Billions of dollars and political reputations are at stake as the ruling class battles it out. Businesses plot with politicians for supremacy ahead of the 2011 elections. 

As President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s four-year mandate approaches its critical mid-point in April, Nigeria’s political and business clans are already busy forging alliances, repairing damaged relationships and seeing off challengers to their power bases. With the country’s next round of elections due in April 2011, there is everything to play for in the intervening two years as the parties try to gather resources at a time of economic downturn. The politicians are developing new campaigns and rebuilding old friendships.


Survivors from times past are circling the arena like gladiators, skilfully dodging each others’ blows. They are always looking for the chance to recruit new acolytes or, in some of the most prominent cases, to promote the interests of their own close relatives.


If a poll were to be conducted on who Nigerians think are the most influential and powerful players in their country’s political arena, those at the top of the list would have to include former military president General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, current President Umaru Yar’Adua, his immediate predecessor (and former military ruler) Olusegun Obasanjo, former vice-president Atiku Abubakar and one-time senator Olusola Saraki. Others would be former army chief General Theophilus Danjuma, former military head of state General Muhammadu Buhari and, perhaps at the head of the younger generation on the list, the business mogul Aliko Dangote.


Yar’Adua’s poor health has kept him away from Abuja on several critical occasions in the past two years, and this has fed speculation about the possibility of finding a successor from within his own close family dynasty. The Yar’Aduas are a quintessentially political family whose influence dates back at least three generations to the colonial foundations of Nigeria, shining most brightly in the president’s late brother, General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, who was murdered in prison in 1997 by agents of the late dictator, General Sani Abacha.


With the president himself often out of action, at least some of his power is apparently exercised by his wife, Turai Yar’Adua, widely regarded as the most influential first lady since Maryam Babangida. Some suggest the family may even be considering passing the torch to either one of the couple’s sons-in-law, both of whom are serving governors of northern states. One of the presidential daughters is married to the governor of Kebbi State, Saidu Usman Nasamu Dakingari, and another is married to the governor of Bauchi State, Malam Isa Yuguda.


The pdp barons patch up


If indeed the first family does harbour such plans, they are bound to come up against serious opposition. Already, former vice-president Atiku Abubakar, who became a close political and business associate of Shehu Yar’Adua during and after Babangida’s transition programme of the early 1990s, is making moves to return to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Atiku was a founding member of the PDP, but he was forced out as a result of the vicious battle for control of it between himself and Obasanjo in the run-up to the 2007 general election.


In December 2008, Atiku paid a surprise visit to Obasanjo at his Ota farm in Ogun State. This in turn produced serious divisions in the Action Congress, which Atiku founded after he was hounded out of the PDP. His visit to Obasanjo, who is said to be unhappy with Yar’Adua because of his reversal of earlier policies and programmes, is now widely regarded as a move by both to scuttle anyone from the presidential camp from getting the PDP ticket for the 2011 election in the event that the president’s health fails him.


Although in the 1999 elections Atiku won the governorship primary election in his native Adamawa State and eventually won the governorship election itself, he never served as governor. Instead, Obasanjo picked him as his running mate for the subsequent presidential elections. But their relationship broke down in the face of Obasanjo’s attempt to secure a third term ahead of the 2007 election. Not only did the vice-president lead the successful opposition to Obasanjo’s ‘third term’ re-election project, he mounted a propaganda campaign against Obasanjo’s attempt to paint him as a corrupt and unworthy of becoming the country’s leader.


Rivalry abounds


Atiku would not be the only source of rivalry for Yar’Adua or for any of his allies who might hope to get the presidential ticket. Also waiting in the wings is the formidable family of Olusola Saraki, a medical doctor, senate leader in the Second Republic and a powerful aristocrat in Ilorin, Kwara State.


Saraki first came into the limelight as a prominent member of the constituent assembly which wrote the 1979 constitution that changed Nigeria from a parliamentary democracy into a presidential one. Later he became a founding member of the National Party of Nigeria, which won the presidential election of 1979 that ushered in the Second Republic under President Shehu Shagari. Since that time, the four civilian governors of the state have been his political godsons, as have been most of those from Kwara appointed as federal ministers.


In the last governorship election in 2007, Saraki set a record in Nigeria by installing his own son, Bukola, also a medical doctor, as governor of Kwara. Earlier, he had installed his daughter, Gbemisola, as one of three senators from Kwara. Gbemisola is also close to the first lady. Another son, Olaolu, is a special assistant in the presidency, while Governor Bukola Saraki is currently the chairman of the Governors’ Forum and also close to the president. A Saraki godson, Abubakar Kawu Baraje, is the secretary-general of the PDP. With such a formidable presence in the presidency and the party, and with his daughter in the Senate, many speculate that Olusola Saraki is positioning Bukola to become the country’s president, and perhaps as soon as 2011.


Opposition to Yar’Adua’s second term will come not only from within the PDP, to which Babangida, Yar’Adua and Saraki all belong, but naturally enough, the other parties too. Right now, however, such opposition seems extremely weak. The biggest opposition party, the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP), has been in disarray since its former candidate Buhari opposed taking part in the PDP’s so-called government of national unity. The party hierarchy had, on the other hand, endorsed it. In the 2007 general elections, the ANPP lost to the PDP several of the state governorships and seats in the National Assembly that it had held in 2003. Since then, two of its governors, those of Zamfara and Kebbi States, have defected to the PDP. There is speculation that the governors of Bauchi (who recently became the president’s son-in-law) and Borno may join the PDP ahead of the 2011 general elections. With the ANPP deeply divided, it is difficult to see how Buhari can mount a formidable, never mind successful, campaign against the PDP in 2011.


