieved that. The violence has been resolved. We still have cases here and there, but it is not what it used to be. With the support of the federal government there are two army battalions, including a special squad battalion and the 10 squadron mobile police. The Nigerian army operation base has been established and there will be military barracks, the first is in Kafanchan and the second one in Kachia.

What is different is that we are arresting and prosecuting people who either incite, arm or participate in the violence. We are going to make sure that everyone that has ever been involved in the history of violence there is brought to justice. The third is active peace building. Security presence cannot enforce peace unless the people want to live in peace. We think we need to work on changing the narrative of hatred and division. We are confident that the crisis will soon be a thing of the past.

Finally, on the sale of government houses, we got a lot of concern from several civil servants, especially teachers who said they voted for you and now you are about to deprive them of the little they benefit from government…

On the sale of government properties, the Kaduna State government has about 36,000 civil servants. We have only about 2,000 houses. These 2,000 houses cannot satisfy 36,000. Secondly, there is nowhere in the world where this system of giving civil servants houses operate. We have moved away from that. What you should have in place is a mortgage system where anyone with an income will be able to buy a house and pay over 20 years. This is what we are working towards, so we took the decision to sell government house except few like the Government House, the deputy governor’s residence and houses of judges.

Our objective for selling is to raise as much money as possible, so we valued them and put them in bids. We don’t want to give the houses away for free to anyone. We want to sell it at the highest possible price, use that money to invest in additional infrastructure and low income housing for the people of the state so that more than 2,000 people will have houses. Now, only about 2,000 or 3,000 out of 36,0000 live in government quarters. It doesn’t make sense. You talked about teachers saying we have taken over their houses, it’s not true. It is only if the building is outside the school or hospital or water works that it is being sold.

The houses don’t belong to those occupying them, so even when the bulb dies, they wait for the government to replace it. Every year they budget for maintenance and they just share the money. We want to eliminate all that.

1. Background: In April 2015, I sent a short memorandum to you, Sir - then as president-elect. We never discussed the memo in detail and I am not even sure you got to read it bearing in mind the levels of human traffic visiting you in those heady days. I crave the indulgence of Mr. President to please read the memo (attached herewith as Annex II) and see how like every aspect of life, the memo was sometimes presciently accurate and at the same time off-target! It is on the basis of that message, and my commitment to write anytime I feel compelled that matters of urgent national importance confront you, that I address this with greatest respect and humility. Mr. President, Sir I address this and other past memos with all sense of responsibility for at least three reasons. First, I owe my modest political ascendency so far to you. Without your adoption and trust reposed in me and the recognition you have shown in spite of attacks on my person by some people around you, I will not be where I am today. I remain eternally grateful for this.

Secondly, Sir, poll after poll in Kaduna State before and after the 2015 elections clearly show that my fate politically and otherwise is uncannily tied to yours. If you do well, I stand to benefit immensely. If you do not do well Sir, whatever I try to do in Kaduna matters little to my present and any future political trajectory.

Finally, Sir, I am of the strong opinion and belief that you are our only hope now and in the medium term of saving the Nigerian nation from collapse, and enabling the north of Nigeria to regain its lost confidence, begin to be respected as a significant contributor, and not the parasite and problem of the Nigerian federation.

Mr. President, it is also clear to many of us that have studied your political career, that so long as you remain in the political landscape, no Northerner will emerge successfully on the national scene. All those wasting time, money and other resources to run in 2019 either do not realize this divinely-ordained situation or are merely destined to keep others employed and rich from electoral project doomed for certain failure.

As I explained to you shortly after your election in April 2015, you have to run again in 2019 if your objectives of national restoration, economic progress and social justice are to be attained in the medium and long term. You must therefore succeed for the good of all of us - individually and collectively, and particularly those of us that have benefitted so clearly from your political ascendance. Mr. President, Sir As stated in my April 2015 memo, you have inherited serious political, economic and governance problems that you had no hand in creating but now have a duty to solve. These inherited problems were aggravated by the continuing slide in crude oil prices and the renewed insurgency in the Niger Delta that reduced oil production by more than 50 per cent! In my honest opinion, we have made this situation worse by failing to be proactive in taking some political, economic and governance decisions in a timely manner.

In very blunt terms, Mr. President, our APC administration has not only failed to manage expectations of a populace that expected overnight ‘change’ but has failed to deliver even mundane matters of governance outside of our successes in fighting BH insurgency and corruption. Overall, the feeling even among our supporters today is that the APC government is not doing well.

