I’m compelled to revisit Lawal Daura’s fall from grace by two articles I read within a span of two weeks. One of the articles appeared in a mainstream media, and the other one in an online news outfit. The first article that really captured my attention was the back page column of the Daily Trust of Wednesday, August 15, 2018, masterfully crafted by a veteran columnist, Yakubu Mohammed, which he titled “The Lawal Daura Saga”. In this article, Mohammed gave a lucidly explicit rundown on the personality of Lawal Daura and his excesses as the Director General, Department of State Service (DSS).
In fact, most of Mohammed’s observations were now common knowledge, except of course for two crucial questions that were purposefully supplied to serve as the concluding remarks to the write-up. In the first question Mohammed wondered, “How come it has taken three good years for President and his deputy to discover what bad influence Daura was in the administration that promised change with the intent to fight the ills of the society and to establish a new order that would place high premium on decency and decorum, good governance, rule of law, probity and accountability, fairness, equality and justice for all manner of men?”
The other question, which was used to wrap up Mohammed’s valid observations, is even more poignant. That is to say, “is Lawal Daura the only fall guy in the Buhari administration?” As you and I know very well from our experiences of this administration, Lawal Daura is certainly not “the only fall guy”. He couldn’t have been if the answer to the question should be pursued to its logical conclusion, which I doubt we want to do for obvious reasons. In Nigeria, authorities are always quick on the trigger, as they also quickly picked the broom to sweep their dirty linings under the carpet, especially when issues involved are considered unpalatable to them. I will come back to this question subsequently because that is where my interest lies.
But let’s take a look at the contentions of the online article written by Ann Mcgregor, footnoted somewhere at the bottom of the writing as an expert in global security intelligence. This was under the virtual auspices of news plus. News that was dated June 24, 2018. The article was titled “Leah Sharibu, Dapchi Five and Ransom Scam”, published even before the Vice President Osinbajo’s sledgehammer descended on Lawal Daura’s head. One can easily garner fresh insights from the manner in which the article succinctly lifted the curtain on the dirty dealings of the shadowy intelligence operations of old-fashioned spooks. Do not be surprised because that is said to be the standard practice in traditional operations of intelligence communities the world over.
Anyway, the grey matter that cannot be wished away from the revelations contained therein was in how Lawal Daura and another wheeler-dealer, a bigger fish from previous administrations, military and civilian, came down so low, and so cheap, to exploit an unfortunate situation for personal gains, for few miserable Euros which they have surreptitiously stashed away in nondescript Swiss accounts. The Dapchi kidnappings shouldn’t have been an issue to be exploited for personal gains by a whole Director General of DSS, if not for the choice of lowly characters that are given such sensitive appointments.
Persons that personalize such a critical office at the expense of the greater good of the State are in most cases incompetent. They are usually not the best of the pack to be chosen for appointments into exalted positions. But do we blame anybody other than Mr. President whose stamp of approval is clearly emblazoned on the appointment letters of such characters? This is not completely unexpected going by the way sentiment is allowed to becloud reason, to dictate propriety or lack of it in most appointments made into public offices in the country, not just the government of President Muhammadu Buhari. Are we then surprised that government is not performing well? You should, of course, expect this kind of result if, like Mr. President, you have decided to appoint people that are not worthy of appointments given to them.
Clear and unambiguous lapses noticed from the onset of this administration are one too many to recount in a breadth of an opinion article. Never mind the frustrating delays in Mr. President’s cabinet appointments, which generated lots of doubts on even the ability of Mr. President to deliver on his promises to the electorate. The biggest most persistent threat to Mr. President is that of the invisible powers behind the throne. For President Muhammadu Buhari, it was alleged that people like Malam Mamman Daura, his cousin, were solely responsible for all the mess that trailed the APC administration. Mamman Daura, a scion of northern establishment, a key member of the notorious Kaduna mafia, which is a collection of powerful Muslim elite from the nooks and crannies of northern Nigeria and a band of selfish individuals that could not see beyond their noses or their selfish interests, is overbearingly pop nosing in the affairs of Buhari’s administration. These members are elsewhere believed to be solely responsible for running the fortune of northern Nigeria aground in recent decades.
To the greatest undoing of Mr. President, nothing could be done in this government without the knowledge, blessing or endorsement of Daura, the senior, as his associates fondly call him. Worse of all, this man is not even a politician in the true sense of the word. Outside intrigues and power manipulation game, I don’t think this man knows how to mobilize voters for Mr. President. Moreover, he could not even understand the enormous sacrifices made by so many politicians to ensure that APC dislodged PDP government after sixteen years rule. Although other politicians share similar selfish traits in their own recommendations to Mr. President for key cabinet appointments, Mamman Daura has however outwitted them all perhaps with the active endorsement of his principal. Based on circumstantial evidence, we can comfortably conclude that the problem of Buhari’s administration can be traced to the meddling of Mamman Daura and his cohorts, a few powerful elements that formed an unhealthy ring around Aso Villa.
You may wish to recall that, as political observers of happenings in the corridors of power, we wouldn’t have known the extent of the mess in which President Muhammadu Buhari was plunged into without the public outcry of the first lady, Her Excellency Hajiya Aisha Buhari, particularly over the stronghold of those elements that were not allowing her husband to meet the expectations of the teeming Nigerians that elected him into his current position of power and authority. She would have loved to see things going smoothly for the President, but for the misleading pieces of advice given to him by the duo of Mamman Daura and Abba Kyari, and a whole coterie of foot soldiers they planted in strategic positions and key ministerial appointments on behalf of Mr. President.
Similarly, the spate of exposures and high stake politicking wouldn’t have been known to the public without the wave of defections of disgruntled APC politicians, a development that scares Mr. President and his handlers, who have not received good deals from the machinations of self-centered cabal nestling in the Villa that are taking them for granted as if they do not matter in the whole arrangement. Indeed, the action of the Vice President has come at a very good time. At least it has saved the much-bandied integrity of Mr. President from the shenanigans of people that Nigerians did not know or did not elect to represent them in any capacity whatsoever. And this Mr. President should put at the back of his mind as he embarks on a campaign trail across the nation. Nigerians cannot afford to have a second term in which they will encounter a repeat of the first term. If people are bitten once, it is said, they become twice shy.
In the type of politicking that is unfolding, the President has no option but to hearken to good counselling from well-meaning Nigerians. He cannot afford to continue business as usual with those shadowy characters that add no value to his office. Nigerians want action; Nigerians want results. They do not want excuses any more. Blaming the PDP for all the woes in Nigeria has its own limits. And from all indications, the nation has arrived at the limits of the blame game. Mr. President must brace up to face the enormous challenges of governance and multidimensional insecurity ahead of him, especially considering the underhand dealings by those he entrusted with the responsibility of securing the country. Otherwise, he would have himself to blame for the persistent state of security in many parts of the country.
