Before his death in 2010, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was
planning to serve a single term in office in view of his debilitating health, a
new book by former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mallam
Nasir el-Rufai, has revealed.

The book, titled “The Accidental
Public Servant”, detailed how the late president in September 2009 consulted a
prominent and influential emir from the North to assist him in finding a
successor since he would not be able to run for office again because of his
failing health.

When asked those he would want to succeed
him, the book revealed that the late Yar’Adua wrote a list containing four
names: First Lady, Turai Yar’Adua; the then Kwara State Governor and Chairman,
Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF), Dr. Bukola Saraki, as well as Kebbi State
Governor, Alhaji Saidu Dakingari, and his Bauchi State counterpart, Mallam Isa
Yuguda. Both Dankigari and Yuguda are married to the late Yar’Adua’s daughters.

The book also uncovered the third
term plot executed to get former President Olusegun Obasanjo another four-year
tenure in office by amending the 1999 Constitution to remove the two-term limit
and how the former president worked to undermine the chances of the then acting
President Goodluck Jonathan in being elected president in the 2011 general
election.

Despite his serial denials that he
was not interested in tenure extension, the book noted that Obasanjo actively
worked behind the scene for a third term agenda that would have made him spend
12 years in power.

el-Rufai, a key member of Obasanjo’s
inner cabinet, in the book detailing his experience in government, revealed how
the idea of the third term agenda came about and the manoeuvrings by both the
supporters and the antagonists of the plot.

el-Rufai, who was the
Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) before he was
appointed minister during Obasanjo’s second term, in the book also revealed the
scheming by top government officials as well as their friends and associates in
cornering the nation’s patrimony during the privatisation of public enterprises
under his watch.

The book, which he described as
neither his autobiography nor a memoir, uncovers the shenanigans of those
entrusted with the nation’s resources and why corruption thrives in the public
sector.

It also detailed the emergence of
Yar’Adua and his Bayelsa State counterpart, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, as
Obasanjo’s successor and deputy respectively, and how the former president’s
plan turned awry as he and Yar’Adua fell out. As such, he was in constant fear
that his successor could order his arrest to answer for his stewardship.

In recounting the meeting between
Yar’Adua and the unnamed emir, el-Rufai wrote:  “On his way out, the emir
was ambushed by Turai who wanted to know if Yar’Adua had included her on the
list of potential successors.

“The emir was a little shocked, but
went on to confirm that. Turai thanked him and suggested that she was the only
person that could be trusted with Umaru’s legacy, as the mother of his
children.”

On the third term plot, el-Rufai
wrote that Obasanjo while denying that he was interested in tenure extension to
others, had another group working for the actualisation of the agenda and who
periodically briefed him on developments.

It was a grand plot, with foot
soldiers such as former Chairman, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Board of
Trustees (BoT), Chief Tony Anenih; former PDP National Chairman, Dr. Ahmadu
Ali; former PDP National Secretary, Chief Ojo Maduekwe; former Deputy Senate
President, Ibrahim Mantu; and Dr. Dalhatu Sarki Tafida, ready to do the dirty
work.

Funds for the execution of the
project, which included bribing lawmakers, were to be sourced from ministries,
government parastatals, governors and Lagos-based businessmen with Obasanjo’s
Special Assistant on Domestic Affairs, Andy Ubah, acting as the conduit. Each
senator was to receive N75 million and each member of the House of
Representatives N50 million.

The former president on several
occasions had denied that he had any intention to stay beyond the two-term
tenure of eight years for presidents and governors guaranteed by the 1999
Constitution.

In an interview with Channels
Television in April last year, Obasanjo had said the idea generated from the
National Assembly and not him, stressing that he would have succeeded with the
idea if he wanted a third term.

He said there was nothing he ever
wanted that God did not do for him, as such, if he truly wanted the third term,
he knew how he would have gone about it and would have secured it because God
has never failed him.

But el-Rufai in his book, detailed
the covert plans by Obasanjo to actualise his ambition and how he and members
of the Economic Team, which included the then Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, the then Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission
(EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, the then Special Assistant to the President on
Budget Monitoring, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, and Dr. Aliyu Modibbo had tried to
ferret out the truth from him.

He wrote about emissaries sent to him
to get him on board and his vehement opposition to the idea, which he said was
not in Nigeria’s interest.

According to him, Obasanjo started
nursing the ambition of a third term in office, which could only be possible by
amending the 1999 Constitution, two years into the last lap of his
administration.

el-Rufai said the former president
must have been in a quandary on who would be better placed to manage the vast
resources his administration would be leaving behind when it exited power in
2007 after he had briefed him on the concern raised by the Economic
Intelligence Unit (EIU) Senior Economist covering Nigeria, Mr. David Cowan, on
the possibility of frittering away the projected $40 billion in foreign
reserves and about $20 billion in Excess Crude Account (ECA) by 2007.

el-Rufai recalled that Cowan, during
a private dinner with him, after the EIU held its first roundtable with the
Federal Government in January 2005, said: “But you know something? I am an
economist. I run these numbers, I conduct these scenarios and I see this. But
you know someone else that knows? Your potential successors. They can smell the
money.

