http://www.tellng.com/contentdisplay.aspx?page_id=10&id=93

A Tale of Two Presidents
By ANAYOCHUKWU AGBO

President Umaru Yar`Adua looks like the innocent flower, but some of those close enough suggest he is the legendary still water that runs deep. Despite his protracted illness, he still radiates certain benevolence that attracts love and empathy. His benign countenance and halting sincerity won him the trust of the militants in the Niger Delta who have had a serial distrust for the nation`s political leaders. As a lecturer in the Department of Chemistry at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State, between 1976 and 1983 he was known for his free-thinking and Marxist inclinations. An introvert and a man of thought, his elder brother, Shehu, a retired general who died in detention under the late military dictator Sani Abacha`s government, easily overshadowed him in the political landscape. A man of action and a political demagogue the elder and richer Yar`Adua built the political machinery that eventually catapulted Olusegun Obasanjo to power for the second time as President and Umaru as governor of Katsina State in 1999. Perhaps in gratitude to the departed Shehu, Obasanjo made his younger brother, Umaru, president in 2007.
As the governor of Katsina State, Yar`Adua was said to be a good custodian of the treasury as he was rated the most prudent governor among the 36 states of the federation in 2007, which aided his choice as Obasanjo`s successor. Though he was drafted into the race for the presidency, sources say Yar`Adua, contrary to public assumption that he is ready to resign due to his protracted illness, is not willing to give up the coveted seat. He carefully surrounded himself with loyalists who owe him allegiance rather than the nation so that they would cover his weaknesses and illness.
The success or failure of leaders is attributed to the wealth of people around them. Yar`Adua`s courtyard is principally made up of two groups: the inner caucus and the outside caucus. Turai, wife of the President, is the commander and leader of the inner group. She is Nigeria`s unelected co-president, or in fact, the de facto president while Yar`Adua is the legal or de jure president. While Yar`Adua is the symbol of power, Turai holds and wields the levers of power as she pleases. The power she wields derives not from the fact that she is just the President`s wife. Turai is also the President`s chief nurse. It is Turai who knows and administers all Yar`Adua`s drugs. That puts her in a strategic position, which she has exploited to her own benefit. First, she determines how well the President is feeling. What this means is that her peculiar position as nurse gives her the right to dictate certain things to the President.
More telling is the impact her role as nurse has on others as well as the way power is structured. Her position also enables her to dictate when the President is well enough to see anybody, and, by extension, who he sees. Thus, like Al Mustapha under Abacha, she, along with the likes of Abba Ruma, minister of agriculture and natural resources and Tanimu Yakubu, chief economic adviser to the President, has been able to shield him from officials of government, ministers and so on. [b]When ministers want to see Yar`Adua, they first see Turai who tells them that the President is not available and asks them to leave the files they want treated. When they do this Turai allegedly goes through the files and if she is interested in the matter she advises the President on the cause of action to take, she then calls the minister or official and dictates exactly what she wants done. Babagana Kingibe`s problem with the Aso Rock clique started like that when he refused to leave files behind for Turai to pass on to the President. Kingibe, former secretary to the government of the federation,SGF, woke up early to the woman`s tricks.
Now because she had positioned herself between government officials she is able to manipulate the process of governance and act as the President`s voice. Ministers were hardly ever allowed to see the President and it got to a point that it was Turai who always passed down decisions to them.
More than Yar`Adua himself, Turai is the most feared person in the government because she is able to influence who gets appointments and who gets fired. In the area of appointments Turai holds sway. She holds court in the Villa over every appointment and she is the one to see when you need any job in government. She is said to have influenced the appointment of some ministers and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation`s group managing director.
She relishes that position and uses it to great advantage. At the launch of her cancer centre, she was said to have personally called all the governors to inform them how much she wanted them to donate. When she met with her aides who were working on the project and told them how much she demanded they told her it was too much. She told them that she was sure they would pay.
