Northern lessons from the fall of Nuhu Ribadu (1)

 We must begin, first, by addressing the question of whether or not there is a “fall” of Nuhu Ribadu from office in a political sense, before we even talk about learning any lessons from it. My answer is yes.

The National Security Adviser, Malam Nuhu Ribadu has fallen from power. We must acknowledge and say this as a political fact, without sugar-coating it, but also without sounding like we are trampling on a man because he is politically down.

In a presidential system, the entirety of the executive branch is effectively one person. For anyone other than the president, then, their power depends on their real and perceived proximity to the boss. If an appointee is close to the president, and is seen to be close to the president, then they have and can wield power. Conversely, the moment an appointee no longer enjoys that access to the president, and is perceived not to enjoy the access, their power ends right there. It doesn’t matter if they retain their fancied titles.

Therefore, when presidents make parallel appointments like President Bola Tinubu did in Nigeria’s security sector last week, the only thing to consider is politics. What we witnessed last week is the political fall of one official, and the rise of another. Nigeria still effectively has only one national security adviser to Tinubu, not two, but their name has changed from Malam Nuhu Ribadu to retired Major General Adeyinka A. Famadewa. Ribadu himself must know that this is just another form of a forced study leave to NIPPS, Kuru, Jos, regardless of the changed circumstances, and that he would need to decide whether to go or quit. That’s all.

It is also an outlandish claim that, from his own detention cell, Malam Nasir El-Rufai somehow masterminded Ribadu’s fall from power. No doubt, Ribadu and El-Rufai have turned from best friends to bitter political enemies, of late. And no doubt, El-Rufai would relish the opportunity to have his pound of flesh, and see Ribadu fall. But even El-Rufai himself cannot personally claim credit for what has happened to Ribadu since last week. Ribadu’s downfall could well have been precipitated more by his “they are our brothers” statement in reference to bandits in the North West than El-Rufai’s letter demanding information regarding the supply of some toxic gasses or his statement on television that he had wiretapped Nuhu Ribadu’s phone.

More directly, Ribadu fell from power because he misunderstood the true nature and character of federal politics under the Tinubu administration. And that misunderstanding, or rather political naivety, shared widely among the northern flank of the government and ruling APC, is the real problem about which I am writing today, for whatever we might learn from it.

For at least two of the past three years, Nuhu Ribadu has been quite possibly the second most powerful person in the Tinubu administration, after only Tinubu himself. But along with Ribadu’s power were also his many Achilles heels. The most nuanced of them is that Ribadu did not learn enough from the precipitous historical record of the office and his predecessors. As national security gradually became centre stage in Nigerian governance, the role of the national security adviser also grew more powerful and central to any administration.