Umaru Yar’Adua’s long suit is his vaunted integrity. This public persona of unimpeachable integrity is so well packaged that even his critics often concede it as a premise for their criticism. But is this image of integrity true or a product of careful image management? Is Yar’Adua truly a man of integrity or is this aspect of his political identity a carefully nurtured myth? At the very least, this claim should be scrutinized in light of Yar’Adua’s own conducts that belie or at best trouble such assumptions of personal decency.

 Nigeria ’s political arena is populated by such irredeemably debauched characters that it is easy for a politician who falls short of this perverse standard to gain a reputation for integrity. Because corruption and vanity have become the normative features of public office, it is easy for a politician who is not as vain as the rest to seduce the nation with a carefully crafted rhetoric of integrity, without arousing much skepticism. This is what Yar’Adua seems to have done.

Yar’Adua’s reputation for integrity rests on a triad of mutually reinforcing claims. One is his purported achievements while he was governor of Katsina state. A second public narrative that holds up his claim to integrity is that he was not corrupt as governor. A third is that he was popularly elected governor twice.

Each of these claims has acquired a life of its own, becoming a truism that serves as a referent for analyses of Yar’Adua’s actions and inactions as president. So accepted have these claims become that unless they are interrogated and their truths separated from their falsehoods they will continue to structure the way Yar’Adua’s legitimacy-challenged presidency is evaluated. I have been intrigued by the vehement disappointment that Yar’Adua’s appointments, associations, actions, and inactions have elicited from many commentators. I have come to the conclusion that the sense of shock and disappointment flows from a prior belief in Yar’Adua’s integrity. Those who have been most shocked by Yar’Adua’s disappointing appointments and curious political associations are those who unquestioningly bought into his public persona of integrity. These commentators have been let down because, according to them, Yar’Adua has not lived up to his reputation for probity and decency. They have not bothered to probe that reputation itself. Conversely, those who never bought into these claims or regarded them with varying degrees of skepticism have been less shocked by Yar’Adua’s presidency.

Let us reexamine Yar’Adua’s performance as governor of Katsina State . His singular most important accomplishment is his accumulation of huge monetary surpluses, an impressive feat in a nation where governors are synonymous with profligacy. His reputation as a mean, frugal, and careful manager of public funds is thus deserved. But his governorship was also remarkable for being a lame duck governorship. Katsina witnessed no transformation in its developmental fortunes during his administration. There was similarly a dearth of strategic developmental vision. Nor was there a transformation in the state’s social infrastructure. Katsina remains a rural, infrastructure-challenged state despite Yar’Adua’s purportedly successful eight years as governor.

Under Yar’Adua, the state’s health sector was so under-funded and primary healthcare so cavalierly handled that stories of women taking their children to neighboring Niger to be treated for common childhood ailments by the personnel of Medecins Sans Frontieres were rife and caused embarrassment to the government. This reality has not abated under his successor.

Popular political discourse in Katsina during Yar’Adua’s governorship succinctly captured the contradictions of his governorship: his ability to accumulate huge reserves for the state and his simultaneous inability to develop one of Nigeria ’s most rural states. Some people even argued that the huge reserves which earned him the reputation of transparency were sustained by the utter dearth of transformative developmental initiative in his eight year administration. In other words, it was logical for reserves to accumulate since Yar’Adua did not prioritize development, which costs money. Some Katsina people used to say that while it was good to have a governor who was accessible and prudent with public fund, this provided little comfort to the common man who needed to see visible improvements in social infrastructure and in the quality of his life. What was the use, some of them used to say, of boasting of huge reserves, when there were problems in all social sectors crying for governmental intervention?

It is therefore not a settled truth, as some would have us believe, that Yar’Adua was an achiever in Katsina state. If you value prudence above performance, he was your man, but if you desire both prudence and performance, he was by no means your picture of an achieving governor.

His reputation for incorruption is similarly debatable. How did a man who declared about N19 million as his total asset in 1999 come about an asset of nearly N1 billion in 2007? And why does he continue to lay claim to incorruption in light of this curious and suspicious turn around in his fortunes? He could not have been conducting private business while he was governor as the constitution explicitly forbids this. As many analysts have opined, the declaration raised more questions than it answered about Yar’Adua’s vaunted incorruption. N1 billion is modest compared to the asset declared by Yar’Adua’s governor-colleagues, but it only indicates that Yar’Adua’s claim to personal probity is only valid in comparison to the reputation of the likes of James Ibori, Peter Odili, Lucky Igbinedion, George Akume, and others. That one is better than this vile lot is not a complimentary reputation to brag about. This relative cleanliness does not entitle Yar’Adua to a reputation of incorruption.

