Family first, Nigeria last: How Buhari runs Nigeria

For President Muhammadu Buhari, natal relationships and the economic empowerment of family members matter.

He recently cautioned that nepotism, cronyism, political patronage, lack of transparency, and accountability are some of the issues that have exacerbated corruption in Nigeria’s civil service.

Speaking on October 21, at the maiden edition of the Nigeria Excellence Awards in Public Service in Abuja, Buhari said: “Public service is a public trust where officers and even employees must be accountable to the people whom they should serve at all times with utmost responsibility, integrity, loyalty, and efficiency. They are expected to act with patriotism and think out of the box in order to solve the many problems facing the people they lead.”

“At present,” he had added, “issues of corruption continue to affect the civil services in many countries around the world. Several reasons for these issues still exist because of deeply rooted problems like nepotism, cronyism, political patronage as well as lack of transparency and accountability. These vices distract them from delivering on their mandate and aspirations”.

While the President railed against nepotism and cronyism when necessary, he continued to traffic in the politics of familial favours and bureaucratic nepotism.

Buhari’s family members serve as the primary gatekeepers in his government.

His older nephew, Mamman Daura, is regarded as the major power broker in the administration – the ‘Capo’ of the President’s kitchen cabinet.

In July 2020, Daura argued that competence, not geography, should determine the next president of Nigeria in 2023.

“This turn-by-turn, it was done once, it was done twice, and it was done thrice… It is better for this country to be one…it should be for the most competent and not for someone who comes from somewhere,” he told the BBC Hausa Service in an interview.

In September 2022, Ahmed Halilu, elder brother to Aisha Buhari, the wife of the President, was appointed as managing director of Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company, the state-owned firm responsible for printing the nation’s banknotes and minting coins.

“Whether one calls it a cabal or a mafia or some kind of cult or whatever, there is a group of people who are wielding power within the Presidency under Buhari,” Junaid Mohammed, warned in 2016 about the pervading nepotism and unbridled cronyism that has since crystallised within Buhari’s administration.

The late second republic lawmaker had said: “Whatever you say it is, it is a lot worse. First, the most influential person in the Presidency today is one Mamman Daura, whom as you know, is a nephew of the President. His father was Buhari’s elder brother. In addition, Mamman Daura was the one who single-handedly brought up Abba Kyari, the current [now late] Chief of Staff to the President. In fact, Abba Kyari knows Mamman Daura more than he knows his own father. Next, the Personal Assistant to Buhari himself is the son of Mamman Daura, next is what they call SCOP, State Chief of Protocol, and is also a son-in-law to Mamman Daura because he is married to Mamman Daura’s daughter.

“Next, the minister they unilaterally chose, against the interest of the party and against the wishes of Sokoto people, happens to be the daughter of the younger sister of Mamman Daura’s wife. Both of them are daughters of Sultan Dasuki, who was sacked by General Abacha. We have the Aide De Camp to Buhari himself, Colonel Abubakar. He is married to the granddaughter of one of Buhari’s elder sisters. Next, we have the woman who represents Kaduna in the Federal Executive Council; she is a cousin to Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai. It is well known that el-Rufai is one of the closest governors to Muhammadu Buhari. Next, we have the Minister for the Federal Capital Territory. The Minister of the FCT is the man called Musa Bello, who used to be the managing director of the Northern Nigeria Development Corporation, which used to be the biggest holding company that belonged to all the northern states. His only qualification to be FCT minister is the fact that his father has been Buhari’s friend over the years.

“Now, there is a young man called Sabiu Yusuf, nicknamed Tunde – probably because of late General Tunde Idiagbon. He is another PA to President Buhari. He is also a grandson of another sister of Buhari. This is enough to prove to you that this is shamelessly the worst form of nepotism in the history of government in Nigeria. In fact, in the history of Africa, let me make bold to assert that I have never seen any level of nepotism that has equalled or surpassed this in my entire life – I am now in my 67th year. Another thing I also want you to know is that Amina Zakari, who was and still is a national commissioner in the Independent National Electoral Commission representing the entire seven states in the North-West. It is being claimed that Buhari knows nothing about her appointment (before he became President); it is a lie. When President Goodluck Jonathan was re-organising the INEC and he was bringing in Prof. Attahiru Jega, he reached out to Buhari and asked Buhari to nominate somebody from the North-West so that that person would be a national commissioner. Of all the people in the North-West, Buhari decided to nominate his own niece, the daughter of his elder sister – Amina Zakari. She has been there; when Jega left, Buhari was determined to make her chairman; it was because of the massive backlash that he dropped the idea like hot potatoes. As we are talking today, that woman is a national commissioner, which means she is one of the principal election umpires.

“Throughout my reading of history, political science and social sciences generally, I have never heard of any dictator or any tyrant under any system of government whether totalitarian or fascist, appointing his own niece to conduct elections in which he was either a party or going to be a party to; Buhari has done that. The immediate younger brother to Amina Zakari is currently the Minister for Water Resources representing Jigawa State in the same Buhari government.

In addition, even though they are from Kazaure, Kazaure is contiguous to Daura. The eldest sister of both of them is now the Commissioner for Education in the All Progressives Congress government in Jigawa State. If this is not nepotism, then I don’t know what is nepotism and anybody who has the guts, the brutal arrogance to appoint these relations not bothering about public opinion, about the sense of justice, about competence, then you can see that he has a very serious question to answer.”

Investigations show that many relatives of the President currently occupy top positions within his government. Many more had served between 2015 and 2019.

Read also: 2023: Buhari’s failures as biggest threat to Tinubu’s ambition

Junaid Abdullahi, a pilot married to Zulaihat, the President’s first daughter who passed on in November 2012, is the Executive Secretary of the Border Communities Development Agency. The agency is renowned within government circles for awarding tens of billions of naira worth of contracts every year with little impact on enhancing infrastructures in communities around Nigeria’s borders.

While Sabiu Yusuf, also known as Tunde, who is regarded as one of the most powerful and most wealthy men in government, serves as Buhari’s personal assistant and principal private secretary, his father-in-law, Bashir Jamoh, was appointed director-general of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency a few months after he gave out his daughter in marriage to Tunde.

Dauda Zeze Habu, Musa Haro and Hamisu Haro, all nephews of Buhari, serve as his personal assistants and receive salaries and emoluments as public servants.

Buhari’s chief personal security officer, Abdukarim Dauda, is also his nephew. Dauda is a younger brother to the influential Daura, who is regarded by some as the de facto president of Nigeria.

Watchers of the Buhari administration believe that those with a family connection to the President or marital connection with his close relatives are responsible for directing the affairs of government, including many institutions.

The personal nature of Buhari’s decision-making on economic, social and political matters as well as appointments into critical institutions such as the military and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company are some of the reasons that his administration is widely considered one of the most corrupt in the country’s history.

Nepotism and corruption are two sides of the same coin. Favouring relatives on the basis of family ties, which more precisely means nepotism, is a form of corruption that threatens the main components of states since it is a phenomenon that poses a real threat to the stability of social, cultural, and economic security in society due to the absence of standards of justice and equality therein.

Nigeria is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and despite Buhari’s vows to end it and his persistent, yet false statements about reducing corruption in the country, the consensus of most Nigerians and international institutions such as Transparency International, is that Nigeria is making little progress in ending the practice.

Buhari’s failure to end corruption, and the outcomes of the incompetence that his nepotism fosters continue to affect Nigerians and the nation’s socio-economy lethally.