It is in light of all the foregoing that I intend to analyze where we are, and present some suggestions for Mr. President’s consideration and further necessary action in three areas Politics, National Economy and Governance.

2. Political Situation: Mr. President would recall the tribulations we went through with membership registration, congresses and the first national convention. And with the games played by various groupings within the party, it is correct to assert that you got elected in spite of our party leadership, and not due to its wholehearted support.

At the moment, with the appointment of B.D. Lawal and Dikko Radda to executive positions in the Federal Government, we have no more than one or two clear supporters or sympathizers in the NWC out of 20 members. We have no footprint in the party structure today and this situation can remain unchanged until the national convention of 2018! Mr. President, Sir Your relationship with the national leadership of the party, both the formal (NWC) and informal (Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso), and former Governors of ANPP, PDP (that joined us) and ACN, is perceived by most observers to be at best frosty. Many of them are aggrieved due to what they consider total absence of consultations with them on your part and those you have assigned such duties. This may not be your intention or outlook, but that is how it appears to those that watch from afar.

This situation is compounded by the fact that some officials around you seem to believe and may have persuaded you that current APC State Governors must have no say and must also be totally excluded from political consultations, key appointments and decisionmaking at federal level. These politically-naive ‘advisers’ fail to realize that it is the current and former state governors that may, as members of NEC of the APC, serve as an alternative locus of power to check the excesses of the currently lopsided and perhaps ambivalent NWC. Alienating the governors so clearly and deliberately ensures that you have near-zero support of the party structure at both national and state levels. It is not too late to reverse the situation.

You appear to have neither a political adviser nor a minder of your politics. The two officials whose titles may enable them function as such generally alienate those that contributed to our success. The SGF is not only inexperienced in public service but is lacking in humility, insensitive and rude to virtually most of the party leaders, ministers and governors. The Chief of staff is totally clueless about the APC and its internal politics at best as he was neither part of its formation nor a participant in the primaries, campaign and elections. In summary, neither of them has the personality, experience and the reach to manage your politics nationally or even regionally.

Those of us that look forward to presenting you again to the electorate in 2019 are worried that we need to sort out the party’s membership register, review the primaries system to eliminate the impact of money in candidate selection, and reduce the reliance of the party on a few businessmen, a handful of major financiers and state governments for its operations and expenditures. A surgical operation is needed in party machinery, financing and electoral processes if the future political aspirations we desire for you will not be made more difficult, if not impossible, to actualize. Mr. President, Sir It is a constitutional reality that to succeed, the Federal Government must work harmoniously with two other arms of government; the National Assembly and the Judiciary. These relationships need improvement as well. The relationship with the Senate was marred by the betrayal the party suffered at the hands of many of its members, while the recent ‘padding scandal’ has created tensions with the leadership of the House of Representatives. These challenges are difficult, but not impossible, to fix once the Judiciary concludes the Saraki cases in a timely manner.

The paralysis within the National Judicial Council in the face of the current worrying state of the Judiciary, compounded by the lack of harmonious relationship with the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and the all-important Federal High Court, make the expeditious disposal of the Saraki cases not only unlikely, but puts the administration at risk of a

This memo started with the state of our politics because it trumps everything else. If we don’t get the political machinery smooth and working, it will be a miracle if we are able to get the economy and governance right

humiliating loss of some key anti-corruption cases. Once again, it is not impossible to reverse the situation. Mr. President, Sir The public service we inherited is the product of one and a half decades of doing business in the mould of the PDP. The senior public servants are largely corrupt, with a sense of entitlement that they have a first claim on the country’s resources, before any is spent for the benefit of the 99.5 per cent that are ordinary Nigerians (and voters!).

Persons on director grade today in the federal public service were mere Grade Level 9-10 officers when President Obasanjo took office in 1999, so PDP’s way is the only way they know and are comfortable with. Due to these orientational and ideological differences between the federal public service and what you believe Mr. President, most of them are unable to serve you with integrity, dedication and commitment. We therefore generally have an uneasy relationship with the bureaucracy as well.

