National Daily

The fall of a regent

Baba Gana Kingibe does not need introduction. He is a well-known politician for good or bad. His sudden replacement as Secretary to the Government of the Federation last week by President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua has continued to generate insinuations over his political simulation, agenda and ambition in the current government, reports SUNDAY ODIBASHI

IN June 2007, Baba Gana Kingibe was appointed Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and on Monday, September 8, 2008, his appointment was terminated by fiat.
The office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation is well known to be important and influential in the day to day governance of the country.

Several reasons were being adduced for the removal of Kingibe as SGF. There was allegation of spreading rumors about the President's ill-health. Kingibe was also accused of assuming the driver's seat of the political machine of the government and had calculative succession plot in the Presidency. This compendium was believed to be spinned-off by the exaggerated ill-health of Yar'Adua and his treatment overseas.

To many stakeholders in the Nigeria in project, Yar'Adua's ailment was paradoxically exaggerated to make Nigerians and the international communities believe that he lacks the capacity to continue in office as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Given this notion, Kingibe had at different times been portrayed as holding power in trust on behalf of the President and simultaneously scheming to fill the lacuna that Yar'Adua's absence or exit from office may create.

Kingibe was alleged to have begun the re-engineering of his political edifice and those of his allies, including the Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM) left behind by Shehu Musa Yar'Adua, to fortify his political frontier and influence. He was said to have been gradually arrogating enormous power to himself. Indeed, it has been highlighted that “apart from Yar'Adua, the most visible face in government was Kingibe; often seen as the face and voice of government”. The former SGF widely is believed to have guided Yar'Adua to dismantle some powers in the Presidency to covertly build cumulative power for himself. It was revealed that Kingibe recommended the scraping of the office of the Chief of Staff in the Presidency.

Kingibe's incremental power was said to be put to work while Yar'Adua was on pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. While Yar'Adua was away for two weeks, the Office of the Vice President was said to be relegated to secondary importance as specified by the constitution while Kingibe saw himself and behaved in the manner of a regent and heir apparent to the throne.

Kingibe was accused of inviting unnecessary crisis over the ill-health of Yar'Adua. There were insinuations of “permutations of what to gain from the reported ill-healh of Yar'Adua”. Unproved report had it that “With the President's ailing health and his absence from the country, Kingibe canvassed the support of northern Emirs as a possible replacement in the event that Yar'Adua resigns”. There were peddling rumours that the president may resign when he comes back to the country to attend to his ailment. Reminiscence had it that “Kingibe began to lay the foundation for the People's Democratic Party to pick him as presidential candidate when it was reported that Yar'Adua said that if the Supreme Court annuls his election, he would not contest the ruling and would not re-run”. Invaraibly, Kingibe was perceived to have run into trouble with Yar'Adua in December 2007 when it was rumoured that he was trying to re-activate his presidential ambition.

There were indications that “immediately it became clear that Obasanjo had anointed Yar'Adua, as successor, Kingibe did not take any chances. He began to work on his rusty relationship with the Yar'Adua family, being a prominent member of the PDM, late Shehu Musa Yar'Adua's political machine, which he had abandoned to join forces with Abacha, a fellow Kanuri man”. He was said to have washed his hands off the death of the older Yar'Adua; the evil deed by Abacha and his hatchet boys led by another Kanuri man, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha. It was revealed that “Kingibe enlisted powerful members of the Caliphate to underline the point that Shehu Yar'Adua's ill-treatment by Abacha was not a war by the Kanuri against the Hausa/Fulani”.

National Daily gathered that the President-designate got a few calls from several high places in the North which paved the way for a meeting between Kingibe and the Yar'Adua family. “The deal was signed and delivered: Kingibe was guaranteed a prominent place in the incoming administration”, it was gathered. Thus, Yar'Adua did not hesitate to appoint Kingibe secretary to the government of Nigeria. Kingibe's appointment was one of the first three appointments made by the new government shortly after Yar'Adua was sworn into office. The others were the temporary retention of Generals Abdullahi Mohammed and Sarki Muktar as Chief of staff and National Security Adviser respectively, who later dropped.

