Mr Controversy: •FCT Minister begs Zwingina •OBJ outraged by millions paid to aides, orders probe
By CHRISTIAN ITA (christian-ita@sunnewsonline.com) & ANSELM OKOLO, Abuja
Sunday, September 5, 2004

•Mallam Nasir el-Rufai Photo: Sun News Publishing

Power Game Index

What has a pint-sized person got to do with the name giant? That was one question the FCT Minister, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai’s peers at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria often asked; for that was his pet name.

And el-Rufai or "the lion" as he is more fondly called by admirers and foes alike these days, sure lived out that name as a student. Said to be very forceful in his arguments and convictions, he was a giant in academics and personal accomplishments on campus.
Though petit in size, his voice or viewpoints were as loud as that of a giant.

As FCT minister, still less than one year in office, el-Rufai holds without question, the enviable record of being the most controversial minister in the Federal Executive Council.
As Nigerians proliferate reasons behind the un-guarded statement made by the Federal Capital Territory Minister that led to a standoff with the senate, keen watchers of El-Rufai believe that the man was just being true to character.

Sunday Sun learnt that while shopping for a minister for the FCT, President Olusegun Obasanjo told a few of his confidants that the man he needed for the job must be mentally unstable and apolitical. Based on this condition, el-Rufia came highly recommended.

He has not failed since his appointment in showing this character trait. If anything, the man seems “ madder” than the president could have bargained for; that he would extend his “ madness” beyond recovering the Abuja master plan.

In an interview with the Vanguard Newspaper published on July 4, 2004, the minister said the only thing he looks out for in prospective employee is the quality of anger. According to him, “One of the qualifications for working for me is anger: you must be angry at the way the Nigerian society is structured. Those that feel angry about how bad things are and want to change it. I don’t want a brilliant person with no passion for change and ability.”

Indications of what to expect emerged on the very day he took over at the FCT. Defying the early morning rain, the minister arrived the ministry as early as 7.26am for a briefing with staff of the ministry.
To demonstrate that his was indeed a new era, he told his staff to address him simply as ‘ Mr. Minister’ and not as ‘ Honourable Minister,’ which they were used to. He was immediately hailed for that by many who saw in the action, a departure from the old vainglorious norm.

But the true character of the man was to manifest when he revoked the C of O of many landholders in the FCT, including those of past top government officials such as Anyim Pius Anyim, the former senate president.

While engaging in a muscle-flexing with the high and mighty on the pages of newspapers, the poor whose ram-shackled houses were built not to approved plan specification, watched helplessly as bulldozers reduced their places of abode to rubbles.

For those who took his action on face value, he was the best thing to happen in Nigeria and the FCT in particular, not minding that some of the lands were legitimately acquired. By revoking the C of O of the powerful in the society, he was seen in some quarters as the man Nigeria needs, even as it reinforced the reputation he earned as the Director General of the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE).
In that capacity, he superintended over the sale of government assets to individuals and corporate organisations. The bidding process was hailed as the most transparent and el-Rufia seen as the new face of Nigeria.

However, the story began to change when he was removed from the BPE and made a minister. A departing el-Rufai was said to have nominated a candidate to succeed him at BPE. He lost out to the Deputy Senate President, Alhaji Ibrahim Mantu whose nominee, Dr. Julius Bala, got the job.

N54 million bribery allegation
A defeated El-Rufai retreated into his cocoon to await an opportunity to pay Mantu back. The opportunity soon came when the senate had to confirm Obasanjo’s ministerial nominees. He jolted the nation when he alleged that the duo of Mantu and Senator Johnathan Zwingina demanded a N54 million bribe to confirm his nomination. Instantly, he became a hero amongst the masses of the country, who like hounds baying for blood called for the heads of the two senators.

The senate, forced into action by Nigerians, asked its committee on Ethics and Privileges, headed by Senator Olorunimbe Mamora to investigate the allegation. Although very few were in doubt that the senate would always exonerate their own, the minister made it easier for them.

Asked to substantiate his allegation against the senators by naming witnesses, El-Rufai had an instant amnesia. Neither could he remember where the senators made their demand nor the names of those who were present. All he could remember was that the transaction was between him, the two senators and God. That was the end of the investigation even though some Nigerians were not convinced that the demand was not made and effected.

Not too long after then, information started making the rounds as to the reason why the minister could not give information that could lead to the establishment of the culpability or otherwise of the two senators.

A source revealed to Sunday Sun that El-Rufai deliberately stalled the investigation when it dawned on him that if he persisted, the bribe money paid via a cheque could be traced to his benefactor who occupies a very high office in the country.

While he was able to fool Nigerians, President Obasanjo was not as he reportedly accused the minister of withholding the vital facts of the case from the senate. “Nasiru, you are not a witness of truth”, the president was said to have told the minister after the senate hearing.