There is also the report that once in the early days of her husband`s administration, Obasanjo called Yar`Adua on the phone. In the room were Yar`Adua, Turai and a few others. As the phone rang, Turai picked the phone and told the caller that the President was not available. And she dropped the phone angrily. The person called again. Again Turai picked the call and went through the same ritual. The third time as the phone rang, Yar`Adua asked his wife who was calling and she said it was the former President. Yar`Adua quickly picked the call apologising to him for the wife`s attitude. [/b]
She is closely followed by Yakubu. Other members are: Ruma and Yusufu Tilde, Yar`Adua`s chief security officer, CSO, who was a former state director of the State Security Service, SSS, in Katsina State when Yar`Adua was governor. Yakubu came in as deputy chief of staff, ostensibly to understudy Abdulahi Muhammed, a retired general who served under Obasanjo as chief of staff and was retained by Yar`Adua, with a view to take over from him as chief of staff eventually. Yakubu shot himself in the leg when he allegedly influenced the return of the Vaswani brothers to Nigeria, which turned out a big embarrassment to the country. They were accused of corruption and tax evasion and deported by the Obasanjo government. But he bounced back as economic adviser to the surprise of people who thought he was finished. He was Yar`Adua`s commissioner for finance in Katsina State and the treasurer of his campaign organisation in 2007. He was also a former member of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, FMGN, and the bank, alleged insiders, went under during his tenure due to mismanagement. He schooled in Russia when Russia operated a closed economy and is seen by financial experts as a curious choice as economic adviser in a Nigeria operating the western economic model, with its emphasis on free market economy. He is at present facilitating the Russian incursion into the oil and gas sector in Nigeria. The romance with Russia and China is seen as a retaliatory economic diplomacy against the United States of America and Britain for not seen to be supporting Yar`Adua.
Ruma was a secretary to the Katsina State, when Yar`Adua was governor. He was later nominated as a federal minister and served as a minister of state in the ministry of education. He later became the minister of education. He was also a ranking member of Yar`Adua`s presidential campaign organisation. He is being groomed to replace Ibrahim Shema as Katsina State governor. He was assigned the lucrative and strategic ministry of agriculture and natural resources which is said to be one of the cash cows of the pro-Yar`Adua group.
Tilde, as the CSO to the President and an SSS officer, it is his duty to provide daily briefing to the director general of SSS, Afakriya Gadzam, who would in turn brief the Vice President and the federal executive council. Sources revealed that Tilde has stopped reporting back to his director general since the President was evacuated to Saudi Arabia on a medical emergency on November 23, 2009. At a recent security meeting in Aso Rock Villa, chaired by Goodluck Jonathan, Vice President, Gadzam was said to have been unable to provide an update on the health of the President when requested to do so, and when reprimanded he allegedly regretted that the CSO has cut off totally from him. Under normal circumstance he should recall Tilde and post a more competent officer but because of the fear of the Kingibe treatment when the President returns, nobody is ready to dare Turai and assert his powers. It is believed that with Tilde`s attitude he may have decided to sink or swim with the Yar`Adua family. A serving lieutenant colonel in the Nigerian Army, identified to be Yar`Adua`s younger brother is alleged to be the fifth person who is an insider in the Yar`Adua health charade. He is strongly alleged to be with the President in Saudi Arabia. Though he is serving in Abuja, he is not known to have been officially posted to the Presidency. TELL could not confirm this as at press time last week because the director of defence information was unavailable for a response. Adamu Aliero, minister of the Federal Capital Territory. FCT, is also a member of this group and is alleged to be leading the financial drive of the group to retain the Presidency in 2011, with or without Yar`Adua.
The inner circle operates the second group of gladiators who do not have a direct access to the President and depends on the news-feed from Saudi Arabia and instructions from the first group. Both groups collaborate to protect the Yar`Adua political dynasty. The second group include: a top military brass, Mansur Muktar, minister of finance, Yayale Ahmed, SGF, Abdulahi Sarki Muktar, a retired brigadier general and national security adviser, NSA and Bukola Saraki, governor of Kwara State and leader of the Governors Forum. The NSA who is supposed to co-ordinate the security agencies has been rendered redundant at present in the Aso Villa. Rilwan Lukman is a member of this group but is inactive on account of his age. The two groups are united by one purpose – the protection of the Yar`Adua political dynasty which is being repackaged as the northern interest to mislead the North.