This state of affairs is far more difficult to reverse immediately, but must be attempted if you are to succeed, as no nation develops beyond the capability, competence and capacity of its public service. It is within the realm of both politics and governance that you must navigate to extract the best out of the public service while suppressing its base desires. Mr. President, Sir This memo started with the state of our politics because it trumps everything else. If we don’t get the political machinery smooth and working, it will be a miracle if we are able to get the economy and governance right. The distraction of genuinely unhappy political actors will affect our ability to face our national problems; we need to pull together in the same direction to resolve them.

We have been incredibly lucky and successful so far without the support of, and in spite of, the prevailing patron-client political system, Mr. President. We are now in power and in a position to shape our national political culture in your image through active stakeholders and process engagement. We are not engaging at all, and taking things and important matters for granted. The consequences can be negative.

3. The State of the National Economy: Without any doubt, Mr. President, you inherited an economy in dire straits. The Yar’Adua-Jonathan administrations not only blew the national savings of about $27bn in the excess crude account (ECA) and ran down over $40bn in foreign reserves they inherited in 2007, but earned and wasted nearly $300bn of oil and gas income between 2007 and 2015. At the time you were sworn into office, ECA was down to some $2bn and net reserves (allowing for swaps, forwards and other set-offs) were less than $20bn with little or nothing to show for it.

Between 2007 and 2014, we used to earn an average of over $3bn monthly from oil and gas sales and taxes. By May 2016, this had collapsed to about $500 million. Mr. President, it is a simple truism that no nation loses nearly 80 per cent of its foreign exchange earnings without significant reprioritization and painful adjustments. This is a message we have failed to transmit to Nigerians clearly and we must. This, however, is merely the symptom and simplest explanation of our current economic problems.

However, we cannot, after more than a year in office continue to rely only on this ‘blame them’ explanation. We were elected precisely because Nigerians knew that the previous administration was mismanaging resources and engaged in unprecedented waste and corruption. We must therefore identify the roots of our enduring economic under-

IMMEDIATE AND MEDIUM TERM IMPERATIVES FOR PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

performance as a nation, and present a mediumterm national plan and strategy to turn things around. We must persuade Nigerians that they have to withstand the individual pains of today for the collective gains of tomorrow.

With a clear economic strategy that shows our citizens some light at the end of the tunnel, it is not only easier for them to sacrifice and bear some pain, but enough to highlight the wasted opportunities, wrong choices and suboptimal decisions made by previous administrations. We have no such clear roadmap at the moment. Mr. President, Sir In this era of global interconnectedness, nations compete viciously in the economic arena - for a larger share of international trade, investments, maritime and aviation services, and a whole raft of knowledge-based services and industries. This competition is neither moral nor fair, even if the advanced nations pretend to present it as such to those that are gullible.

No one cares about, or will ‘help’ us unless we get our act together and organize our political economy and national affairs to be regionally, continentally and globally competitive. It is not rocket science. In the last 50 years, many countries in Asia (Japan, China, Malaysia, Singapore, etc.), and Botswana, Mauritius and Seychelles in Africa have done it. We can do it within a generation, and we must begin this journey of redesigning our political, economic and governance structures, systems and staffing for superior performance and global competitiveness as soon as possible, under your leadership! Mr. President, Sir In every crisis there lies an opportunity for fundamental change. The current crisis of reduced oil production, unit prices and earnings, which has led to the deterioration of the exchange rate, escalation of levels of debt and interest rates, and reduced levels of industrial production and employment constitutes an opportunity for our nation to change decades of bad habits and wrong direction in our political economy and governance. This crisis should not be wasted.

Devoid of all the economic jargon and the many, even conflicting, opinions of the experts, the Nigerian economy suffers from the following fundamental and structural defects that must be addressed for us to move forward:

i. Oil Revenue Addiction: The nation’s economy, politics and governance are centered around, and focused on distribution of easy oil and gas revenues amongst all tiers of government. The Nigerian economy has therefore been consistently reliant on oil and gas revenues - averaging 90% of foreign exchange earnings and 80% of government revenues, and accordingly characterized by low levels of:

a. national savings averaging about 15% of GDP evidenced by the low levels of ECA

b. taxes (5% of GDP versus global average of 20%), and

c. investment (FGN’s recurrent budget is 107% of its revenues and the capital budget is only nominally 30% of total budget, and is entirely borrowed).

