When President Goodluck Jonathan took over the mantle of leadership after the death of his predecessor, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, he decided to return to having a Chief of Staff (CoS) along with a Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF).
Jonathan’s first CoS was Mike Oghiadomhe. Mike was a former deputy to Edo State Governor Lucky Igbinedion for the first two terms of the 3rd Republic. In 2007, President Yar’Adua named Mike deputy chief of staff to Vice-President Jonathan. When, after a year, Yar’Adua decided to abolish the CoS office, Mike took on the role of the vice president’s principal secretary.
I guess Mike Oghiadomhe must have had a hard time asserting his place in the pecking order of President Jonathan’s cabinet not out of anything but because the SGF of the time was the indomitable Anyim Pius Anyim.
Before taking up the post of SGF in President Jonathan’s cabinet, Anyim had earlier served as Senate President from 2000-2003. He is a larger-than-life figure, both figuratively and all else. He dominated the Senate completely and made it impossible for Olusegun Obasanjo, the reigning president to twiddle them around. He fought President Obasanjo to a standstill up till the end of the life of the Senate. Besides, Anyim also had turf control differences with the governor of his home state of Ebonyi, Martin Elechi. They never reconciled till the end of his tenure at the Senate.
Sensing that he had made too many enemies, Anyim decided not to stand for reelection into the Senate. He remained aloof for a few years, nursing his political structure, till 2011 when Jonathan won the presidential election and named him SGF. Anyim had the confidence of President Jonathan and he easily became a fixture of the administration with political appointees lining up to his beck and call.
Anyim’s power soared halfway through their tenure when the CoS, Mike Oghiadomhe, was replaced. His successor, Jones Oladeide Arogbofa, a retired army general, lasted only about a year before the administration ended.
It was the administration that replaced Jonathan’s that brought up a CoS that attempted to redefine the role of that office. President Buhari who replaced Jonathan named Abba Kyari, an accomplished journalist and banker as CoS. Abba Kyari was also a mentee of President Buhari’s influential nephew, Mamman Daura.
During Abba Kyari’s tenure, he was easily the dominant figure in Buhari’s government with his hand in every pie, oil industry, banking and finance, power supply, agriculture, just name it. Nobody got appointed to the government without his input.
John Campbell in a blog post summed up the overarching reach of the influence of COS Abba Kyari: ‘President Buhari had complete confidence in Kyari. He was formally chief of staff, but apparently much more. He was the gatekeeper, but also a “whisperer,” a confidential advisor to the president.
Kyari came to be a presence at nearly all of the president’s meetings. He avoided the limelight but slowly increased his power; Nigerian politicians and business people, not known for retiring personalities, learned that it was necessary to work with him and through him.’ It was a devastating blow to the government when Abba Kyari died in office.
His replacement, Professor Ibrahim Gambari, was older than Abba Kyari and far more experienced in public affairs, having been an accomplished academic, a diplomat who has seen it all, and also a former minister of the federal republic. His seeming lacklustre performance in office could arise from the fact that he did not have the same clout as his predecessor to assert himself in the government arena.
To return to the question, is Gbajabiamila expanding the role of the CoS? I’ll venture to be affirmative for we have never seen a situation whereby the CoS left the Presidential Villa to receive briefing from heads of parastatals. It was a novelty, more so, as some of those parastatals are under the purview of the SGF, Office of the Vice-President, and a minister or two. Physical visits to these units would be misconstrued as breaking into the turf of these high political functionaries and could engender antipathy within the cabinet.
In any case, from my perspective, the CoS didn’t need to go that far. The clout of the CoS is about being the nearest to the president. He could summon anyone to the Presidential Villa. A summon from the CoS is as good as being called to meet the president. Additionally, the office is known to be sufficiently staffed with a myriad of assistants of all categories and disciplines, chosen purposely to keep the CoS abreast of all affairs within the government. Many of these assistants visit MDAs at all times to gather inputs for their reports.
The CoS going out to the parastatals is untidy and patently unnecessary.
From my mailbag:
Your piece on Alau Dam (DT 16th and 23rd September 2024) is a nice historical piece. I wish to add that the future of the dam should be expanded to include higher capacity for it to provide for increased irrigated hectares over the nearby Sambisa Forest, more portable water for Maiduguri and electricity generation for the state.
Abba M Y Habib (08033258804)