Ruma @ 58: The Kingpin Of The Yar`Adua Cabal

By Emmanuel Aziken

Abba Sayyadi Ruma was a leading light in the Umaru Yar`Adua government. His swagger and stature in that administration helped to for the first time evolve the phrase ‘The Cabal’ in the Fourth Republic.

Though he was the minister of agriculture and water resources, his imprint was by several accounts found in many policies and programmes of the government.

One of the most polished intellectuals gifted to Nigeria from Katsina State, Ruma holds his own among his peers in the country.

What Yar`Adua saw in him he never disclosed and it is perhaps only other members of the close knit cabal that may well tell.

Among the other member of the cabal were Dr. Tanimu Yakubu, Senator Garba Yakubu Lado and businessman Dahiru Mangal.

Remarkably, Ruma started off his public service career on opposite political poles with Yar`Adua the man who brought him to national reckoning.

In 1992 he was appointed as Special Advsier to Governor Saidu Barda of Katsina State. Barda incidentally was elected on the platform of the National Republican Convention, NRC and defeated Umaru Yar`Adua, the candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP in the governorship election in 1991.

By 2003 when Yar`Adua was in his second term, he tapped the prodigious intellectual capacity of Ruma into his government with an appointment as Secretary to the State Government.

Ruma barely spent two years in that capacity before Yar`Adua recommended him for appointment as minister of state for education.

He held his own as subordinate to Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, the substantive minister and stepped up as the minister when Ezekwesili got a World Bank job.

While many saw him for his intellectual fecundity in the education ministry, few predicted the kind of power he would alongside a handful of Katsina politicians play in the Yar`Adua government.

Whether he wielded power positively or negatively would depend on the perception of how he rubbed off on those who came his way.

Arguably, one of those who may have had a negative perception of him would have been Dr. Goodluck Jonathan who succeeded Yar`Adua after the demise of the president.

Once he came on board, Dr. Jonathan dropped Ruma from the  cabinet he reconstituted.

Those in the know say that Dr. Ruma has since his exit from government exercised himself in private business and research.

Born on 13 March 1962, he gained a BA in history from the University of Sokoto, a Masters in International Affairs and Diplomacy from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and a PhD in international relations from the University of Abuja.

Dr. Ruma left the stage ten years ago at 48 and ten years after Nigeria could have gained much from his capacity and carriage.

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