ii. Rentier Economy, Perverse Incentives: Easy oil money creates an unproductive society with weird incentives. Today, our best and brightest people are attracted not to productive endeavors and sectors like agriculture and manufacturing, but ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes particularly in the telecoms, financial services, wholesale and retail trade, and the extractive industries, that appear to offer quick returns without creating jobs, adding very little value or doing little or nothing. A whole generation of Nigerians now believe that not only does corruption pay very well, but that honesty and hard work do not pay at all! This has to change and only you Mr. President has the antecedents to lead this.

iii. Persistent Infrastructure Deficits: No society can develop without physical and governance infrastructure. Our consistent reliance on government control, funding and management of the infrastructure sectors has led to persistent inefficiencies, corruption and escalating deficits:

• Electricity, which is the heartbeat of any modern economy is in very short supply in our country. Currently, we produce less electricity than the city of Dubai. The electricity supply industry whose reforms began in the year 2000, earlier than the reforms of telecoms, is now in serious crisis and nearly at the point of total collapse.

• Water supply, which is largely under the purview of subnational governments, is also in crisis, exacerbated by the failed participation and intervention of the Federal Government bureaucrats interested only in awarding contracts, collecting kickbacks and not caring if the projects are completed or even feasible in the first place.

• Transportation – interstate (Federal) roads are generally in a state of disrepair. The national rail system is still the colonial narrow gauge constructed by the British for the extraction of needed raw materials rather than for the encouragement of intranational trade and connectivity. The dual track, standard gauge national railway system initiated by the Obasanjo administration in 2006 has been partly abandoned in favour of piecemeal implementation of sections rather than the integrated programme.

There is significant potential in the development of inland waterways but there has been no serious effort at seeing the dredging of Rivers Niger and Benue to completion. The aviation sector is largely private and mostly insolvent. Virtually all the major airlines are beholden to AMCON, and their services are poor, unreliable and expensive.

• ICT infrastructure is slightly ahead of other sectors due to the deregulation and privatization efforts of 2001. We have nationwide GSM system but without full 3G and 4G networks. Furthermore, there is as yet no national fibre optic backbone with redundant satellite backups in case of natural disaster.

• E-Governance infrastructure with a foundation in a national biometric identification system is almost non-existent. While the NIMC is struggling to register 10 million Nigerian adults out of some 100 million, we have wasted billions in parallel biometric ID systems (FRSC, INEC, PenCom, Nigeria Immigration Service, NCC, CBN’s BVN, etc. to mention a few) without a central, validated and rogue-free AFIS engine. The national potential to deploy these data and linking them with GIS, Land administration and tax compliance has therefore not been realized.

Mr. President, Sir

It is not difficult to reverse these negative trends and change the narrative to one of a nation with a growing, efficient and wellmanaged national infrastructure. All the plans and strategies are there. What is needed is political will, technocratic capacity and focus, which you, Mr. President must ensure are present here and now.

iv. Absence of a Clear National Strategy of Export Orientation and/or Import Substitution: Countries like Nigeria with large internal markets tend to first pursue generic import substitution strategies before graduating to some form of export-oriented industrial strategy. Small countries like Singapore are forced by their demographic circumstances to aggressively export to survive.

It is a matter of regret that with the exception of cement (2003-2007), Sugar (2008 to date) and Automobiles (2012 to date), no clear effort along any of the two strategies has been invested in recent times by governments. Indeed, only the cement strategy initiated by the Obasanjo administration appears to have totally succeeded.

Today, our country spends between 45% and 60% of our foreign exchange earnings to import what it should be producing (food and fuel) and exports what we should be processing and refining to add value (Oil, Gas, Cocoa, Oil Palm, etc.). Indeed, Nigeria disgracefully imports for our large domestic market items as varied as Asphalt, Fuels, Rice, Wheat, Milk, Fertilizers, Poultry, Tomato, Fruits, Vegetable Oil, Sugar, Motor Vehicles, Motorcycles, Boats, Textiles, Consumer Electronics, Mobile Phones, Laptops and Tablets, etc. This is patently misguided.

We must plan to produce as many of these as possible for our consumption and export to ECOWAS and the world. Mr. President, Sir We must therefore take advantage of our large internal market, natural endowments and comparative advantages in agriculture, minerals and human resources to be selfsufficient in food and fuels within your first term of office. It is neither impossible nor unduly difficult to achieve both goals.

v. Unproductive and Expensive Public Sector: We spend too high a proportion of our national resources on public sector wage bills and overheads. Federal public service salaries increased from about N600bn in 2007 to over N1,800bn in 2015. The total budget of the National Assembly has increased from N59bn in 2007 to N150bn under Yar’Adua and slightly down to N130bn by 2015. Similar situations exist in most of the states and local governments, leaving too little for capital investment in human development, infrastructure and social services.