James Ibori, former governor of Delta State who allegedly financed Yar`Adua`s election in 2007, is the only member of the group from the southern part of the country, underscoring the accusation of nepotism that Yar`Adua has been accused of. Ibori would have been a member of the cabinet if not for the corruption trial both at home and in the United Kingdom. The principal secretary to the President, David Edevbie, is Ibori`s nominee. Edevbie is, however, an outsider in the kitchen cabinet headed by Turai and managed by Yakubu. When he carries important files to the President he is usually asked to go and come back later to pick up the files; he is never sure of who treats the files. Michael Aondoakaa, attorney general of the federation and minister of justice is also a member of the second group.
These two groups support the President`s decision never to hand over to the Vice President as required by the Constitution whenever he is away from the country. Fully aware that it is a constitutional breach they feel it is a lesser evil than the consequences of compliance with Constitution. And it is all about preserving group and individual interests rather than national interests. Facts emerging from those who had worked with Yar`Adua suggest that the President`s benevolent exterior harbours within a very ambitious man complemented by an inordinately ambitious wife.
Why does the President hold on to power, even when he is ailing seriously? Apart from his love for power there are some other important reasons. At the spiritual level, marabouts, Muslim diviners had allegedly warned him to beware of Jonathan; that once power gets into his hand it is his destiny to keep it. If he was allowed to choose his Vice President, Yar`Adua would not have chosen Jonathan who had won the party primary to contest the 2007 governorship election in Bayelsa State after serving out the term of Diepreye Alamieyesiagha who was impeached for corruption and later charged to court by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and convicted for money laundering. To his advantage, Jonathan is an Ijaw, the most vociferous group in the Niger Delta who the federal government wanted to appease to get the breathing space to continue to drill crude oil and gas in the Niger Delta. He is also not ambitious as shown when he was deputy governor of Bayelsa State. He has a PhD and is a team player.
Jonathan and Yar`Adua took different paths to Aso Rock. While Jonathan went for a three-week course on leadership and governance to selected institutions in the U.S and United Kingdom, sponsored by the Ford Foundation, Yar`Adua is not known to have updated his knowledge to step up to the challenges of democracy. In power, the duo manifests different attitudes to governance. While the President`s kitchen cabinet shows a tribal hegemony, the Vice President`s staff is a blend of the six geo-political zones. The President`s kitchen cabinet points at the power arrangement around Jonathan as a proof that he is ambitious. They fear that once power is in his hands he will outperform the President and Nigerians who are hungry for a performer might clamour that he should continue as president despite the power shift arrangement in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. Illogical as this appears, some in the North believe this suggestion. Though the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, the northern apex socio-cultural organisation, publicly insists that the Constitution be followed and Jonathan be allowed to run the country as acting president, or president if Yar`Adua cannot continue, some individual opinions reinforce the fear of losing the presidency.
Some worry about religious imbalance. They say the Senate President, David Mark, and Jonathan are Christians. They conveniently forget that Dimeji Bankole, Speaker of the House of Representatives, is a Muslim and any incoming vice president is most likely to be a Muslim. Another reason is the morbid fear that Nuhu Ribadu, former chairman of the EFCC, now on self-exile and recently declared wanted by the Police, might make a return under Jonathan and continue the war against corruption. Ribadu is alleged to be one of the hawks in Obasanjo`s government that endorsed Jonathan in 2007. The corrupt people who aided Yar`Adua to the throne are afraid that Ribadu will resume the anti-corruption war if Jonathan is allowed to become president. According to them, Jonathan may not necessarily bring Ribadu back to the EFCC, or the Police Force, but could draft him to