Kingibe was known to have joined the Nigerian Foreign Service after his education in England. Like most of his contemporaries from the north, he enjoyed free education from primary to university level. At a very young age he was at various times Nigerian ambassador to Greece and Pakistan. Thereafter, he was appointed permanent secretary, special services, which oversee security matters in the presidency. Therefore at a relatively youthful age, Kingibe served Nigeria in privileged positions. As a result, he had knowledge of top national secrets, which were the preserves of his kinsmen. He voluntarily retired from the federal service.

Further investigations revealed that Kingibe's exposure to leadership at such a youthful age fired the ambition in him. He began to dream dreams that to rule Nigeria was not a bad idea. Since he was not in the army, the only sure route to fulfill his ambition was through the ballot box. He was fully aware that coup making was a risky business; in fact a matter of life and death. So, no soldier took the risk just to hand over power to another person, no matter the person's leadership credentials. Therefore, since Kingibe was not going to be anointed by any coup plotter and there was no way he could mount any coup on his own, Kingibe chose to bid his time.

Kingibe's opportunity came during the military regime under General Ibrahim Babangida who midwife a truncated transition programme that ought to install an elected civilian government. Kingibe threw himself into it. “He was not alone anyway. Many influence peddlers, political jobbers …, who had made money fraudulently, poured out in their numbers to seek greater relevance, which would place at their disposal our collective purse”, it was gathered.
It was argued that while the politicians were busy perfecting ways and means to capture power for selfish reasons, the man at the helm of affairs knew he was not done yet with power. “Characteristically, Babangida deployed all the arsenals at his disposal for which he was known to be a master dribbler to confuse those who were intent on unseating him. He infiltrated the various associations being assembled by the would-be leaders and succeeded in causing confusion everywhere; banning and unbanning,” it had been declared.

Many were of the view that Babangida imagined that he could disorganize the politicians by decreeing two parties into existence, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Republican Convention (NRC). Everybody, whatever their political leanings found accommodation in the two parties.

Determined to wrest power from the military, politicians - the good, the bad and the ugly were known to have buried their differences and presented the military a united front, a fait accompli, so much so that the very divisive religious factor was played down considerably. Inadvertently, the first successful primaries and National Convention of the two political parties produced two Northern Muslims, Shehu Musa Yar'Adua of the SDP and Adamu Ciroma of the NRC as candidates for the Presidential race in the general elections. That was however, cancelled by Babangida.

When the race re-opened, the National Convention of the SDP opened a tough contest between M.K.O. Abiola, Abubakar Atiku and Baba Gana Kingibe. It took intense political bargaining to arrive at the consensus from the Shehu Yar'Adua's camp to persuade Atiku to step down for Abiola. The calculation was that Atiku was going to be Vice President to Abiola. In the ultimate denouement, Abiola emerged but decided to choose Kingibe as his Vice, a decision believed to cost him the support of Yar'Adua when the election was annulled.
The Abiola and Kingibe of the SDP went ahead to defeat the duo of Bashir Tofa and Sylvester Ugo of the NRC at the presidential poll on June 12, 1993.

Investigations revealed that “Suddenly, the soldiers realized that they could not do business with Abiola. He was considered not safe to leave him at the helm of affairs. He knew too much about the military being himself a creation of the military. Besides, his companies were said to be owed lots and lots of money by the federal government” and the election was therefore annulled.