Our judiciary today is dysfunctional and generally perceived to be corrupt, with courts of coordinate jurisdiction issuing contradictory rulings and judgments, while the appellate courts appear unable to exercise supervisory and disciplinary control over the lower courts.

Despite the successful introduction of a contributory pension scheme (CPS) nationally in 2004, the burden of the pay-as-you-go system remains a source of massive corruption and impunity. The CPS now has accumulated over N5,000bn and is considered a global model of a viable pension system. However, the funds are idle and are not being deployed as a source of reliable, long term financing for infrastructure, social development and housing sectors.

vi. Endemic Poverty and Widening Inequality: In the days when we were growing up, public schools were attended by the children of both the high and low. Public health facilities were equally patronized by both the rich and the poor. The quality of these social services and the attendant message of egalitarianism and social justice they conveyed, enabled people of humble backgrounds like you and me, Mr. President, to rise to the higher positions in life depending on luck, ability and hard work.

Today, the exact opposite is the situation. The danger of this current state of affairs is that we are inadvertently creating successive generations of poorer, barely educated, unskilled, hopeless and angry children of the poor, side by side with increasingly richer, privately educated, skilled and optimistic children of the privileged. It is a demographic and social time bomb waiting to explode as the poor and hopeless youths are easy recruits of insurgents, violent politicians and criminals. Only you, Mr. President will appreciate this danger and do something about it with the urgency it deserves.

vii. Failure to Sharpen Competitive Advantage in Service Industries like ICT, Entertainment and Sports: Time and time again in the last 50 years, Nigerians have excelled globally in athletics, boxing, basketball, soccer and weightlifting. Yet we have never developed a national strategy to encourage and deepen our God-given endowments in sports. Indeed, appointment as minister of sports is seen as less prestigious than others.

The same attitude applies to service sectors like Art and Sculpture, ICT, Nollywood, Kannywood, music and other creative subsectors. Nigerian movies are now selling our nation positively and negatively all across Africa and the Black Diaspora. This is an important component of soft power which we have failed to think through, articulate to exploit to create jobs, wealth and prestige for our country. It is not too late to close this gap.

viii. Fiscal and Monetary Policy Mismatch: Against the background of the aforementioned issues, we seem to consistently suffer from disconnects and mismatch between the Central Bank of Nigeria (that is in charge of exchange rates, interest rates and inflation management) and the Federal Ministry of Finance (that looks after revenue flows, custom duties, tax policy and debt management).

The consequence of this is the nation suffering from high interest rates set by CBN in order to manage the exchange rate. Interest rates are also kept high to make it easier for FGN through the DMO to sell bonds and keep yields high. These have devastating impact on the real sector and job creation since no business can expand production (and employment) with the kind of interest and exchange rates offered by the banks.

The banks also find it more attractive to mobilize public sector deposits, purchase risk-free FGN bonds and lend little or nothing to private sector. Mr. President, business activities are shrinking because the private sector is suffering from multiple whammies of deteriorating and unstable exchange rate,

high interest rates and dwindling purchasing power of customers.

Mr. President, Sir. It is neither too late nor impossible to achieve higher levels of policy coordination and consistency. It has been done in the past with the right chemistry between key economic policy centers. It must be done now. 4. Governance Issues and Challenges: Government performance depends on political legitimacy and administrative capacity. It results from sound political vision, courage and the will of the President and other appointed and elected officials, supported by the administrative capacity of the public service. The functions of the public service include analysis of problems and providing advice, coordination of dispersed actors to achieve joint action, the execution and management of policies, and the regulation of the private sector to adhere to the national vision. You have the vision, courage and will, Mr. President. The jury is still out whether your most senior appointed officials share these qualities, and this must change for the better, Sir. Mr. President, Sir. Our public service today is too expensive, aging, outdated and inadequately skilled to discharge its mandate of providing administrative support to the political leadership. The nearly 600 MDAs at the federal level (and smaller number of counterparts at subnational levels) consume nearly 90% of our national revenues. This is why the FGN borrows over 100% of its capital budget! This is neither fair nor just.

