The whereabouts of these individuals who once rocked public offices and what they are doing presently is not clear; that is why ELEOJO IDACHABA wonders where they could be at the moment.
Chris Alli
Maj.-Gen. Mohammed Chris Alli (retd.), a former military administrator (MILAD), is a man who can be identified in many ways in terms of the appointments he has held. First, he was the former Chief of Army Staff during the Interim National Government (ING) led by Chief Ernest Shonekan between 1993 and ’94 before Gen. Sani Abacha sacked him from that position and subsequently retired him. He is also the person that was appointed by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to be the administrator of Plateau state in 2004, when the state was engulfed in intractable sectarian crisis under former Governor Joshua Dariye.
Gen. Alli was also the one who in 1990 made a counter broadcast in the wake of the Gideon Orkar coup that was to topple Gen. Ibrahim Babangida in his capacity as commander of the 3rd Infantry Brigade in Kano. Alli was also a one-time military administrator of Plateau state under Babangida between 1985 and ’86.
On retirement from the military, he wrote a book entitled: ‘The Federal Republic of Nigerian Army: The Siege of a Nation’. Commenting on the book, a public affairs commentator and former head, Department of Philosophy, Lagos State University, Prof. Maduako Dukor, said, “Alli is identified as one of those critical and rational thinkers, philosophers, albeit, a General in the Nigerian Army whose work finds a befitting logical space in the contemporary African philosophical tapestry.”
While writing about his book, Gen Alli noted, “This book is not an indictment of the military of which I was part. It is my perception of the conduct of my generation and the multifarious forces at work amongst and about them. It is not a verdict on society; rather it is an articulation of the ecstasy, the fears, the constrictions of a nation in turmoil, a nation pulling itself apart.”
Gen. Alli has, however, been absent in recent times despite the political activities in the country and what he is doing presently is not certain.
John Azuta-Mbata
Former lawmaker Senator John Mbata was elected to represent Rivers-east Senatorial District at the start of the Fourth Republic on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 1999 and got re-elected in 2003. However, after then, this heavily-built lawmaker appears to have bid farewell to politics as there is no report of an attempt to return to the vocation that brought him to limelight since 1999.
In April 2005, while serving in the Senate as the chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation and Finance, although he had a running battle with the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) over allegations of bribery; however, after extended legal battles, on June 1, 2010, a full panel of the Court of Appeal in Abuja quashed all the charges against him and discharged him alongside others.
In the Senate, apart from the Committee on Appropriation and Finance, he was also a member of the Committees on Defence, Works & Housing, Women Affairs, Information, Special Projects, Local & Foreign Debts.
On August 8, 2000, he temporarily presided over the Senate session that removed Senator Chuba Okadigbo as the president of the Senate following the deliberation of Senator Ibrahim Kuta’s report that implicated Okadigbo and his deputy of complicity. Azuta-Mbata was born in January 1960. He has a master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Ibadan and was a member of the governing council of Rivers State University of Science & Technology, Port Harcourt.
Recently, he was quoted as saying that the only thing that gives him fulfillment now is family life. He is also said to be involved in the running of his family’s construction company business in Port Harcourt where he currently resides.
Usman Bayero Nafada
Usman Bayero Nafada was the deputy speaker in the House of Representatives. Before then, he was a member of Gombe state House of Assembly where he held the position of majority leader of the House and later as speaker on the platform of All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) from 1999 until 2003.
Following the general elections of 2003, he was elected into the House of Representatives in that election also on the same party platform to represent Dukku/Nafada Federal Constituency of the state; however, owing to political development in his state of Gombe, he switched over to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
His ascension to the exalted position of deputy speaker actually started after the resignation of Babangida Nguroje amidst the famous Patricia Etteh corruption saga in which a fellow lawmaker, Friday Itulah from Edo state nominated him to succeed Nguroje as deputy speaker. He was, therefore, unanimously elected unopposed on November 2, 2007.
Nafada was a dependable ally to former speaker, Dimeji Bankole, as both of them joined hands to pilot the affairs of the lower House through the rough roads in the midst of the hiccups from fellow lawmakers.
At the moment, this former lawmaker who seems to have shunned partisan politics, shuttles between Gombe, his state capital, and Abuja, but it’s not clear what he is doing presently.
