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PEOPLE AND POLITICS BY MOHAMMED HARUNA
Shehu Ahmadu Musa, Makama Nupe (1935 – 2008): The Quintessential Civil Servant
The first time in 1992 when I heard that Alhaji Shehu Ahmadu Musa, the Makama Nupe, had decided to depart from the civil service terrain he had been familiar with since 1960 and plunge into the treacherous waters of politics, I thought he was making a big mistake.
Between 1960 when he first joined the Northern Regional Civil Service as an auditor upon graduation same year from the University of Ibadan, and 1992 when he conducted the most successful headcount in Nigeria since the first nationwide census in the country in 1951, the Makama Nupe grew in stature to become one of the most respected technocrats in the country.
He had served as auditor for five years in the Northern regional bureaucracy when he transferred to Lagos as a senior assistant secretary in the Federal Ministry of Finance. Thus began as illustrious civil service career that was to see him become the Secretary to the Federal Government (SFG) in October 1979.
In a way the choice of the Makama Nupe as SFG at the beginning of the Second Republic was somewhat surprising. The office was more politics than bureaucracy and the Makama had been a bureaucrat all this life. But then there was also the need for continuity. The choice fell on him presumably because he combined the best of both worlds as the most senior civil servant at the time as well as someone who was on first name basis with most of the leading politicians at the time.
Not only that, the Second Republic had started on an acrimonious note, with some of the opposition parties, in particular the Unity party of Nigeria (UPN) under Chief Obafemi Awolowo, challenging the election of Alhaji Shehu Shagari as president under the banner of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN). The challenge ended in failure at the Supreme Court but far from ending the acrimony, the court’s verdict only incensed the opposition the more.
In the circumstance the choice before Shagari was to either return fire for fire or patiently seek dialogue with the opposition. Being an old school politician, Shagari chose the latter. Consequently the need arose for someone to anchor the implementation of his choice. Again the Makama perfectly fitted the bill as someone well respected by the opposition.
In the end he proved a wise choice; thanks to his effort and of others like him, less than halfway through the first four years of the Second Republic, the hostility which had greeted the ruling party from the opposition abated.
For example, the Tribune stable which, as UPN’s mouthpiece, had subjected Shagari’s presidency to the most vicious press attacks considerably toned down their rhetoric - thanks to the personal intervention of Chief Awolowo himself who told the editors their attacks were getting too personal. Again those opposition states that had refused to provide land to the Federal Government for the implementation of its housing policy backed away from their intransigence.
There could be no better evidence that Shagari was happy with his choice of Makama as SFG than his decision to reappoint him for his second term as president. At that time there was intense lobby for the job from several party stalwarts who had apparently concluded that it had become more powerful than the job of a minister even though ministers are superior to the SFG in terms of protocol.
Barely three months into the Second Republic, the soldiers threw out President Shagari, listing the usual litany of rigged elections and corruption, etc, as justification. Quickly, the harsh regime of General Muhammadu Buhari rounded up all politicians and detained them. The Makama stood out alone as the public official who the soldiers did not pick up for detention. That spoke volumes about the integrity he had brought to bear on his job. Not only was Makama not detained, five years later the soldiers decided he was the right person to conduct the first census in Nigeria since 1973. The 1973 census conducted under late Justice Adetokunbo Ademola, ended in a fiasco with the members of the census board strongly disagreeing among themselves over its outcome. There was also a universal rejection of its result. This rejection was officially sealed by General Murtala Mohammed’s regime in 1975.
Thereafter successive federal governments gave census a wide berth –that was until General Ibrahim Babangida came along following a successful palace coup against General Buhari in August 1985. Three years later Babangida constituted a National Census Commission under the Makama with a mandate to conduct the first census since 1973 in 1991.
True to his reputation as a can-do person, Alhaji Shehu Ahmadu Musa did not disappoint. Against many odds, including widespread public cynicism and delays in release of funds, he conducted what was universally adjudged the best census since headcounts started in Nigeria even before its amalgamation in 1914. It was against this record of his excellence in civil service that I thought his decision to wade into the treacherous waters of politics was a big mistake, especially since he was going in right at the top as a presidential aspirant.
However, his bureaucratic mindset was not my only reason. After all he had proved in his four odd years as SFG that he was as much at home with civil servants as he was with politicians.
I had at least three other reasons for my reservation. I had the opportunity to tell him those reasons when he constituted a small group of mainly relatively young professionals from Bida, his home town, including his writer, to brainstorm over his strategy for success.
If my memory serves me well this was in late 1992 after he had resigned as chairman of the Population Commission.
My reasons, I told the meeting, included the fact that he was from Niger State and General Babangida, the incumbent military president, was also from the same state. I have never believed in the nonsense about power rotation but I thought it was stretching meritocracy too far for one Nigerlite to hand over power to another as the president of the country.
Second, I thought it would do the credibility of the census he had successfully completed some damage if he plunged into politics so soon after the exercise. Third, and most importantly, I said he was like a prophet who was more respected outside his home than inside. However, unlike a prophet, Makama’s problem was not so much that he spoke truth to his people as the fact that he was like proverbial itacen giginya, the tall deleb palm tree which, in Hausa metarphour, provides more shade for those far from it than those sitting at its base.
Makama’s cross was that in every position he held, he seemed to have done more for others than for his own people. Many might have seen this as a virtue. Others might have seen it as inevitable for a man who had become so cosmopolitan in the course of a career that he stayed more abroad than at home. Virtue or vice, what this meant was that the Makama was starting his political career from a shaky base. In politics it helped to have a secure home base.
To the Makama’s credit he took my reservation in good faith. We all agreed, however, that it was too late for him to pull out of the race of the presidential ticket of the National Republican Congress.
Predictably he lost out very early in the race and his political career became as short-lived as his civil service career was long.
Five odd years later the Makama was back in his elements as a quintessential civil servant. This time the same soldiers who picked him to conduct our national census in 1991 appointed him a national commissioner in the Independent National Electoral Commission under late Justice Ephraim Akpata with a brief to conduct the general elections of 1999 that was to end the second military interregnum since Independence. Before long the chairman and other national commissioners came to rely on him for honest and wise counsel in order to succeed in their assignments.
As has since become the case in Nigeria, the soldiers did a fairly successful job of the 1999 elections in that they left INEC mostly to its own devises even though they were not completely disinterested in the outcome.
The story changed completely four years later when the civilians conducted the 2003 elections. This time they did everything they could to retain power. On at least two occasions, first, when the ruling PDP insisted on substituting the names of their members who had won elections to the National Assembly from Anambra State with those who never even contested, and second, when the PDP insisted that Chief Adolphous Wabara must be issued with a certificate of success in spite of the controversy surrounding his election, the Makama led a stiff resistance against the interference from the PDP. At a point he even sent in his resignation but the authorities rejected it.
This was the man of integrity, wisdom and competence who died in a London hospital last Wednesday after a prolonged illness 73 years after he was born to a humble family in Bida on January 16, 1935.
May Allah grant him aljanna firdaus.
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