By Mohammed Abubakar

The story of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former governor of Adamawa State, Mr Boni Haruna, used to be one of Siamese twins or, better still, the snail and the shell. They were political soul mates. Their relationship was said to have preceded 1999 when, at the outset of the current political dispensation, Atiku was unarguably one of the most important politicians in the country.

Before then, he had operated at the highest level of politics including being a top associate of Alhaji Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, the founder of the political machine, Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM). The chubby relationship between Atiku and Haruna at the time the military decided to return Nigeria to democratic governance in 1998 must have informed the decision of the former to pick the latter as his running mate after emerging as the gubernatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in their native Adamawa State. They won the election and became governor-elect and deputy governor-elect respectively. But fate was to play some role in the destinies of both men. It was not long after the election that Atiku was nominated as the vice presidential candidate of the PDP by General Olusegun Obasanjo who had been elected the party’s presidential flag bearer at the Jos convention. Obasanjo and Atiku’s subsequent election as president and vice president respectively led to Haruna, the deputy governor-elect of Adamawa State but now without a governor-elect, being sworn-in as governor. This marked the beginning of the political godfather/godson relationship between Atiku and Haruna.

Whatever political direction Atiku as vice president took, Haruna as Adamawa governor followed. The godfather/godson relationship informed the support Atiku got from Haruna during the time the opposition rose against Obasanjo’s third term bid. Atiku had taken it for granted that he would succeed Obasanjo at the expiration of his principal’s constitutionally approved two terms as president only for Obasanjo to initiate a constitutional amendment process geared towards third term. Atiku was aghast. The then vice president mobilised the opposition against the bid especially at the National Assembly where the constitutional amendment was quashed. Haruna as governor was said to have played more than a passing role in the killing of the Obasanjo third term bid for which some forces loyal to the former president never forgave him, and were determined to extract a pound of flesh from him. The consequence is alleged to be his arraignment for abuse of office at the expiration of his tenure.

He was said to have misappropriated some N93m while in office as governor.  Haruna, in his defence, says there was no such misappropriation. According to him, the charge shows that only N31m was alleged to have been misappropriated.

The former governor wants the prosecution to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. Now, reports say Haruna may be back in political reckoning as plans are said to be underway to nominate him as a minister by President Goodluck Jonathan. In fact by the time you are reading this, his name may have been forwarded to the Senate as a ministerial nominee for parliamentary endorsement. The move to make the former governor a minister is said to be generating ripples in some quarters, and that the opposition has indeed initiated a campaign against the Haruna ministerial nomination using the social media as launch pad. The critics are said to be contesting the nomination on the grounds that the former governor has a graft case to answer in court. Some legal experts, however, fault the critics on the grounds that the trial does not invalidate Haruna’s ministerial nomination so far as his innocence remains guaranteed until he is pronounced guilty by the court.

They cite the cases of some former governors who have pending corruption cases against them which, nevertheless, did not stop their emergence as senators. And the twist to the case is the claim that Atiku may have been pulling the strings to abort Haruna’s emergence as minister following his fear of losing a strong member of his group to the Jonathan camp of the factionalised PDP.

Analysts are quick to say Haruna is carrying a burden of loyalty. According to them, if he has his own mind to serve his fatherland in the capacity of minister, his association with the former vice president should not constitute a hindrance.

“If it pleases the president to seek the service of the former governor  once again, especially against the backdrop of the transformation Adamawa State witnessed under his watch, then being an associate of  the former president should be secondary”, one of the analysts said. Nigerians are watching how the rumoured Haruna ministerial nomination will play out.

*Mohammed wrote from Abuja