Abuja, Nigeria – Africa’s next Big Man likes to pray on the ground under the same tree outside the same local mosque where he has worshiped for 15 years. And as governor of Katsina state in northern Nigeria, he has driven himself around in a simple car.
Umaru Yar’Adua is pious, taciturn and humble, a man of ascetic tastes. Now, he is about to become one of Africa’s most powerful men: president of oil-rich Nigeria, a vast nation of 135 million people with huge geopolitical clout.
But Yar’Adua, who is to succeed the flamboyant President Olusegun Obasanjo, maintains that he has no intention of abandoning his simple way of life.
“I just adhere to an ordinary lifestyle,” he told the Los Angeles Times in a recent interview with several Western journalists. “I go to the mosque, and I pray as an ordinary person would pray because I don’t want to have problems when I leave office.
“The less you allow power to get to you, the more you are able to adjust when leaving office.”
Yar’Adua, who won an April vote marred by widespread accusations of ballot fraud, may be immune to the rapacious taste for luxury common in a country where officials tend to see stealing public money as a perk of office. Even critics do not question his financial integrity.
But his low-key style raises questions.
For one thing, Yar’Adua, 56, who is with Obasanjo’s People’s Democratic Party, has kept such a low profile that many still have no idea what he stands for.
In addition, his collapse at a campaign rally in March has raised questions about his health.
And some take his low-key personality as a sign of weakness, with media speculation that he will turn out to be a puppet for Obasanjo, who wanted a third term but was blocked by the Senate.
Yar’Adua is one of five current state governors not accused of corruption or financial misdeeds, and one of the few to have published a list of his assets – modest by the standards of Nigeria’s ruling class.