The last plank on which Yar’Adua’s claim to integrity rests is the myth of his popularity in Katsina state. It should be said that many Katsina people detested his lethargic approach to governance even though they respected his prudence with public funds. Whatever acceptance he enjoyed stemmed from a difficult tradeoff in which one had to make peace with his non-performance in exchange for one’s admiration for his knack for preserving public funds. This is not a testament to political popularity but to Yar’Adua status as a lesser evil and to the paucity of attractive alternatives in Katsina politics. We must not forget that he rode on his elder brother’s political martyrdom to the governorship in 1999.  By 2003 he had become so unpopular that most Katsina people still believe that Nura Khalil, the ANPP candidate and an ally of Muhammadu Buhari, actually won the governorship election of that year.

The argument for Khalil’s victory is persuasive. Katsina voters overwhelmingly voted for Buhari, the ANPP presidential candidate. The run-up the 2003 elections in Katsina state was a study in anti-incumbency disillusionment. This wave of anti-incumbency angst in Katsina targeted the PDP’s most visible and proximate symbols: Obasanjo and Yar’Adua. It congealed to an acute dislike for the PDP and a decisive shift of support to the ANPP and its candidates. It was this anti-PDP, anti-incumbency climate that gave Buhari’s alternative, populist message mass appeal in the Northwest, giving him the bulk of the presidential votes in Kano , Katsina and Jigawa States . Yar’Adua was however declared winner of the gubernatorial contest in Katsina. How a largely illiterate community of voters in a rural state was able to make the nuanced distinction of voting for Buhari/ANPP in the presidential elections and voting for Yar’Adua/PDP in the governorship election has yet be explained satisfactorily to those who think such electoral sophistication implausible for Katsina.

It is said that the late Dr. Aminu Safana, a cheerleader for ex-speaker Patricia Etteh, was instrumental in fraudulently wresting the election from Nura Khalil and delivering the governorship to Yar’Adua, who had given up on being reelected after exit results showed Khalil heading to a comfortable victory. Yar’adua’s political intimacy with the late Safana is said to have been consummated by this act of electoral salvage. After that, Safana became one of Yar’Adua’s most trusted political confidantes; for the president owed his political comeback to the late legislator. For those who wondered why Yar’Adua virtually relocated the presidency to Katsina to mourn his late friend, this small piece of Katsina political history may provide the explanation.

If this popular and credible story is true then there is a precedent for Yar’Adua accepting a tainted electoral mandate and enjoying its benefits while still cultivating and nurturing a personal narrative of incorruption and decency. It belies the received myth of Yar’Adua’s political exceptionalism. It means that there is an established pattern of Yar’Adua being a typical Nigerian politician: hungry for power no matter its source, and impervious to moral indictment. It means that, contrary to Yar’Adua’s carefully packaged political biography, the man is not different from other Nigerian politicians who have no qualms about obtaining defective electoral mandates as long as they enjoy the fruits thereof.

For those who have been wondering why Yar’Adua refuses to denounce and relinquish his discredited presidential mandate, the foregoing may put things in perspective. For those who cannot understand why a purportedly decent and unconventional politician insists, in spite of his own admissions of electoral fraud in April, that he has a mandate to govern, the foregoing scrutiny of Yar’Adua’s politics of mythmaking may help explain the president’s inexplicable insistence on enjoying a questionable electoral “victory.”

Those who wonder why Yar’Adua would rather be an illegitimate lame duck president than succumb honorably to fresh elections should look to his history of settling down comfortably into a problematic electoral “victory.” For those who cannot fathom why Yar’Adua has been enjoying the aura of the presidency without embracing its challenges and without offering any strategic vision for progress and long-term economic and political reclamation, a study of Yar’Adua’s lame duck governorship in Katsina would be helpful.

This deconstruction and demystification of Yar’Adua’s vaunted integrity, incorruption, and “performance” as governor of Katsina state should help put his disorganized and directionless presidency in sharp relief. Most politicians are a product of their antecedents and can hardly transcend them. Yar’Adua is no different.

Robot  # 1 | 04.11.2007 20:28

...Read the full article.

