After they served their country meritoriously in various capacities, no one has heard anything about them anymore even though they are very much around; ELEOJO IDACHABA asks where they could be presently and what they’re doing.
Salisu Buhari
Salisu Buhari, a former lawmaker from Kano state, was also the first speaker in the House of Representatives when Nigeria fully returned to democratic rule in 1999. His emergence as speaker was like a thunderbolt as it caught almost everyone unawares judging from the fact that he was not the preferred choice at that time. However, because of the soft spot former President Olusegun Obasanjo allegedly had for him, his emergence didn’t cause any problems unlike what happened in the Senate.
Before his election, Buhari at the age of 36 was an itinerant business man in Kano, but politics shot him to prominence. Shortly after he was sworn in as speaker, the defunct News Magazine uncovered a forgery act against him in what was known then as the Toronto saga. In that discovery, it was found out that he entered the chamber with forged certificates about his age and the higher institution he allegedly attended. The magazine said contrary to the claim of Buhari that he was born in 1963, he was actually born in 1970 thereby violating Section 65 (1) of the 1999 Constitution which disqualifies anyone below the age of 30 to seek membership of the lower house.
Apart from that, his claim to have obtained a degree certificate from a university in Toronto was false. Because of this, he was branded in the media with the insignia of ‘The face of a liar.’ In the process, he was forced to resign his speakership position and by that he lost the immunity attached to the office. Unable to continue as lawmaker, he voluntarily resigned. Subsequently, he was arrested, convicted and sentenced to two years in prison, but with an option of a fine which he paid and was pardoned by Obasanjo. From then, he went into hiding until 2013, when former President Goodluck Jonathan appointed him as member, governing council of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
Just before he left the House, while tendering his apology letter, he said: “I apologise to you, I apologise to the nation, I apologise to my family and friends for all the distress I had caused them. I was misled in error by zeal to serve the nation. I hope the nation will forgive me and give me the opportunity to serve again.”
Tom Adaba
Dr. Tom Adaba, born in Okene in the present day Kogi state, is of the Ebira ethnic extraction which constitutes the third largest ethnic group in the state, according to a demographic report. As a nationalist, he does not shy away from drumming support for the Ebira cause anytime he has the opportunity. For instance, during the administration of Capt. Idris Wada, the former governor of the state, Dr. Adaba was one major voice that spoke against what he termed the marginalisation of his people by insisting on power shift.
In a public outburst shortly after Wada left office, he said: “What I was really worried about was when we in the other parts of the state complained very bitterly about marginalisation, the Wada government would tell us that there was nothing like that in the state which to me was an insult on all sorts of people.” That was the zeal with which he served his people.
A foremost broadcaster and administrator, Dr. Adaba is the first Nigerian to bag a doctorate degree (PhD) in Mass Communications. He, however, has something unique about him as he is credited with pioneering the establishment of some important organisations in the country. When the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) training school was established in Jos, he was appointed as its pioneer principal. That was not all; in 1991, when as a deputy director in NTA Lagos, his name was pencilled down among those to be affected by outright down-sizing thereby ending his career from public service prematurely. Luck, however, smiled on him when former President Ibrahim Babangida in 1992 appointed him as the pioneer director-general of the newly-established National Broadcasting Commission (NBC); a position he occupied for seven years before he finally bowed out of public service in 1999.
His wealth of experience is still needed in modern day Nigeria, especially in his home state which appears to be in short supply of credible leadership. It is not clear where Dr. Adaba is presently and what he is doing.
Effiong Bob
Senator Effiong Bob once represented the people of Akwa Ibom North Constituency in the Senate between 2003 and 2011 on the platform of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Senator Bob, a lawyer, began his political career in the 90s as a local government councillor before he was elected into the Akwa Ibom state House of Assembly between 1992 and 1993 just before the Abacha military regime sacked that democratic administration.
On the return to democratic governance in 1999, Bob was appointed as Attorney General of Akwa Ibom state by Victor Attah, the then governor. It was from that position that he contested the senatorial position in 2003 to represent his people on the PDP platform. That was actually when his fame shot to limelight. While in the upper house, he was one of the vocal senators for which he was privileged to head several committees like senate services, finance, culture and tourism as well as foreign debt. To that extent, she was among the delegation from the Senate that witnessed the epic signing of the final exit of Nigeria from the Paris Club debt in France.
Also, when former Governor Godswill Akpabio signed the then controversial Pension Act into law, he was one of those who spoke against it even though they were all of the same political family. He followed it by writing a letter to Akpabio in which he allegedly lambasted him for hastening to sign a bill that would put a whooping sum of N200 million in his pocket monthly.
In a protest letter he wrote to Akpabio, he said: “I write to express my surprise at the conception, drafting and passage of the Governor/Deputy Governor’s Persons Bill 2014 by which your consequent assent to it has now become a law. I am also stupefied by the fact that a bill of such critical nature could be passed into law within less than seven days of its receipt in the House.”
His last known public appointment was way back in 2011, when former President Goodluck Jonathan appointed him as the pro-chancellor, University of Benin, a position he occupied till sometime in 2015.