the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission, ICPC, whose chairman, Justice Emmanuel Ayoola, is about to retire. He could also be sent to head the ministry of police affairs, or a special position created for him to monitor governance and corruption. As it is, the magazine did not find any proof that the Vice President is in touch with Ribadu, or has any designs to give him any job if he becomes president. However, some sources allege that Turai believes that Ribadu will come after her if he gets any opportunity to do so and that Jonathan might give him the opportunity to do so. It is alleged that more looting has occurred in Yar`Adua`s two and a half years old government than in Obasanjo`s eight years in power because of the President`s inability to directly hold his appointees accountable for their actions.
The probability that Jonathan will retire in 2011, if he completes Yar`Adua`s tenure, worsens his case with Yar`Adua`s group. They fear that this makes it more dangerous as he will rule without fear or favour. For them, 18 months is more than enough time for Jonathan to uproot them, lay a new foundation and conduct a free and fair election. They say that Jonathan has no godfather, as it is, that can call him to order if he goes on the rampage.
His relationship with Obasanjo is also seen as a threat. The North is united by their hatred for the former President who some allege dislodged the North from power. They fear that Jonathan will pander to Obasanjo if he becomes president. He may also continue with Obasanjo`s policies targeted to make government positions less profitable. The Yar`Adua loyalists are worried that the President is not yet in control of the PDP party machinery and that should Yar`Adua hand over to Jonathan now, power would swing back to Obasanjo who is still the chairman of the party`s Board of Trustees, BOT.
It is also feared that Jonathan might insist on picking his own team, despite all the pressure that will be put on him. The President`s kitchen cabinet fears that the first thing Jonathan will do is to dissolve the cabinet and dislodge them from power. Even as an acting president he has the power to remove any minister or any other government functionary from office; the President can recall the person, when he returns if he deems it fit. One of the areas they fear Jonathan might open the Pandora`s Box is NNPC.
There is also the fear that Jonathan might stop the bank reforms currently championed by Lamido Sanusi, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN. The reforms have led to the loss of over 10,000 jobs, the near total collapse of the Nigerian Stock Exchange and almost wiped out credit to the private sector. Sanusi`s mandate of take over of the banks is about to enter the crucial stage and it is believed that as an acting president, Jonathan might decide to halt some aspects of the reform, especially as it relates to the sale of the banks to `foreign investors` when the shareholders are willing and able to recapitalise the banks.
Some actions taken by the clique confirm the allegation of intentionally preventing the Vice President from becoming an acting president. For instance, they got the President to sign the supplementary budget and two other releases but not the letter to the National Assembly that will make the Vice President acting president. They also got Yar`Adua, the President of Nigeria to speak to the BBC, not NTA, Radio Nigeria or Voice of Nigeria, but did not consider the letter to the National Assembly a necessity for the reasons explored above. Yakubu was said to have arranged the BBC phone call and personally assumed the job of the minister of information and communications by sending out text messages to government functionaries to expect the programme. One of such texts seen by the magazine reads: “Please, listen to President Umaru Yar`Adua this morning speak on BBC English and Hausa Services at 5am and 5.30am respectively. TY.” The choice of BBC is considered curious given Yar`Adua`s aversion for the western world, but it further underscores the poverty of his courtyard that did not know that it amounts to disregard for the people over which he is their president. It is not possible for the president of any other country of the world after 50 days in the hospital to choose a foreign media to speak to his people.
The groups are bent on continuing with their manipulation and power game for as long as the President remains on his sick bed. The fluid situation affords them the opportunity of playing the carpetbagger individually and collectively. To them their selfish interests come before national interest. That is the dilemma the country faces against the backdrop of a National Assembly which is a stranger to patriotism, and thus cannot take the right step against Yar`Adua who has by his continued absence from the country breached the 1999 Constitution.
Additional reports by DAYO AIYETAN and TAJUDEEN SULEIMAN