Buhari entered civilian politics halfway through Obasanjo’s first term as elected president (1999-2003). His previous disdain for politics was not surprising given his treatment of politicians during his 20 months as military head of state beginning in December 1983. However, his political career has not been a roaring success. Not only did he suffer defeat twice as the presidential candidate for the ANPP, but his party is now in just as much disarray as all the other opposition parties.


Men in camouflage


Apart from Atiku, the Sarakis and Buhari, opposition to Yar’Adua’s second term is likely to also come from General Theophilus Danjuma, one of the most influential chiefs the country has had. Danjuma, along with General Obasanjo, was on the list of people that the February 1976 coup-makers had planned to eliminate. Whereas Obasanjo went into hiding in the immediate aftermath of the coup attempt, Danjuma mobilised the troops that remained loyal to neutralise the coup. He was therefore in a position to declare himself head of state. Instead, he and the then-inspector-general of police, Alhaji M.D. Yusuf, persuaded Obasanjo to put himself forward as head of state. 


Danjuma was a major financial and moral supporter of Obasanjo’s presidential ticket for the PDP – the northern establishment, at the initiative of Babangida and General Aliyu Mohammed, a one-time army chief and long serving intelligence officer decided that a southerner, more specifically a Yoruba from the south-west, should be the country’s next elected leader. This move was apparently meant to assuage Yoruba ill-feeling over Babangida’s cancellation of the June 1993 presidential election, the putative winner of which was the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola, a Yoruba.


Obasanjo remained grateful to Danjuma at least until his second term began in 2003, when they fell out over a range of policy issues. On one occasion Danjuma publicly condemned Obasanjo’s government as one controlled by ‘a cult’. Now, Danjuma has become one of President Yar’Adua loudest critics. After nearly two years of little action by the president, Danjuma criticised it as a ‘standstill’ administration.


Obasanjo’s position is particularly ambiguous. Having steered Yar’Adua’s nomination through the gauntlet of PDP barons three years ago, he soon found he and his family had become the target of a vendetta from rivals within the party after he had left office in May 2007. Within weeks, stories emerged in the press about how he had misused his network of contacts for personal gain; some suggested more misappropriation than his predecessors, Babangida and Abacha.


Family trees


Obasanjo’s daughter and senator, Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, remains her father’s favourite. Obasanjo Holdings is the family business and Iyabo is an executive director. It claims to be Nigeria’s leading agricultural company, but it is also a holding company for many other interests like those in Tempo Food and Packaging and in banks such as the former First Interstates Merchant Bank (now part of Unity Bank). Obasanjo has a stake in Sahara Energy, led by Tope Shonubi, and Transcorp (owner of the Abuja Hilton). Other Obasanjo investments include stakes in NITEL (the former state telecoms company, which is now privatised), and Dangote Holdings as well as substantial property holdings in Abuja and Lagos.


The high cost of Nigeria’s presidential political system seems to have made some Nigerian businessmen into important players. Few have achieved the prominence of Aliko Dangote, the young billionaire from Kano State, who has made substantial donations to the election campaigns of presidents, governors and other elected officials. In return, he has reaped huge financial rewards from the award of oil blocks, the purchase of privatised government companies and concessions in manufacturing companies. Dangote now sits on top of the country’s biggest trading and manufacturing empire, with interests in commodity trading, cement manufacturing and oil production.


Some dynasties have deep roots. Since government contracts and patronage dominate business in Nigeria, that gives a built-in advantage to those in office and their commercial networks. The elite is by no means immune to the entry of newcomers whose ill-gotten wealth has bought them prominence, but the networks thrive on long-standing social links across ethnic boundaries.


Big names, big men


Oba Okunade Sijuade, the Oni of Ife, is no gate-crasher but the ancestral father of the entire Yoruba ethnic group of western Nigeria. He is a highly respected king, said to be descended from the mythological Oduduwa. His business partner and trusted confidant for over four decades has been the emir of Kano, Ado Bayero, a northern oligarch if ever there was one. Their companies now lift crude oil jointly; they have also passed on the tradition, as Princes Tokunbo Sijuade and Nasir Ado Bayero are bosom business partners too. Similarly, Centrica is a company associated with both Okunade Sijuade and Edmund Daukoru, the Nembe king from the Delta, who happened to be oil minister in the last administration. 


The most obvious route to the upper echelons of Nigerian society has been through the top schools, mostly on the English ‘public school’ model, like King’s College in Lagos, Barewa College in Zaria, Christ’s School in Ado Ekiti and Government College in Ibadan. These have now produced several generations of Nigerian rulers, top civil servants and senior professionals. These institutions take Nigerians from all ethnic groups and train them to become the new elites. This helps them to band together when their personal interests are at stake and to use ethnic alliances to achieve their aims.


And yet, as can be seen from the large number of former military officers in the political hierarchy, it is often the soldiers who have been the most adept at manoeuvring through the thickets of society – capitalising on the fact that it was they who ruled Nigeria for 28 of its 48 years as an independent country to date. After serving in the military, senior officers have ended up on the boards of banks and oil and gas companies, before moving on to become either emirs or traditional rulers, though some were already princes before even going into the military. Oba Gbadebo, the Alake of Egbaland, an influential monarch, was a colonel in the army and now sits on the board of oil company Oando.
Nigeria’s elites have always known how to close ranks and take care of themselves across the country’s ethnic borders. Whatever may happen at the top of the political parties, the ruling class survives. The top professionals in business and academia, the businessmen, the military class and traditional rulers are invariably woven together in a grand alliance to continue to dominate the upper reaches of the Nigerian economy.