Tanimu Yakubu Kurfi, former chief economic adviser to late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, will head the policy directorate of the Buhari Campaign Organisation, TheCable can report.

Some other members of the directorate are Olawale Edun, former Lagos state commissioner for finance, and Yemi Cardoso, also former commissioner for economic planning and budget.

Edun and Cardoso served as commissioners when Bola Tinubu was governor of the state.

The team is tasked with developing the economic blueprint for Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential flag bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Their work is expected to provide the policy direction for his government if he wins the February 2015 poll.

TheCable also learnt that there will be two other directorates ─ one for political mobilisation and the other for communications.

Rotimi Amaechi, governor of Rivers state, is the director-general of the campaign ─ the only appointment officially announced so far by the APC.

TheCable learnt that there are still many positions to be filled in the directorates.

“The official announcement will be delayed a bit because the list is not complete yet. We are consulting widely,” an APC official said.

Meet the ‘Policy Think-tank’

Tanimu Yakubu Kurfi

Not much is known about Kurfi, who loves to stay out of the limelight and has been keeping a low profile since he left government in 2010. He studied economics at Wagner College, New York, US. Kurfi, who is from Katsina state just like Buhari and former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, became commissioner for finance when Yar’Adua was elected governor of Katsina in 1999. He was later appointed managing director of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria by President Olusegun Obasanjo. When Yar’Adua was elected president in 2007, he appointed Kurfi deputy chief of staff and chief economic adviser. He was believed to be the most powerful political appointee in Yar’Adua’s government.

Kurfi hardly spoke to the media or addressed allegations, some of which accused him of stalling the power projects initiated by Obasanjo because he wanted to bring in new contractors. He was also accused of stalling the $8.3 billion railway modernisation contract agreed with China Civil Engineering and Construction Company by Obasanjo in 2006, allegedly because he wanted to bring in his own contractors. The delay in renewing or renegotiating the oil mining licences of Shell and other IOCs in 2009 was also attributed to him, allegedly because he had found some Chinese partners who were offering Nigeria an advance payment of $60billion for the oil blocks. Kurfi never responded to any of these allegations.

In his new book, “My Watch”, Obasanjo described Kurfi as a member of the Yar’Adua ‘cabal’ who wanted to settle personal scores with him. The former president wrote: “At first, it was the same men now in the corridors of power, like Tanimu Yakubu Kurfi and Baba Kingibe, who suddenly remembered ‘the evil’ I had done them in the past, which they wanted to avenge. For Tanimu, whom I appointed Managing Director of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria on the recommendation of then Governor Umaru Yar’Adua, my offence was that I did not appoint him to run and handle the Yar’Adua Presidential Campaign and manage the campaign fund. From what I had seen of his performance at the Federal Mortgage Bank, I would not have made or allowed such an appointment.”

Nasir el-Rufai, former minister and now APC governorship candidate in Kaduna state, commented sparsely on Kurfi in an essay titled “Yar’Adua: Great Expectation, Disappointing Outcome” which he wrote in May 2009 as part of his course requirements at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government where he did a master’s programme in public policy. He described Kurfi as one of the Katsina professionals who made money from the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) under Buhari.

El-Rufai wrote: “A group of young professionals of Katsina State origin, who had made money from the Petroleum Special Trust Fund (PTF) program under the supervision of General Muhammadu Buhari, came to the rescue [to finance Yar’Adua’s governorship bid in 1999]. Their leader was Tanimu Yakubu, an Economics graduate of Wagner College, New York, and included Dr. Aminu Safana and Ibrahim Shema [current governor of Katsina]. Nura Khalil was part of the group but decamped to the APP. Other ‘businessmen’ like Dahiru Mangal and Ahmadi Kurfi (both alleged to be professional smugglers) contributed financially to the Yar’Adua for Governor Campaign in 1998-99.”

Kurfi, whom many insiders expect to be Buhari’s key man if he is elected president, was nominated into the policy directorate by the former head of state, TheCable understands.

Yemi Cardoso

A thoroughbred private sector man, Cardoso had spent virtually his whole career in banking before he was made the Lagos commissioner for economic planning and budget by Bola Tinubu in 1999, a position he held till 2005. He has a bachelor’s degree in finance and accounting from Aston University UK, and a master’s degree in public administration and management from Harvard. Cardoso was also a Mason fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and a recipient of Harvard University’s Michael Roemer Scholarship award.

In his career, he has worked with Chase, Citibank and Citizens International Bank. He rose to the position of vice president at Citibank and executive director at Citizens. He has also served on the board of directors of Chevron Oil Plc and Citibank, where he is chairman. He has been a close associate of Tinubu, and was once in the running to be deputy governor but reportedly turned down the offer because of his preference for the “quieter” life of the private sector.

Olawale Edun

Edun, who holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of London and a master’s degree also in economics from the University of Sussex, England, was appointed commissioner for finance in Lagos state by Tinubu in 1999, a position he held till 2004 when he resigned, citing medical reasons. He had been head of treasury and deputy head of corporate finance at Chase Merchant Bank. At Chase, he served on secondment to Lehman Brothers and Chase Manhattan Capital Markets Corporation in New York, USA. For six years, he worked at Chase Merchant Bank (renamed Continental) in Lagos. He joined the World Bank/IFC in1986 as a “young elite professional”. He has been the chairman of Chapel Hill Denham Group since March 2008. He is the Chairman of Livewell Initiative, a health sector NGO and a Trustee of Sisters Unite for Children, an NGO focused on helping children in need. His name was briefly mentioned as a possible APC vice-presidential nominee, but Tinubu settled for another former commissioner of his, Yemi Osinbajo, a professor of law.