why not bold the necessary sentences for easy reading and understanding.

^{I so hate Ctrl C and V}

desgiezd:

When ministers want to see Yar`Adua, they first see Turai who tells them that the President is not available and asks them to leave the files they want treated. When they do this Turai allegedly goes through the files and if she is interested in the matter she advises the President on the cause of action to take, she then calls the minister or official and dictates exactly what she wants done.

Ministers were hardly ever allowed to see the President and it got to a point that it was Turai who always passed down decisions to them.
More than Yar`Adua himself, Turai is the most feared person in the government

Wonders shall never cease, little wonder the government is so floppy?

I wonder what we will call dis country, This people are ruling this country as if its their private business, God pls help us

It will never work, give it 2 weeks and either Yar'Adua will be declared dead or pictures of his corpse/vegatative status will surface.

This cannot be kept under 'raps'for much longer - If he (Yar'Adua) appears tomorrow then he would have somehow ressurected from the dead and he'll receieve a 'sainthood' from the vatican.

http://www.tellng.com/contentdisplay.aspx?page_id=10&id=96

Her Imperial Majesty

By DAYO AIYETAN
For discerning persons who know how the Yar’Adua administration has worked since inception, the controversy that Vice President Goodluck Jonathan called Turai Yar’Adua, the first lady, to get directives on performing the duties of the president is really no news. With the structure at the seat of power in Abuja, it would not have been surprising to Aso Rock insiders that Jonathan called Turai to intimate her of political developments. A few weeks ago, the Federal High Court, Abuja ruled that the vice president could perform the duties of the president in the latter’s absence. Controversy broke out in the media when it was reported that rather than follow the ruling, the vice president was awaiting the reaction of President Umaru Yar’Adua or his wife. Specifically, Jonathan was said to have telephoned the first lady to intimate her of the ruling by Justice Dan Abutu and ask for directives on what to do. However, the vice president in a statement signed by Ima Niboro, special assistant on media, denied calling the first lady to take directives. Stating that Jonathan last spoke to Turai on January 5, after he had spoken to Yar’Adua, the statement declared that the vice president was not indecisive but was in charge and able to discharge the responsibilities of the office of president without seeking instructions from anyone.  [b]But Turai, in the power structure in the presidency has before now been one who has always called the shots. Her authority and hold on the levers of power have not even diminished by her absence due to her husband’s illness. Turai has always been the power behind Yar’Adua — in the home, when he was governor and now, that he is president. An incident of many years ago perhaps best dramatises the power that Turai has always wielded in the president’s life and work. The words, words of wisdom as it turned out, were sown over two decades ago. But they have germinated in the pregnant belly of time and have finally been born in the political events that currently haunt Nigeria. In 1991, Umaru Yar’Adua, then somewhat a political neophyte, aspired to contest in the governorship race in Katsina State. Ordinarily, the election would have been a walk over. After all, his elder brother, Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, a retired major general, was one of the most influential men in the Social Democratic Party, SDP, and the strongest political force in the state. But the older Yar’Adua would not support his brother. In fact, he was reported to have given tacit support to his brother’s opponent, Saidu Barda, candidate of the National Republican Convention, NRC. When SDP stalwarts went to the retired general to appeal to him to change his mind he reportedly asked them whom they wanted to put in Government House, Katsina; Umaru or Turai, his wife?

