President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua resumed work after two and a half weeks absence from office, relieving the powerful SGF of his seat for undisclosed reasons.
Kingibe, who was in the Presidential Villa for Monday’s decoration by President Yar’Adua of the new Chief of Defence Staff and Service Chiefs was informed of the decision to relieve him of his appointment and thereafter handed his sack letter.
He was immediately replaced by the Minister of Defence, Alhaji Mahmud Yayale Ahmed, who performed his first official assignment as the new government scribe an hour later.
At the inauguration in the Presidential Villa of the Technical Committee on the Niger Delta Crisis, Vice President Goodluck Jonathan broke the news when he introduced Yayale Ahmed as the new SGF.
A tacit announcement of the change was announced in a statement signed by presidential spokesman, Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi as follows:
“President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua today (Monday) appointed Alhaji Mahmud Yayale Ahmed as Secretary to the Government of the Federation.
“Alhaji Ahmed, who was until his new appointment the incumbent Minister of Defence, replaces Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe.
“His reassignment is with effect from today, Monday, September 8, 2008.”
The decision to fire him, Daily Sun learnt, has been on the drawing board but was accentuated by his accelerated moves to put his presidential ambition on full throttle, following disturbing reports of the failing health of President Musa Yar’Adua.
Reports allegedly claimed he was the decoy behind several pressures from the North to force Yar’Adua to resign or in the event of his death, put in urgent measures to ensure that if Vice President Goodluck Jonathan becomes president, he would emerge as deputy.
A source said, “the presidency was unsettled when it received the reports and promptly acted on it.” It was not, however, confirmed, if he was queried, last night before his sack.
Last December, Kingibe barely survived being sacked, following similar reports of activities bordering on disloyalty and perceived presidential ambition.
Confirming the close shave on his plum job at Ubiaja, Esan South-East Local Government Council of Edo State, at the wedding of the daughter of Senator Odion Ugbesia and Iriobe Anenih, son of Chief Tony Anenih, former chairman of the (BOT), he had said, “I want to thank God that I am still the secretary to the Government of the Federation and chairman of this occasion today, because I would have been sacked last week by the president because of a newspaper report. If not for my loyalty, commitment and dedication to service I would not have survived it.”
How it all began
According to his traducers, Kingibe allegedly began nursing the presidential ambition following unconfirmed disclosures from Yar’Adua that he would not re-contest should his election in April last year be nullified by the election petitions tribunal. He eventually won, on at least two petitions against his election, although the two are still pending at the Supreme Court.
He has also allegedly been linked to negative media reports on the unstable health of the president. He came close to being accused of helping the cause of the opposition at the tribunal. With such heavy allegations on a man who is like the heart of the government, ceaselessly, the mind of the head of the government may be poisoned against him.
One of Kingibe’s associates from Ogun State in the hey days of the third republic politics when he held sway as chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), came to his rescue last night when he dismissed the allegations heaped on him.
“It is like the president was being told that he is dinning with the devil, and that the time has come for him to show the devil the way to hell. It would be a surprise if these allegations were true, not least, because I believe that Kingibe, a man of keen intellect with a knack for details is not one to display such sinister intent towards his boss. He got his job not through the nomination of his state government, which is controlled by the opposition party, but purely on personal, and his long standing relationship with the president.”
How he landed the job
After several years in political limbo, the Yar’Adua administration gave him a big lift with his surprise appointment as SGF. His appointment was informed by both his rich bureaucratic experience and closeness to the late brother of the president, Gen. Shehu Musa Yar’Adua. These two factors swiftly aided him in settling down to his job as SGF. His understanding of the workings of security agencies has also been of great advantage to him. Aside from once working closely with the secret service in the past, he was also internal affairs minister during the late General Abacha’s regime.
The sore parts
Kingibe’s actions after the June 12, 1993 election actually tainted his glorious days in politics. He was running mate to the late Chief M. K. O. Abiola, who won the election.
Shortly after the election was annulled, he disagreed with Abiola over the actualization of the presidential mandate and swiftly took up appointment as minister of external affairs with Abacha’s regime in 1994. He was later redeployed to the internal affairs ministry.
An astute tactician, he analyzed the futility of wresting power from a sitting military despot and opted to team up with Abacha and accept a ministerial position.
Today, particularly in the South-West his role in the June 12 saga is still evergreen.
The belief is that he turned coat and gave credibility to the then fledgling Abacha regime. When he was named the SGF, the Action Congress in Lagos expressed deep reservations on his choice thus: “We believe he is the wrong person to be appointed SGF by any government that is desirous of mending the walls of hate, the annulment that the June 12, 1993 election created. Kingibe should not be rewarded with public office for his role after the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential poll.
“Kingibe abandoned the mandate when it mattered most, to serve the Abacha junta. Since his ignominous act, he had been wallowing in political obscurity. This is why we feel he does not deserve such rehabilitation the appointment is meant to achieve.”
The Borno angle
There are talks of his troubles coming from his home state of Borno, where there is muscle flexing over who calls the shots. So many people in Borno were taken aback on his sudden emergence as SGF.
The politics of Borno as in many other states is full of intrigues and power play between the old generation of politicians and the new godfathers: some serving governors in the North-East have been fingered in Kingibe’s travails. One of these governors, the arrowhead, who recruited others, may not have forgiven him over his role in drafting the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), after him over some alleged financial misdeeds in office.
He, it was, who also called for a state of emergency in the state when thugs almost overran the state.
A former senator, who is positioning himself for the 2011 governorship seat is also part of the plot against Kingibe, Daily Sun learnt.
Working odyssey at a glance
Kingibe, a Kanuri was born June 25, 1945 in Borno State. He was educated at the University of Sussex, United Kingdom. He once worked as a journalist with the defunct Northern Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation and as a lecturer at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. He was also Nigeria’s ambassador to Greece and Pakistan, as well as a principal political secretary in the Supreme Military Headquarters. He was secretary of the Constituent Assembly (1988-1989), apart from working with the senior Yar’Adua at the Supreme Military headquarters.
He served from October 2002 to September 2006 as the African Union’s (AU) special envoy to Sudan and subsequently, special representative of the chairperson of the African Union Commission and head of the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS). He was chairman of the SDP and later became the late Abiola’s running mate
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