A Chat With Jonathan’s Chief Political Strategist

Ahmed Gulak

Ahmed Gulak is the Special Adviser on Political Affairs to President Goodluck Jonathan. He is a member of, what could be termed, the President’s inner caucus and one of the influential presidential aides. As 2015 inches closer, he is primed for a major role in the president’s re-election campaign. In a chat with Tokunbo Adedoja, this politician from Gulak town in Adamawa state speaks on his work, his principal, and ofcourse, 2015 election

Iwalked into the Bullet House located within the Three Arms Zone and headed straight to Block C to keep an appointment on a Wednesday afternoon. The Bullet House, which is just within a hauling distance from Aso Rock, houses the Head of Service and reserves a block for several presidential aides. On the second floor, I was ushered into the office of Chief Perry Opara, whom I had known over a decade ago, when he was director general of a political association at a time when new parties were being registered. With the assurance that my appointment was on course, I took a seat just by the door. Opara walked out of the office to check if all was set for the appointment. About three minutes later, he came in and with an apologetic smile, he said: “I am sorry, he walked in not long ago after the Federal Executive Council meeting. I thought he was at his desk. In fact, I still heard his voice not long ago. But I have just been told that he had gone back to the Villa. You don’t have to worry, I am sure he will be back in the next 30 minutes”.

That is the nature of the job of Ahmed Ali Gulak, presidential adviser on political affairs, and, by implication, President Goodluck Jonathan’s chief political strategist. It is from this building he shuttles between the Presidential Villa and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party secretariat - a couple of miles away - holding meetings, granting press interviews, and devising the President’s next line of political action. And with the 2015 elections just months away, he is certainly a busy man.

Just as predicted by Opara, Gulak returned to his desk within that timeframe. And within minutes, our meeting was in progress. “How do you cope with the demands of this office given the fact that, in this clime, politicking does not end after election?”, I asked.
His response was brief: “My faith in the country, my trust in Goodluck Jonathan as President, and my confidence that this country is a great country and that all we need is a visionary leader, dedicated, sincere, and committed. And I believe we have in Goodluck Jonathan such a leader. So, this is what keeps me moving”.

Beyond his brief - which is basically to advise the President - Gulak has also taken up the challenge of deflecting political missiles targeted at the President. A day hardly passes without him reacting to one political statement or the other from the opposition. And the All Progressive Party (APC), the New PDP, and Northern Elders Forum have kept him busy, just as some of their activities have continued to infuriate him, particularly those bordering on 2015 election and Jonathan’s re-election bid.

“At times, I have serious challenge when I see people who are supposed to be well enlightened behave in certain manners. Having reached this stage in our political development in this nation, I hate to see people clamouring that Goodluck should not contest, Goodluck should not be President, or it must come to the North and when some few people talk like this, I feel ashamed of myself because if you are talking about the North, which North are they talking about?,” he said.

I moved straight to the crisis plaguing the ruling party. I wanted to know to was extent does it trouble him as the President’s chief political strategist. Not much of a problem, he replied. Waving aside the gang up against the President by some members of the party, he said “If you look at it critically, they are in the minority. Out of 23 governors of PDP, you have, is it six or seven, with them. The majority of are in support of the constitution.”

He however quickly added: “Our elders are discussing and I believe that some of them will understand that we are running a constitutional government and all powers derive from the constitution and anybody who has any grievance must explore the constitutional provisions.”

Gulak also debunked views that the planned National Conference had any connection with the disquiet in the PDP or was aimed at buying time for the President to resolve the crisis within his party. He said “even before the present crisis confronting the nation, people discussed, even before the almagamation of the Northern and Southern Nigeria, people talked. It is a response to a long-time aspiration of Nigerians.”

Also, the rising wave of opposition to the President’s re-election bid does not give him sleepless nights as he views it as a game. “What is happening is part of a power game but as we develop as a nation, I am consoled that majority of the youths understand that this is a power game.”

But why should a President who emerged on the strength of enormous goodwill be so confronted with this kind of opposition?, I sought to know.

He paused for a moment and then said: “We are 53-year- old as an independent country, our population has grown tremendously, and we need leaders who can carry people along. And for you to carry people along, you have to satisfy the majority of the people. And you just have to step on toes that find this change unacceptable, on toes that believe that they just have to be there and decide who gets what and how. These are the challenges we face”.

He believes Jonathan is the best thing that has happened to Nigeria in recent time. Describing the President in various superlative terms, Gulak believes Jonathan would take the country to the promised land.
I also asked him if there were quiet moments when he feels that he was working against the interest of the region where he hails from going by the fact that the most virulent critics of his principal are from the North.

His response was swift: “I believe the country is one. I believe in the unity of this country. What is the alternative to this administration? It is not enough to say that power must come to the North. These people agitating that power must return to the North, who are they? Are they talking on behalf of the North? Who mandated them to talk on behalf of the North? These governors we are talking about, well some of them are trying, but go to some of the states, you will be amazed and you will be ashamed. Instead of them to stay at home and concentrate on governance, they are moving round. People should agitate for change when they have a credible alternative. I have not seen a better alternative”.

To the oppostion, he said: “In Nigeria today, very few people still live in the past and it is yet to dawn on them that Nigeria has come of age. People are enlightened, people know who they are, people know their rights and people will resist the idea of, you cannot get anything until you belong to certain group or until you are sons and daughters of certain people.“

Although, Gulak’s name hit national headlines in the present political dispensation when he was appointed the presidential adviser on political affairs, his political experience spans over two decades. The Adamawa-born politician attended St. Joseph’s Primary School between 1967 and 1973, and later proceeeded to Government Secondary School Ganye from 1973 to 1978. He was also at the College of Preliminary Studies, Yola between 1978 and 1980. Gulak graduated from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in 1983. Between 1983 and 1984, he was at the Nigerian Law School and was called to the Bar in August 1984. He did his Youth Service in Kano, with Ministry of Justice and then worked in a private law firm owned by a former minister of interior and aviation for three years before setting up his own law firm.

During the political transition programme of the regime of military President Ibrahim Babangida in the 1990s, Gulak was part of the team of lawyers that led the defence for the National Republican Convention, NRC - one of the two registered political parties. Over two decades ago, he stood for an election back home and secured the the mandate of his constituents to represent them in the Adamawa State House of Assembly. His colleagues in the Assembly also elected him as Speaker, making him the first speaker of the Assembly after the creation of the state. That was a period when Nigeria briefly practiced a system where democratic institutions were fully operational at the state level with a military President at the federal level.

The sack of the interim regime of Chief Ernest Shonekan by Late General Sani Abacha brought his speakership to an abrupt end as all political structures were dissolved. Unlike several of his colleagues who suffered similar fate, the politician in him would not allow him to withdraw into his cocoon. He participated fully in the Abacha transition programme, both in PDM and UNCP. The death of Abacha and the emergence of General Abdulsalami Abubakar as head of state, with his own transition programme, may have changed Gulak’s political direction, but he continued to be involved in politics.

Now a key presidential aide and one of those who have unfettered access to the President, Gulak’s political influence cannot be overstated. He is said to be a major supporter of the Goodluck Jonathan Support Group, currently the major platform on which the re-election campaign of President Jonathan is being discreetly pursued. The group is already warming up for a dogged campaign across the country, and through out our chat, it was obvious that Gulak was already in campaign mood.