Just as the furore over the allegation was ebbing, El-Rufai, the self-acclaimed bad guy, stole the national limelight once again with his demolition squad. In February, the minister gleefully informed the nation that so far, he had demolished over 400 houses in Abuja. In justifying the action, he said “people may look at it as a destruction, but we are actually reclaiming the sustainability of the city, and I think history will be kinder to us when this is done.”

Among those who were not taken in by his pontification was the former Secretary to the Federal Military Government and the joint ANPP/AD presidential candidate in 1999, Chief Olu Falae.
Falae in an interview with Sunday Sun had accused the Minister and other tiers of governance of lacking the milk of human kindness.
His position was that as good as the intentions are it is in-human to demolish somebody’s home without making any provision for an alternative means of shelter.

Religious bigotry
Then came the allegation that he is selective in demolishing of structures in the FCT. Indeed, a director in the ministry who lost his job recently claimed that his problem started when he led a team to demolish a mosque, which had been marked as an illegal structure.
His action, he said infuriated El-Rfufai who immediately queried the director, demanding to know from which source he got the temerity to demolish the mosque.

In his reply, the director said he drew the minister’s attention to the fact that various churches have been demolished in the past for violating the same rules as the mosque. His response did not go down well with the minister who vowed to deal with him. True to his vow, the man is now jobless.
The implication of his un-structured demolition in the FCT is the shortage of houses either for accommodation, religious worship of business concerns.

This has increased the desperation for space within the city center by churches and business concerns.
It has become a common sight to see religious activities going on in a hotel while the previous night it was used as a nightclub.
As the allegation of religious bigotry was making the rounds, then came an allegation that bordered on nepotism.

Re-certification of C of O
The re-certification of Abuja C of O being executed by the Abuja Geographic Information Systems, AGIS and estimated to cost the ministry a princely N300 million is targeted at cleaning up the Augean stable that the land department had become over the years. Among others it is said to be the answer to the frequent cases of double allocation and multiple claim on a single allocation.
But Sunday Sun was told in Abuja that, the project has led to the revocation of several allocations in plum areas of the city to pave way for re-allocation to friends of the minister and top officials of the presidential villa.

The allocation of a plot of land, to South Africa’s musician Yvonne Chaka Chaka by the minister, at a time the ban on new allocations had not been lifted by the ministry, is listed as one of the quiet allocations el-Rufai had been approving to his friends and those in government.
"The man has been allocating revoked plots to his friends and officials of the villa quietly," Sunday Sun was told.

But El-Rufai’s spokesman, Mr. Kingsley Agha dismissed these claims: "Over 500 cases of multiple allocation has been discovered in the city center alone, there was a case of a land that was allocated to somebody in Calabar but which some top people wanted to take. It was the computerization exercise that discovered the case and we had to go to Calabar to give the man his allocation, only that the man had died and we had to give it to his wife. This is the kind of great work the exercise is throwing up. At the end of the exercise, I can tell you that, the madness that land allocation had become in the FCT would be a thing of the past."

Nepotism
The appointment of his brother in-law as head of Abuja Investment Company is another allegation against El-Rufai. The head of the company is said to be the younger brother of the minister’s first wife. It is the company that seems to be handling sensitive development projects formerly handled by FCDA, the development agency of the ministry.

Also, the director of C of O verification committee known as Dr. Iroh is el-Rufai’s personal friend.
Agha again has an explanation: "The minister has the prerogative to appoint people he trusts and believe can deliver to head agencies and be members of his team. He wants to deliver and succeed, if those he thinks can do that are his friends and in-laws fine. There is no law that says he should not appoint them"

Tribalism
Most recently, the Nigerian Union of Journalists in a statement signed by its president, Prince Smart Adeyemi alleged that the Minister was anti-Igbo, claiming that he specifically targets shops owned by Igbo for demolition.
In the statement, Adeyemi, besides describing the action as reckless said the minister’s intention to demolish all corner shops in Abuja was tantamount to economic pogrom targeted at the Igbo.

Stewardship at BPE
Questions were recently asked about El-Rufai’s activities as the DG of BPE.
Not only was he accused of aiding some powerful Nigerians who used fronts to acquire public institutions sold by BPE in the name of privatization, proceeds from the sales of these institutions were said to be missing.

El-Rufai even before becoming a minister had shown high disregard to those in the corridors of power. Former Aviation Minister, Dr. Kema Chikwe was unfortunate to cross the path of el-Rufai over his all-consuming desire to sell off Nigerian Airways.

While Chikwe who as a minister was higher than el-Rufai who then was in charge of BPE, wanted a foreign airline to manage the sick airways, the BPE boss on the other hand insisted on selling it.
Chikwe paid for that as El-Rufai threw several brickbats her way. It took a stern warning from President Obasanjo for El-Rufai to cease fire.