Zanderlex  # 2 | 04.11.2007 20:41

=Robot;2091816755>...Read the full article. There is a little information just posted at elendureports.com about Yaradua 's meeting with Condolezza Rice in NewYork. Please check it out.

datuouwadaberechi  # 3 | 05.11.2007 06:14

sir moses, thanks for such a well-thought-out and well-written article. the fact is that the standard has FALLEN so low. it is very true now, that, were a story to break out today, that the new speaker of the Fed house or one of the speakers in the federating states has spent anywhere between N10 million and N100 million to renovate his/her own official quarters, we would all regard the culprit as being a semi-hero or at the very least, sustantially less corrupt than other politicians!!!! we expect so little from our leaders and YET, they are unable to deliver. if we had human beings as leaders instead of blood-sucking vampires, they would realise that what it would take to be revered by nigerians is just a little committment. since Ettehgate broke out, we have heard several allegations against the former senate president about renovating his own official quarters at the cost of N400million. he has not bothered to deny it. which means that it may well be true....and yet, the former sp is regarded as one of the heroes of the last administrations!!!! i have NEVER been that impressed with yaradua. the fact remains that, even though i have never been to katsina, but just like moses wrote, i never heard of any drift toward that end when it was so obvious that the lights were going out all over the country!!!! we never heard the ever illustrious ibos making a come-back or even build-up there!!! nothing, nada, niets, nichts!!! thats what it all is: a well-scripted and well-managed PR campaign. this article should be well-circulated by all villagers, please.

Fjord  # 4 | 05.11.2007 07:36

Umar Yar’Adua’s long suit is his vaunted integrity. This public persona of unimpeachable integrity is so well packaged that even his critics often concede it as a premise for their criticism. But is this image of integrity true or a product of careful image management? Is Yar’Adua truly a man of integrity or is this aspect of his political identity a carefully nurtured myth? At the very least, this claim should be scrutinized in light of Yar’Adua’s own conducts that belie or at best trouble such assumptions of personal decency. ! How could this be?? Umaru Yar'Adua occupies the presidency because of a stolen election; he has admitted to that much in at least one public speech. How could it then be that what he stands for would begin to be confused for integrity?? He's the beneficiary of the criminal act of cheating Nigerian voters. There's no amount of packaging that'll make him a million miles close to anything like integrity. We ought not to make pronouncements that make us out as very forgetful, and of very recent events at that.

19 guy  # 5 | 05.11.2007 07:37

This article speaks to me! It is also so well articulated it really should be referenced as the standard on NVS. Like datuouwadaberechi I have not really been that impressed with Yar'Adua either although I don't know one way or the other if he indeed is corrupt. I hope he isn't, naturally. His achievements as state governor are thin on the ground but as already pointed out here, he is the one eyed dude in the arid land of the blind. All that aside I have to take issue with miss idatuouwadaberechi on the following quote- if we had human beings as leaders instead of blood-sucking vampires, they would realise that what it would take to be revered by Nigerians is just a little commitment.. You know what, we have blood sucking vampires as human beings in Nigeria and that is the true reason we have such as leaders too. Our value system either collapsed years ago or got damaged irreparably a long time ago. We get the leaders we deserve and they just happen to be typical of the average Nigerian in that they are dishonest, lazy and exceptionally greedy. When the average Nigerian upgrades to decent and principled the average leader would become that too. Sad but true.

datuouwadaberechi  # 6 | 05.11.2007 07:48

ok ok ok guy 19, i do concede u may be right!!! sad indeed, but true.

Donn  # 7 | 05.11.2007 08:32

His reputation for incorruption is similarly debatable. How did a man who declared about N19 million as his total asset in 1999 come about an asset of nearly N1 billion in 2007? And how does he continue to lay claim to incorruption in light of this curious and suspicious turn around in his fortunes. ....You see..., i 've been wondering since that assets declaration.....from 19 million to almost 1 billion.....it's really difficult to understand....and nobody said anything..... ...but i can understand why.......he seems to be the cleanest of all the dirty towels given to us.