“They know that the way you are
going, by the middle of 2007, there will be a large amount of money in the
bank. They are not economists, they do not know the numbers, but like dogs with
raw meat, they can smell it.

“If your boss (Obasanjo) has not done
so already, you guys have to start thinking about who is going to succeed you,
because the guys that want to steal already know there is a huge bank account
in the future and they will start planning now.
“I have not seen anything indicative of a succession plan. You tell Obasanjo to
start planning.”

Based on the request, el-Rufai booked
an appointment to see Obasanjo who was spending the New Year holiday at his Ota
farm and after briefing him on his discussion with Cowan, he said the then
president asked him what to do.

“Mr. President, I am just a
messenger. My job is to give you the information. You are the president; it is
up to you to figure out what to do with it,” he wrote as his response to
Obasanjo’s poser.

“No Nasir, this is a problem for the
country. What are we going to do? None of my prospective successors will make
good use of this,” el-Rufai quoted Obasanjo as saying.

On who were the serious aspirants for
the office, Obasanjo said: “(Vice-President) Atiku is obviously interested, but
you know I will never hand this over to him. Babangida is interested and you
know very well what he will do with these levels of financial resources, he
already showed his hand the last time he had the chance.”

According to the book, the discussion
between Obasanjo and el-Rufai set the stage for the scheming and manoeuvring on
how to give the then president enough time to consolidate in the “national
interest”, which included the convocation of a national political conference to
recommend which areas of the 1999 Constitution needed to be amended to
strengthen Nigeria’s fledgling democracy.

However, the ultimate aim of the
conference was to propose some amendments to the constitution, including one
that would move the tenure of the president from two terms to three.

el-Rufai wrote on his confrontations
with the former president to make him come clean with him on the third term
agenda, including a meeting of the Economic Team with Obasanjo’s Chief of
Staff, Gen. Abdullahi Mohammed, to warn him that he would be risking all he had
laboured for if he failed to backtrack from the third term agenda as the
National Assembly would not pass any constitution amendment bill that would
extend Obasanjo’s tenure.

Obasanjo, el-Rufai recalled, was
incensed by their audacity that he had to dress them down.

“The following morning Obasanjo
called Oby and Ngozi aside directly and dressed them down. They had gone to
worship, as usual, at the morning church service at the State House chapel.

‘You are of weak faith and do not
believe we can build a modern Nigeria. We are going to achieve what you do not
think is possible,’” he rebuked them.

It was el-Rufai’s turn to be rebuked
the day after as the former president, who was quoted as often saying to his
aides and close associates that “no third term, no Nigeria,” labelled him “the
leader of the coup plotters” for going to see his chief of staff to express
their concern over the third term agenda.

However, the attack rather than cower
them, spurred them on the more. el-Rufai subsequently gained Obasanjo’s
confidence for him to divulge some of the tactics they were going to employ in
getting the National Assembly to pass the constitution amendment bill and also
in reaching out to Northern leaders such as former Head of State, Maj. Gen.
Muhammadu Buhari, former President Shehu Shagari and the then Sultan of Sokoto,
Muhammadu Maccido.

Although the defeat of the term third
agenda, following the Senate’s rejection of the motion to further consider the
constitution amendment bill, brought the chapter to a close, some of those who
worked against Obasanjo, including Okonjo-Iweala, who was redeployed as
Minister of Foreign Affairs, were “punished” for their roles.
With his loss of the third term bid, Obasanjo zeroed in on Yar’Adua as his
successor with the hope that he would make him to retain his coterie of aides
in the late president’s government while he, from his Ota farm, would be
influencing events in government with Yar’Adua as a figurehead.

However, Obasanjo’s selection of
Yar’Adua as his successor did not go down well with Ribadu, who thought
el-Rufai was better suited for the position.

Ribadu not only queried Obasanjo’s
choice, he embarked on a hostile investigation of the then governor with the
hope of forcing him out of the race and had to back down following the
intervention of top government officials, among others. 

According to el-Rufai, Ribadu’s
opposition to Yar’Adua’s nomination might have been responsible for his problem
with his administration that eventually led to his removal as EFCC chairman and
demotion from the rank of Assistant Inspector General of Police.

On his activities in BPE, el-Rufai,
who once threatened to resign his appointment, following his disagreement with
the then Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, who was the chairman of the
privatisation council, wrote on pressure from Atiku and businessmen to ensure
that they or their friends emerged buyers of some of the privatised companies.

He recounted how he was approached
with N25 million and another $100,000 as “thank you gifts” for selling one of
the companies to a leading entrepreneur and how his rejection of the money
eventually led to the sack of a BPE Deputy Director, Mr. Charles Osuji, through
whom the money was offered to him.