The man himself admits that he has the problem of intolerance. In the same interview in the Vanguard, he said “First, I am very intolerant, impatient, because I expect people to catch up quickly, but that is wrong because God has endowed us in different ways. So, I have to work on that. Secondly, I can be very hard. When taking decisions, I am completely devoid of emotions. I don’t moderate it with what they call human feelings. That is not necessarily good.”

But one other problem his critics say he has and which he failed to mention is arrogance.
Referring to his many blushes since coming into the public sector, El-Rufai averred that “perhaps, my biggest weakness is that I’m politically naïve, I really don’t understand and don’t want to understand politics or politicians. I tend to look at life as either black, white, while in reality most of life is grey, but I still will not, and have not recognised that.”
However, in his latest altercation with the senate, the minister seems set to re-learn some basic facts of life. For a start, he has been forced to eat the humble pie by apologising to the same senators he referred to as fools.

Besides tendering a letter of apology to the senate, the Minister, agitated by the anger of the senators has been shuttling the quarters of some senators, begging for forgiveness.
Incidentally, Senator Zwingina whom he accused of demanding the N54 million bribe is one of those the embattled minister has visited at home.

As one senator puts it, “When he (El-Rufai) came to my quarters, he looked like a rain beaten schoolboy who has come to beg his school headmaster.”
Meanwhile, embarrased by the revelation that El-Rufai has been paying each of his female aides N2 million, an angry President Obasanjo is said to have instituted a probe panel to investigate the Minister.

Refusal to pay monetization to staff of the ministry
As part of the down-sizing and reorganization programme of the civil service by the Federal Government, civil servants allowances were monetized and payment approved to commence July last year. Many ministries have since commenced payment to their staff.
For staff of the MFCT, payment has so far not been made, and they point accusing fingers at el-Rufai. They accuse him of deliberately withholding the payment.

"He has refused to pay us monetization because he wants to first sack people he does not want to benefit from the programme. For instance, drivers have been sacked without paying them their monetized benefits for the period they were staff”, a distraught staffer told Sunday Sun.
But Agha, denies the claim.

He said the delay was caused by the fact that the ministry did not include the monetization claim in the budget the minister inherited on arrival at the ministry.
"The guys here failed to put the claims in the budget. When the minister discovered this, he contacted the minister of finance who sent in a request to Mr. President for a special grant to the ministry to effect the payment. This has been done and very soon staff of the ministry would begin to receive their payment from July last year", Agha added.

A staffer of the ministry who spoke on grounds of anonymity however had a reply for Agha. "If it is lack of money, from where did he get the money to pay for the computerization and re-certification exercise? Were those projects in the budget?"

London Taxi projects.
What this project is going to cost the government is still unclear, but it has been conservatively put at between six and three million naira per cab for the London Taxi brand and two million naira for the Peugeot brand.

The Taxi on paper is supposed to be the only commercial taxi that would commute the city center. This has not gone down well with itinerant taxi operators in the city most of who are from the western part of the country. Some people have even interpreted it as a way of sending away the taxi operators from the city.

Agha says nothing like that will happen. "This project is meant to brand the city; every city has a brand identification. New York is known with the statue of liberty, France by the Eiffel Tower and London by the London taxi. This project will give Abuja a brand name.”

Payment of jumbo salaries to aides.
This is what is the crux of the present face-off with the senate. The upper legislative, disturbed by the revelation that two of the minister’s aides earn as much as N2 million, called on him to refund the amount so far paid to government coffers.

The last information on this was that the ministry had not paid out the jumbo salaries to the two special aides el-Rufai brought to the ministry from the Bureau for Public Enterprises, BPE.
But Sunday Sun investigations at the ministry showed that the payment had been effected. At the finance department, a very reliable source confirmed that the payment had been made out.
"We made the payment, but there is no voucher here to show that the payment had been made. We wrote the cheque, I know this because I was involved in the process.”

Use of consultants in execution of ministry assignment.
On assumption of office, el-Rufai made it clear he was going to enthrone a regime of transparent practice in the ministry. To achieve this, the ption was the use of consultants in the execution of his projects.
This has not gone down well with staff of the ministry who accuse him of spending colossal sums in doing jobs that staff of the ministry could have done with far less.

Hear Agha again. "Nobody is using consultants for the execution of jobs here, it is in-house committees that have been carrying out jobs. The minister means well for the ministry. When we came here, civil servants simply did not allow the minister to work, every day it was one query or the other, ‘ Sack this person or that’, but the minister told them, ‘ Show me an evidence and I will sack the person’, but they could not show any. All these allegations are aimed at destroying the good work the minister is doing, but he is focused and would not waver."

Staff of the ministry may not be happy with el-Rufai but Patrick Nwankwo an electronics dealer and a contractor with the ministry is. He said but for the minister debts owed his company for contracts executed since 1998 would not have paid today.

"God Bless this man (El-Rufai) for people like me. Last December I received two cheques as payments for contracts I did in 1998. These are payments I have been pursuing since and got tired. This time they just called me to come and take the payments without my lobbying for it," he told Sunday Sun.