The 800-page Transition Committee Report (summarized to 80 slides by Bain & Co.) went some way in recommending the merger of Ministries but implementation has been uneven and selective. Prior to this, the Obasanjo administration had done seminal work in merging ministries, (available on request) while the Oronsaye Committee has done some significant work in reducing duplication between parastatals and agencies. There exists therefore enough raw material to begin the needed restructuring of MDAs for optimal performance at the federal level. (Copies of both the Bain Summary and the Executive Summary of the Oronsaye Report are provided with this submission).

The Machinery of Government, the way and manner the President interacts with the State House, the Ministers and the Bureaucracy, including: The interaction between the Chief of Staff, SGF, Ministers, Special Advisers, Assistants and other aides needs further articulation and communication. It is clear, Mr. President, that the current system is delivering sub-optimal outcomes. A clear evidence of this is the lopsided nature of the appointments made so far, and the absence of any objective selection criteria other than pure chance and closeness to a handful of people around the President.

Another crisis is likely to be created if the current system (or lack of it) of appointment persists with the composition of boards of parastatals. I have had cause to register my concerns, which also mirrors the grievance of 23 APC Governors, about the way and manner this is being done (see Annex III attached). I am afraid that those that are tasked to do this, that are unwilling to be inclusive in the process, are those that neither knew who did what nor how you got elected, but now determine those who get appointed from the respective states.

With the greatest respect and humility, Mr. President, neither the Chief of Staff, nor the SGF, his Committee and National Vice Chairman North-West, of the APC know more than the government of Kaduna State, who contributed to our success at state level. For these officials to sit and decide the question of who gets appointed from Kaduna without our input is not only unfair, but likely to result in serious errors of judgment. Mr. President should reconsider and make the

process more inclusive by giving the State Governors the opportunity to review what the political masters are doing.

5. Suggestions for Immediate and Medium Term Action:

Arising from the points made in earlier sections, I would like to summarize and restate the problems and recommendations for your immediate and medium term consideration. It is my humble opinion that our government appears to suffer from very serious perception problems on at least five fronts:

a) Mr. President, there is perception that our government has been captured by a shadowy public service/PDP cabal such that we have won elections but the country is still run largely by these elements that are hostile to you and to us all.

b) There is a strong perception that your inner circle or kitchen cabinet is incapable, unproductive and sectional. The quality and the undue concentration of key appointments to the North-East and exclusion of South-East are mentioned as evidence of this.

c) There is a perception that your ministers, some of whom are competent and willing to make real contributions, have no clear mandate, instructions and access to you. Ministers are constitutional creations Mr. President and it is an aberration that they are expected to report to the Chief of Staff on policy matters.

d) Mr. President, there is an emerging view in the media that you are neither leading the party nor the administration and those neither elected nor accountable appear to be in charge, and therefore the country is adrift.

e) We are facing an unprecedented national economic crisis, but our administration has failed to roll out a coherent response and action plan, or even appeal to our patriotism with a rallying cry to unite and sacrifice in face of the adversity.

Mr. President Sir, it is the view of many informed citizens that while you are actively fighting corruption, the institutional weaknesses that enabled it to thrive under Jonathan, and the persons that participated in it, and oiled the system are still very much in charge, and many are around you. They also point to the recent appointment of key PDP apparatchiks of a few months back into important advisory and executive positions in the Presidency (National Assembly Adviser, NDDC Board and Cabinet Ministers) while enduring APC loyalists are ignored to make this point.