For some of those present that day, the retired general’s words are proving uncannily prescient. And anyone of them still alive today would wonder at how prophetic those words have become not only for Yar’Adua and his wife, but also for Nigeria. For, those prophetic words, few as they were, provide a simultaneous psychoanalysis of both Yar’Adua and his wife. For Yar’Adua, the brother, who was actually like a father, was providing an invaluable insight into the persona of the man who, finally in 1999, would become governor of Katsina State, and in whose hands fate would in 2007 thrust the responsibility of ruling Nigeria, the most populous black country in the world. It speaks volumes that the older Yar’Adua did not have confidence that his brother could with much independence rule his state in 1991 and that a vote for him would be a vote for his wife. It was a vote of no confidence on Yar’Adua by someone who knew him intimately, perhaps, more than anybody alive at that time. Some would interpret this lack of confidence to mean that Yar’Adua is probably someone without a mind of his own or someone who would allow his wife to rule him. Many of Yar’Adua’s critics say these traits, this seeming inability to take firm decisions on his own, have been the hallmark of his time as governor of Katsina State and President of Nigeria. [/b] In the case of Turai, the senior Yar’Adua’s misgivings readily paint a picture of an ambitious and overbearing wife, a woman who naturally loves to dominate her environment. How true this portraiture has turned out to be for Turai in her time at the Government House, Katsina and now at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa where she holds court as first lady? Those who know Turai well describe her as a naturally assertive, sententious and overbearing person who likes to dominate and control any environment where she operates — her home, family, and now, as first lady, the seat of power. But perhaps it is circumstances and the environment that have shaped the character that the first lady has turned out to be. After all, she has come virtually from grass to grace from being the wife of a struggling lecturer to first being a governor’s wife and then Nigeria’s first lady. Perhaps, this transportation from the valley of life to the dizzying heights of political power in a country like Nigeria, where power can absolutely intoxicate and corrupt, has been too much for the humble mind of this graduate of education and has thus, turned her into the lioness that she is today!
No. [b]Turai is naturally a domineering person who not just loves power but is wielding it and letting all around know where it lies. An intelligent and calculating woman, she has only exploited the circumstances of her life to strengthen her natural instincts. Before she ever tasted political power, she exhibited her natural penchant to rule her environment, a situation that has estranged her from the larger Yar’Adua family. First she is believed to have sent her husband’s other wife packing. And the other members of the family who encouraged her husband to marry another have become lifelong enemies. Today, as first lady, she is believed to be partly responsible for the alleged estrangement of the president from the larger Yar’Adua family. Interestingly, in an ironic twist that amplifies Turai’s selfish streak and bizarre love of power, the same woman who would not allow her husband, a Muslim, the pleasure of having a second wife, has conveniently undertaken the task of giving out her young daughters away as second and third wives to rich, powerful but much older men. In fact the last daughter to be given out in marriage was already betrothed to someone else, a big businessman in the oil industry before the first lady married her off to another state governor. For Turai, matrimonial bliss lies in wealth and power[/b]. Apparently it is more important that her daughters be married to powerful governors who would be able to sustain the first family’s aristocratic heritage. In the first lady’s thinking, she must imagine that in case her husband cannot continue as president, she can still somehow, however remotely, remain politically relevant, and even possibly continue to hold some lever of power through her daughter’s marriage to men in political authority.
It is the same kind of domineering role that she has brought to Aso Rock, the seat of power. At the Presidential Villa, Turai has brought a new meaning and definition to the office of first lady, an office not recognised by the constitution. At a mundane level, she has her own office with a full complement of staff, including secretarial, protocol and security personnel. She has her own convoy of cars.  But at a more telling level, Turai wields enormous, almost unassailably limitless, power in the presidency. It is not an exaggeration to say that Turai is the most feared person in Aso Rock, much more than the president himself. A strategic thinker, the first lady has positioned herself in such a way that she virtually rules Nigeria. Some say that there are certain things about the running of the country the full details of which the president does not have but which are in the first lady’s palms. What the ambitious, and some say, rather assertive, first lady has done is to exploit both Yar'Adua’s weaknesses and sickness to catapult herself into the position of a shadow president of Nigeria. First, she understands the weakness of her husband’s natural deliberateness in taking decisions and his apparent slowness to act and the danger it poses in the power equation in Aso Rock. In the early days, other people in the Yar’Adua administration noticed this power lacuna and tried to exploit it by creating power blocs for themselves. Thus was born a clique comprising the likes of Abba Ruma, minister for agriculture and water resources; Tanimu Yakubu, the national economic adviser; Yayale Ahmed, secretary to the government of the federation, SGF, and initially, in the early days, Babagana Kingibe, former SGF. However, Turai soon showed everybody who held the lever of power.  