El Rufai's new book (Memoir), “The Accidental Public Servant”. Which is set to turn heads as it made several revelations, like Obasanjo kneeling to beg his then deputy, Atiku Abubakar, saying he'll run Nigeria from his Ota farm even after leaving office as Nigeria's president...
Excerpts:
El-Rufai recalls the former president/his former boss President Olusegun Obasanjo telling him thus: “Well, nothing will change, you know. I will be in Ota but we will be running things. Everything will remain the same, you know. You will remain in the government, the economic team will remain. Nothing will change. Only I will move to Ota and Yar’Adua will be here but we will be running things.”
Obasanjo responded when El Rufai told him he'll be taking a break of two years that, “OK, well I just thought I should call you and explain to you that the next four years is just a transition period. The real change in government will happen in 2011. Not now.”
“Obasanjo had no problem going down on his knees to beg for what he thought was impossible to obtain any other way.”
“The political bricksmanship got so bad that Obasanjo had to visit Atiku’s residence unannounced to plead for Atiku’s support...Upon arriving at his deputy’s residence, he reportedly knelt before Atiku and begged the vice-president to remain onside, thus guaranteeing the support of the 17 PDP governors. In return, Obasanjo had to agree to retain Atiku as his running mate (he was rumoured at the time to be considering an alternative)”.
El Rufai said that the choosing of the late Yar’Adua and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as president and vice-president by Obasanjo was “the final nail in the coffin of any meritocracy or track record of governance in Nigeria.
“President Obasanjo chose Umaru Yar’Adua whose ill-health, among other challenges, was known already constituted a serious impediment to the possibility of any inspired and energetic leadership. The view of many well-informed Nigerians is that Yar’Adua and his deputy, Goodluck Jonathan, emerged for no other discernable reasons than being ‘weak’ governors sympathetic to the ‘Third Term’ project and therefore handpicked as payback...The subsequent electoral imposition of Goodluck Jonathan as president in 2011 via military occupation and rigging has been unhelpful in raising leadership quality. Jonathan went into a presidential contest without a campaign manifesto, boasting of no experience, merit and any track record of previous performance other than wearing no shoes to school and his ‘good luck’.”
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