Kabikala  # 8 | 05.11.2007 10:50

The article was well written, and the writer brings out his points clearly. I am also not one of those who believe in the piety or honesty of Yar'Adua as being bandied about by his supporters, he just seems to be a slightly malodorous version of a dirty, stinking Nigerian political class. Some things still bother me about this new Mr. Rule of Law President though. Our man saw nothing wrong in supporting third-term, and never for once condemned that diabolical plot. Was that in line with rule of law? YarAdua's state was the among the earliest to implement the Sharia law, and the first convict was actually from that state. The adulterer was billed to be executed but for the intervention of some women rights activists and other foreign NGOs. Without such intervention, our man would have presided over the first stoning of an adulterer in Nigeria. He never for once defended the poor woman or pleaded her cause. Yar'Adua never for once condemned any of the excesses of the former president even when they were brazen and against the so-called rule of law which he now espouses. The flagrant disobedience of court orders, extrajudicial killings, election rigging, corruption and nepotism whcih were the hallmarks of the Obasanjo regime. Are we expected to only declare faith in the rule of law when we become President? An event happened at the early days of this administration which was very significant to me. Yar'Adua's mum went on a visit to Otta, to thank Olusegun Obasanjo for making her son President. She never thanked Nigerians for making her son president. She therefore confirmed what we all knew, that our man is only there because of the ruthless determination of a failed despot to foist his protege (Umoru) on the unfortunate citizens of this country. When will Yar'Adua give a national award to Maurice Iwu? Don't be surprised if it comes to pass. My prediction: Yar'Adua's regime will continue in the same tradition that it is well-known for. An era of see-no-evil-hear-no-evil, avoid-stepping-on-major-toes, live-and-let-live and let-sleeping-dogs-lie. He will therefore not be hated for anything he would have done(as he would do nothing), but will end up spending his whole term grappling in the shadows without a clear direction and just end up as one of those other nonentities who came, saw and were consumed.

Gentle Angel  # 9 | 05.11.2007 11:07

Like others have said, generally people do not think of YarAdua as a person of integrity. There is just this consensus and acceptance that he is better than most and that even though he is a product of the corrupt elections, we should all move on.

MrOneNaija  # 10 | 05.11.2007 12:27

BEYOND YAR'ADUA'S ILLEGITIMACY ALBATROSS I believe there are two ways of looking at the illegitimacy conundrum that the Yar'adua regime represents in the thinking of any decent citizen. The first is that the presidential electoral tribunal should do the right thing and nullify the Yar'adua selection and proceed to either declare another candidate the legitimate winner or order the holding of fresh polls. The second is a situation whereby the status quo is maintained with Yar'Adua remaining at Aso Rock. And if Yar'Adua is allowed by the tribunal to continue wearing the toga of a dubious mandate, then what? That reality of a continuing Yar'Adua presidency should pre-occupy the minds of Nigerians. In the face of a historically complacent national media that generally tends to play second fiddle to the powers that be by indulging in moral sommersaults of every hue, the people must insist that certain things be done differently. By that, I mean, amongst other things, a break with the recent past, that is the misconduct of the worst tyranny the nation has had the misfortune of living under, namely, the medieval and violent kleptocracy of Ali Baba. We should rejoice in what happened at the House of Representatives a few days ago, that is, the solemn fight by the Integrity Group (IG) there which saw the forced departure of one of the main Obasanjo acolytes called Patricia Etteh. IG is reportedly promising to take that patriotic struggle to the PDP national convention coming up in December this year. Nigerians wish IG good luck! The commentary at the link below speaks to this and other concerns regarding the Yar'Adua imposition. Happy reading! http://www.nigeriavillagesq... This nugget: Add to the criminal expropriation of national assets the ill-willed and obnoxious gale of largely nepotistic but strategic appointments the lunatic from Ota did inflict on the nation in the dying days of his misrule. Nigerians must not accept the fait accompli of blackmail by the former roguish dictator and his regime. Yar’Adua should heed popular angst and cancel most if not all of the late appointments made by his predecessor. The primary consideration in these and other matters at all times should be the national interest. Obasanjo’s greed, that of his fellow buccaneers and their selfish ambitions must not be allowed to prevail. There should be a deliberate policy on the part of Yar’Adua – assuming that he truly wants to make amends to the Nigerian people – to neutralize and clear our national political spaces of the likes of Obasanjo and his pro-third term allies in the National Assembly and within the PDP in particular. It is instructive that the other day, in apparent contradiction of the thinking of some of the people close to Yar’Adua, the speaker of the House of Representatives, herself a supposed Obasanjo adjunct, had the temerity to publicly state that the controversial sale by the Obasanjo regime of the Apo legislators’ quarters would not be revisited. Singly or together, Obasanjo and his associates - veritable vermin of Nigerian politics - have inflicted more damage on our collective unconscious than what the military did to the national psyche in the past three decades of authoritarian rule. The political emasculation of these harmful characters is long overdue. But one has to realize that Yar’Adua will not do it alone. He will need the support of the political class across the ideological divide and critically, that of Nigerians in general. There is too much at stake to allow petty differences of opinion and rivalry stand in the way of the patriotic duty of cleaning the Augean stables through the weakening of any stranglehold Obasanjo and his fellow looters and miscreants may have on the polity. Getting rid of the putrid odor of Obasanjo and his criminal gang is a task that Nigerians must be prepared to undertake as a matter of priority, with or without the support of Yar’Adua. Only then can we realistically begin to think of laying the basis for genuine democracy in our country.

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