These troubling perceptions whether accurate or not must be addressed frontally by you Mr. President, and no other person. It is in light of all these points, arguments and perceptions, and with all sense of responsibility that I make the following suggestions for Mr. President’s consideration, early decision and action: • The President must communicate actively and directly with the Nigerian public about his vision – the government’s plans, strategy and roadmap to take the country out of the current, dire economic situation. We need a five-year national development strategy and plan urgently. • The President should speak to the nation – something akin to a State of the Union address on December 1 or January 1, preferably in a joint session of the National Assembly during which he will explain away some of the perceptions and lay out the national plans, strategies and roadmap above. • Appoint as many of the current NWC members as possible to ambassadorial, executive and similar positions to give way for the restructuring of the party leadership ahead of the mid-term convention. • Institute quarterly informal APC leadership council meetings in the State House to host, dine and consult with formal and informal party leaders to discuss and agree the restructuring of the party machinery after some of the actions above are done. • Institute quarterly dinner with APC Governors and engaging them on party issues, executive and non-executive appointments and the like. • Consider appointing a very experienced and nationally-connected person as your political adviser and bring in Chief Audu Ogbeh as an honorary political counsellor in addition to his executive functions. • Constitute an informal task team of State Governors, National Assembly members and Party leaders to review the constitution of the party, assess financing needs, update the primaries system and task all State Governors to finalize the membership register in their respective states in accordance with pre-agreed guidelines, IT platform and biometric standards. • Engage constructively with the NJC to impose quick sanctions on clearly erring judges, and appeals to the Judiciary to facilitate the expeditious resolution of landmark corruption cases. • Initiate the process of replacement of the leadership and commissioners of the Federal Civil Service Commission, Police Service Commission and other central management agencies of the federal public service, and relaunch a federal public service reform program under the leadership of the minister of finance. • Appoint a high profile economic adviser to the President, and constitute a twolevel economic team – political level chaired by the VP and technical level consisting of key economic agency heads to do the more detailed technical analysis and present options for decision and action. • Initiate sale of expired OMLs to India and China to raise at least $20bn to add to our foreign reserves, stabilize our national currency, and create a fund for future generations to be managed by the Sovereign Investment Authority. Our children must not inherit what the previous administration bequeathed to us, and you can pull it off, Mr. President. • Consider the privatization of other nonproductive or potentially valuable assets like NIPP, Ajaokuta Steel and Itakpe Iron Ore, the balance of shares in Gencos and Discos, refineries and depots to raise revenues and achieve efficiencies. • Accelerate TIN registration to double the number of tax payers to at least 10 million in 2017 and reduce the levels of personal and corporate income tax, while effecting an increase of the rate for value added tax. • Commit to a three-year reflationary budget with at least 40% of budget meant for capital projects, supplemented by robust PPP legislation to attract private investments in toll roads, intra-city rail systems, electricity generation and distribution, inland waterways, airports and concessioning of the narrow and standard gauge railway systems. • Our entire investment environment and incentive structure needs a holistic review to enable us compete with our neighbors and peers. The investment policy review should prioritize encouraging local and foreign investors and fund managers to bring their capital and expertise to • Nigeria. • Develop an import substitution and export strategy taking one industrial sector, commodity or product at a time, similar to what was done successfully with cement. The key issue is to identify firms with potential and develop them into national, continental and global champions. • Leverage on the fall-out of the padding scandal to scale down the budget of the National Assembly, put every MDA on IPPIS and begin the process of rightsizing the federal public service with the goal of drastically reducing the cost of governance. • Constitute an implementation committee for the Oronsaye Report with the mandate to update and bring up modifications as necessary for the approval of the President. • Institute a matching grants system that will encourage state governments to invest more aggressively in public education and healthcare to attack and slow the emergence of an intergenerational underclass and systemic inequality. • Develop a national plan, strategy and roadmap for the ICT, entertainment, financial services and sports sectors, and appoint high profile ministers to drive the advocacy and implementation. • Undertake a surgical operation on the leadership of the budgetary, fiscal and monetary management agencies to resolve conflicts between MDAs, replace tainted and incapable persons, and enable better coordination and policy consistency. • Effect personnel changes in the Presidency, the ministries (cabinet and permanent secretaries) and constitute a small team to review all future appointments for competence, capacity, integrity, diversity and inclusiveness.

I am conscious of the likelihood that my memo may be misunderstood, misinterpreted and even perverted. I am willing to accept the usual accusations of arrogance and ambition, but Mr. President knows that none of these hold water. I ran for state Governor because you directed me to do so. From 2010 when we joined your team, I have no other interest other than your place in history as our President. I believe in your integrity, commitment and sense of duty to make our nation better. I am distressed that our government is seen not to be succeeding mostly due to the failures, lack of focus and selfishness of some you have entrusted to carry on and implement your vision. I am troubled that our own mis-steps have made the PDP and its apparatchiks so audacious and confident. It is time to act decisively, Mr. President. I hope this memo will contribute in some way in regaining our governance momentum.

Mr. President, Sir. You have both a crisis and opportunity in your hands to turn around our country in the right direction. We pray that Allah gives you the strength and good fortune to succeed. This is an honest, frank and objective view of an admirer, a mentee, and a loyalist. I hope it helps, and I apologise if it displeases you. My duty to you is to tell you the truth as I see it. I have no interest other than the progress of our party, our president, our government and our country.

Respectfully and most humbly submitted, Sir