And she was in a very strategic position to do so. For the often ill Yar’Adua, the role the first lady plays as the president’s permanent nurse thrusts upon her a rare opportunity to occupy the center stage in the power equation at the villa. She administers the president’s drugs, determines when he has put in enough work hours for the day, and so should take a rest, the time when the president should retire to bed. After all he is her husband. Then at daybreak, it has always been the decision of madam, when the president would be available for a new day’s duties. Soon Turai was, in this position, able to determine when Yar’Adua saw people and the people who got to see him. She went further to determining which official files the president treated. Former ministers in Yar’Adua’s cabinet have shared with the magazine their frustration about the way Turai interfered in their official duties. Ministers who wanted to see the president were “fenced” by the first lady who then took over official files and, they suspect, influenced what her husband did with them. The magazine learnt that more than anything else, what hastened the exit of Lieutenant General Abdulahi Mohammed, former chief of staff under President Olusegun Obasanjo who was retained by Yar’Adua, was the interference by Turai in official matters. Mohammed who played a strategic stabilising role in the Obasanjo government had free access to the president and his advice was well respected. But with Yar’Adua, the situation changed as Turai was carrying out some of his duties. Or in other cases, Mohammed allegedly had to hold meetings or discuss with Turai, official matters, before seeing the president.  Within a few months, Mohammed was fed up and wanted out but was prevailed upon by a prominent Nigerian to stay a while to help stabilise the new administration. The experience of Kingibe was not too different. Kingibe, as secretary to the government, ran the engine room of the government as his office saw to the implementation of government policies. But Turai soon started to look through files from the SGF meant for the president. Initially, Kingibe left files for Turai to pass on to the president but when he observed that the first lady was being deliberately manipulative, he demurred and stopped leaving files in her care. That some insist was probably the last straw for him in the power game in the administration and he was soon on his way out. Turai equally enjoys peddling the influence of her office to the fullest. Before the president’s latest sickness and evacuation for treatment in Saudi Arabia, when it came to the issue of juicy federal appointments, Turai was the person to see.  She is known to have influenced the appointment of at least three ministers. One of them, from the South-west, had approached the first lady expressing interest in a particular ministry where somebody else’s name had been penciled down. Turai assured him of her support and only told him to ensure that he carried his party at the state level along. Once his name came from the state, the first lady ensured that he got the ministry he wanted. Turai is also said to be instrumental in the appointment of a minister who holds a strategic ministry. The minister from the North is said to have given one of the daughters of the first family a huge monetary gift, when the daughter was getting married. Impressed by the largesse, and perhaps to show appreciation, when shortly after, the president wanted to make changes in his cabinet, Turai asked the man if he would like to be a minister and which ministry he would like to man. The man told her he was interested and went ahead to name his choice ministry. He was appointed.  Because of the power Turai wielded, many people also thought she could swing virtually anything, even tasks that were clearly beyond the president. For example, when a former governor had his election challenged in court, rather than trust the courts, he, in desperation, allegedly sought the help of the first lady. A reliable source told the magazine that Turai assured him that she would help intervene in the matter. The source said that in order to oil the wheel of the matter for the favorable ruling, the ex-governor coughed out a huge sum of money. However, the former governor lost his seat. When he went to see Turai to find out what happened, she was said to have casually explained that things did not work out the way she planned it. And she casually told the stupefied former governor that she would ask the president to find him a position in the government.    But there are other ways by which Turai peddles her influence. First, she is said to dictate who some juicy contracts go to. In turn she is well appreciated by the successful winner. On the other hand, there are those who suspect that contracts influenced by the first lady may have been won by fronts. Perhaps, that suspicion is enhanced by the fact that she is said to be very brazen in getting any contract she wants. No matter what the process required is to get such contracts, the first lady just calls up the minister in charge of the ministry, department or agency, MDA, and expresses her interest. And her love for huge contracts is said to be insatiable. She is believed to have sponsored people for contracts in the ministry of agriculture, particularly rice, silos construction and fertilizer purchase contracts. A minister, miffed by Turai’s overbearing demands for contracts once complained to a source to the magazine that “the first lady is too greedy and wants to dictate all the big contracts in my ministry”. There are other ministers and senior government officials who are tired of the first lady’s manipulative ways. Others are equally concerned. A top Nigerian, a statesman once had cause to cautiously express concern to President Yar’Adua that he learned that the first lady was virtually running the presidency. Yar'Adua’s defense was that the only reason why people say Turai is the one running the Villa is because he was not quarrelling with his wife openly.  So enormous and gripping is Turai’s hold on the levers of power and authority that even with her absence from Aso Rock due to the president’s sickness and admission to a Saudi hospital, she continues to call some shots. In fact, the near crisis that Nigeria has been thrown in the last two months of the president’s absence from office has been virtually orchestrated by Turai in far-away Saudi Arabia. And rather than easing her influence and stranglehold on governance, being held up in Saudi Arabia, at her husband’s bedside has actually amplified her influence and strengthened her hold firmly on things back home.  First, the foundation for the near chaos was laid when Yar’Adua was unceremoniously flown to Saudi Arabia on November 23, 2009 without duly handing over to Vice President Goodluck Jonathan. Constitutionally, to prevent a power vacuum, whenever the president knows that he would be away from his duties for a period, he should hand over to the vice president who would act as president. Also, the president failed to transmit to the National Assembly the fact of his trip for medical attention and absence from duty as required by the constitution. Taking off without doing these many things that needed presidential attention such as signing of the supplementary budget and swearing in of Justice Aloysius Kastina-Alu as the chief justice of Nigeria, CJN, raised controversies.  