Several stakeholders in the Nigerian project had articulated that the struggle for the restoration of Abiola's popular mandate was acid test for several Nigerian politicians. Kingibe has since been conceived to have played an important role in surrendering the mandate freely given to him and Abiola by the Nigerian electorate. “Instead of defending it and challenging the annulment with all the resources at his disposal he threw his hands into the air in total submission to the will of Allah. Together with several other politicians, Kingibe betrayed the Nigerians who had reposed much confidence in him” many lamented. Some have argued: “Although Abiola was a fellow Muslim, Kingibe and his cohorts from the North did so little to take it into consideration… The nationalistic appeal of the two-party structure therefore suffered irreparable damage. Therefore, when, as expected the man in dark glasses struck on November 17, 1993, having been waiting for the opportunity to fulfill a political ambition, Kingibe accepted his appointment as Minister of Foreign Affairs as well as one of the two civilian members of the Provisional Ruling Council”. The other member was Alex Ibru, the publisher of the popular newspaper, THE GUARDIAN, who was appointed Minister of Internal Affairs. Abacha's first cabinet reshuffle saw Kingibe moved to the internal affairs ministry to take over from Alex Ibru.

A source declared that “Kingibe has demonstrated that he has no conscience. He has no conviction. He is like a prostitute, who engages any number of different men a night just for her money. There is no attachment to such relationships. She wants the money and how it is made is immaterial”. To some others, the configuration of events can provide good research data for studies on 'scheming and betrayal'.

When Abacha unexpectedly died on June 8, 1998, Abdulsalami Abubakar hurriedly handed over power to the civilians, when it became clear that Nigerians were fed up and wanted an end to military government, no matter how benevolent. Some observers noted that Kingibe, rightly, did not participate in Abubakar's hurried transition programme, having intelligently read the prevalent mood in the country. They contended that “for a politician, an ambitious one for that matter, being outside the corridors of power, in the cold, was not to his liking”. They emphasized that after Obasanjo was sworn in; Kingibe took steps to join the ruling party, PDP, playing on the assumption that Nigerians have short memory and that they would soon forget about his betrayal of Abiola in particular and Nigerians in general.

His calculations were said to have paid off; as he was regularly sighted at the Aso Villa and eventually warmed his way into Obasanjo's affections.

It has been pertinently noted that “although Kingibe identified and worked with Abacha, who had incarcerated Obasanjo, Kingibe's sins were not seen as sins since they were in the main directed at Abiola, whom Obasanjo described in the heat of the June 12 crises as not the messiah that Nigerians had been waiting for”. Kingibe was upheld to be calculative of the personality clash between the two prominent Egba sons and they played into the hands of a very ambitious opportunist, who did not waste any time in seizing the opportunity, at high tide, as it were. “To all intents and purposes, Kingibe was back in the political arena, waiting to be assigned any responsibility. It did not take long before he was made an ambassador at large, who went on any errands for and on behalf of the federal government. When Obasanjo was African Union's (AU) chairman, Kingibe became AU's envoy to the troubled Western Sudan region of Darfur”, it has been observed.

While seriously working on his comeback in the contemporary dispensation, Kingibe began simultaneously to position his wife, Ireti, to play a major political role. Kingibe's decision to draft his wife into the political arena, it was noted, was to ensure that he does not loss out completely in government, in case he failed to make a success of his return bid. Ireti contested the lone senatorial seat for the Federal Capital Territory in 2003, under the platform of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) but failed.

“When the question of Obasanjo's tenure elongation, the Third Term Agenda, died on the floor of the Senate, Kingibe felt the moment he had been waiting for had arrived. He knew he could be anointed to represent the north, his past notwithstanding. And like a politician without conscience he seized it with both hands” National Daily gathered. Maurice Iwu has over the years been conceived to be appointed INEC chairman and positioned to deliver victory to the PDP at all costs.

From the outset Obasanjo is believed not to trust Kingibe whom he sees as an untrustworthy political ally. For many analysts, “since betraying Abiola, Obasanjo had no confidence in him and so, before the whistle went off, Kingibe was already disqualified from the presidential race”. The common belief across the country had been that the circumstances that precipitated the exit of Kingibe orchestrate the continuum of the former SGF's sagacious political cline.

Kingibe born 1945, hails from Borno State in North East geo-political zone, and is of Kanuri extraction.