The Ghali Na’abba I knew

The last time I saw my boss, brother and friend, Rt Hon Ghali Umar Na’abba (CFR), was at the National Hospital, Abuja, and he looked at me and tried to talk but no words came out. My heart broke! He had been ill off for a couple of years, but he never lost the power of speech and the force of his character always shined through. 

That time, however, though his fiery eyes looked fiery still, he was not able to muster a word since he was brought to the hospital. I visited him every day, was with him on Christmas Day before I travelled the following day to Minna, Niger State, where I got a call by 3:20am from his son that he was gone. It was devastating as I had not only lost a leader and mentor but a brother and colleague with who I was in the trenches for many years fighting to save our nascent democracy from the dictatorial clutches that were the hangover of decades of military rule. 

I first met Ghali in 1999 as a member of the House of Representatives and we gravitated towards the same group of likeminded members determined to prove the point that democracy can work; that Nigerians from all regions and religions can strive together despite their differences; that patriotism is not an anachronism. 

After the wheeling and dealing, the horse trading that was a necessary adjunct to selecting the leadership of the house, one in our group, the young and charismatic Salisu Buhari, emerged speaker, and Ghali who had been gallant enough to step down for him became the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee. Although I did not seek it, I was elected the Chief Whip of the House of Representatives; a position I was to hold for eight years from Salisu Buhari’s time till he was forced to resign and Ghali was elected in his stead. 

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As speaker, Ghali had a unique perspective about leadership. He had grown up among aristocrats and had seen his father and grandfather hobnob with emirs, ministers and business moguls. So, he had this natural affinity with power and its uses. He began his political tutelage as a member of the welfarist Peoples Redemption Party (PRP). As he said sometimes later, “I grew up in a family that was rich but also radical, and that influenced a lot about my life.” 

Between July, 1999, and June, 2003, Nigerians were to benefit from those influences as he led the 360 members of the House of Representatives and the nation on an exciting rollercoaster.

Ghali was confident in his own skin, bold, sagacious and utterly without fear or greed. He was often willing to forego whatever emoluments promised in order to ensure that the freedom of the legislature or the interest of Nigerians were protected. 

As part of the leadership of the National Assembly, I was almost always involved in the efforts to mediate between the head of the executive branch, President Olusegun Obasanjo, and the leader of the House of Representatives, Speaker Ghali Na’abba, over issues that ranged from budgetary matters to bills that the house had passed against the wishes of the presidency, and even to alleged misappropriations and interference in the running of the party or the National Assembly. 

Things came to a head when the executive initiated a plan to impeach Ghali on some spurious charges, having bribed a number of members to lead the charge at plenary. We were able to expose the shenanigans of the executive by shaming some of those bribed into bringing the money to the floor of the house where it was laid out for the media and the world to see. Subsequently, it was determined that the president himself might have committed impeachable offences and a list was made of these and proceedings started towards his removal. In the end a truce was reached and the charges were dropped but the battle to establish Separation of Powers between the legislature and the executive remained unrelenting because Ghali would give no quarter. 

It was all part of the process of growing our democratic culture, especially as the legislature had so often been absent from governance in the past that the new administration tended to ignore this critical arm of government. It wanted a rubber stamp National Assembly and couldn’t understand why with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) having such an absolute majority in the house; we weren’t just saying “Yes Sir” to every demand of the executive.

But Ghali, a student of political science and power, knew instinctively that while the country had returned to democratic rule, the executive had poor ideas about how to govern with checks and balances. The very idea that the legislature is to act as a check on the excesses of the president and his cabinet was anathema to a coterie of leaders who had always thought the head of government rules by fiat. Even the citizenry tended to take the part of the executive and see the members of parliament as a group of upstarts who presumed to question the older, more experienced, and in their eyes, more legitimate president.

It was the first time the country was being ruled by democratically elected leaders after 16 years of military interregnum, and we had to build the parliamentary institutions from scratch. There were no precedents for most of the things we needed to do, and we had to write our own guide book or rule of procedure, determine budgeting procedures and committee numbers and membership, provide offices and accommodations for members, many of who were coming to the nation’s capital for the first time, set our roles apart from an executive branch used to combining both roles and reestablish relations with international parliamentary organisations at a period when we were just emerging from the wilderness as a pariah nation. 

Perhaps no other leader, but someone with the iron will and unique acumen of Ghali, would have made such a success of the job within a brief period. He was able to rally together members from different parts of a country fragmented by primordial beliefs which had only worsened by 1999 and made them believe again in the possibility of One Nigeria. We all saw that he was as impartial as he was quick at seeing the strength and capabilities of every member, and he was more concerned with finding those who could help in advancing the legislative process and build a virile democracy than with any desire for personal aggrandizement. 

He was bold and he made us bold, leading us to face down all kinds of prejudices against the parliament and take back leadership for Nigeria in many international institutions and partnerships for which we were signatories. We learnt quickly that so many opportunities had been lost to the country as a result of the long years of military rule, and that if we hoped to restore these we had to be both determined and audacious and put our best foot forward. 

Soon we were taking up leadership positions in such crucial international parliamentary organisations such as the African Parliamentary Union (APU), Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA), International Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the Africa, Caribbean, Pacific and European Union Parliamentary Assembly (ACP-EU) – which we successfully hosted less than one year later in 2000 in Abuja. In the same year, we were at the forefront of the inauguration of the ECOWAS Parliament in Bamako, Mali.

Ghali helped lay the foundation for a thriving National Assembly, and his gallantry earned him the nickname of “The Lion”. He had a way of reaching decisions by a direct route and his serious, sometimes forbidden, mien brooked no frivolities. Time and again he chose to bear the brunt of the antagonism against the National Assembly, the House of Representatives particularly, and to sacrifice his comfort for the benefit of that institution or any of its deserving members rather than sacrifice some other individual. He was big on loyalty and he reciprocated that with trust, friendship and all that his big heart could give.

He earned the respect of everyone who came across him, and there were always many who were willing to follow him. He had a commanding presence and a deliberate attitude that some mistook for arrogance, but he was just not one to give respect unless it was earned, and he was not swayed by position, wealth or power. His lack of pretension was to make him many enemies and to cost him his reelection when he tried to return to the house in 2003.

Out of office, he remained committed to the progress and wellbeing of our nascent democracy and all those who were members of the National Assembly between 1999 and 2003, even those who had opposed his tactics, acknowledged his vision and commitment. At the height of the so-called Third Term imbroglio, he was at the heart of the struggle to stop any attempt at tenure extension for the president, and his influence went a long way.

Ghali was a national icon, but he had left his position as speaker without accumulating any money or property, and when he first fell ill friends rallied round to send him abroad for treatment. This time, however, the close group of former presiding officers of the National Assembly was still rallying when he passed on. 

At his burial, Kano people again proved that they don’t do things by halves. The crowd that gathered and sang his praises, the way people from every part of the country fell over themselves to attend and pay their last respect and the sheer weight of emotions that attended his death were evidence that the contribution of Ghali to the growth of our democracy will never be forgotten. 

There are talks of immortalising his name and while the Kano State Government and the federal government may eventually choose to name a building or an institution after him. The fact is that the name of Ghali Umar Na’abba is already written in gold. 

Hon Bwari is a former Minister of Mines and Steel who was the Chief Whip of the House of Representatives from 1999 to 2003