Beyond the issue of properly handing over, the information about the true state of the president’s health condition has been terribly manipulated that for a long time even the vice president and cabinet ministers could not say exactly what the truth was about Yar’Adua’s health. In fact, in Abuja, the capital city, the situation was so bad that ministers were asking journalists for details of the president’s health. In the early days of Yar’Adua’s trip to Saudi Arabia, and with the unclear picture of things and the way the information was being guarded like a state secret, many ministers refused to take calls from cabinet colleagues for fear that discussions may dovetail into inquiries about the ill-health of the president.  Turai’s skills have actually found greater expression at this time. First, she limited the number of people who knew anything about the president’s true health situation to just a handful of people she could trust or manipulate. In fact, apart from the president’s aide-de-camp and chief security detail who by security protocol always stays with him, the only persons that Turai communicated with in official circles for a few days about the president’s health were Ruma and Yakubu. While speculations and rumours walked on all fours in the nation’s streets with people becoming agitated about their president’s health, the first lady kept mum. Not even the vice president, the Senate president or the Speaker of the House of Representatives were informed of the true situation of things. Worse still when some state governors, including Bukola Saraki and Isa Yuguda of Kwara and Bauchi states respectively, went to Saudi Arabia to see things for themselves, they were denied access to him. Bukola has gone to Saudi Arabia twice now without being allowed to see Yar’Adua. That is in spite of the fact that he is very close to the president and is also a medical doctor.  But why is Turai doing all these? Why is she so scared of her sick husband letting go of power? Or as Ene Ede, coordinator of the Feminist Movement of Nigeria puts it in an interview with NEXT newspapers why would Turai not ask or allow her husband to resign, or “say to her husband, you have made history and another person can start from here?” Apparently, for Turai, enjoyment of power and all the benefits it brings appear to many to be more important than her husband’s health or, indeed, that of the whole nation. A politician said cynically that Turai would rather her husband die in office than willingly allow him to resign from office. In fact, some others say that she actually expressed such sentiments when a delegation of women from the North visited her sometime ago and suggested that the president resign to deal with his health. Turai reportedly retorted that he would not be the first leader to die in office, citing or apparently referring to Generals Murtala Mohammed and Sani Abacha, both former military heads of state. But there is also a deeper psychosomatic dimension to Turai’s latter-day persona, which might be rooted in the dynamics of social relations in the extended Yar’Adua family. Some who know Turai well say that she will do anything for herself, husband and children. She is said to love her husband to a fault and her seeming high-handedness derives from a deep-rooted desire to protect her husband, particularly since his sickness began many years ago. Turai might be in denial and wants every other person to join her in believing that her husband is okay. Anyone that says otherwise immediately becomes an enemy. It is the same kind of attitude that has reportedly informed her treatment of the Yar’Adua family. Turai is said to have a deep-rooted grouse with the larger family because of the perceived rejection of her husband in the past. The retired general and many other members of the family had been miffed by the fact that in the past, Yar’Adua allegedly ran aground three of the family businesses given to him to manage — a farm, carpet factory and the company that published The Reporter newspapers. Many in the family therefore did not take Yar’Adua serious after that. Perhaps, reacting to that, after they came into power, no member of the larger family enjoys the pleasures of getting close to the first family. In fact to rub it in, the first lady’s attitude is that God has rewarded her husband, the rejected stone of the family, with the same position he denied the older Yar’Adua.  No matter how Turai acts as she does, the reality today is that her husband’s continued stay in office has caused some confusion not only in the country but deep division among the political class, even in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. Interestingly, this first lady who has succeeded in virtually holding the nation to ransom has absolutely no role to play under the constitution. But in a democracy, ruled by a constitution, Turai has succeeded in creating such a powerful role for the first lady that not even her predecessors under the military ever envisaged. The effect has been for the nation a not too pleasant experience.

Nice but long write up.
This is the first time i'm reading such a writeup on NL to the end
This Lady is a Psycophat.
God help us

whoa! that was insightful.  I wonder how close to the truth this write up is?  Mehn! the Yaradua family is one poisonous manipulative self serving bunch, i hope karma catches up to them.

Turai is our version of Sarah Palin.

i have always felt that jonathan goodluck might actually be what Nigeria needs at this trying times
someone who has no Godfather,and is actually educated(PH.d)

like the article says,he might want to conduct a free and fair election come 2011 and some ppl are afraid of that
just like he just did in edo state recently. .

i think this whole impasse boils down to ego. . .
turai would rather yar adua dies in office,than relinquish power
because that would be embarrasing to her. . .

others are afraid that goodluck would be a better president and would outshine yaradua. . ,
and it shows already with the way he is handling himself in this matter. . .

well all i will say is that,human beings sometimes dont know when to leave the stage
we have seen it again and again. . .from michael jordan to michael jackson. .
ppl just cant go when they should. . but time always catches up to them. .

lets hope for yar aduas sake(and nigerias by the way),that time does what it needs to do quickly