The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Senator George Akume, is undoubtedly a successful career civil servant, an accomplished administrator and a political strategist, whose mastery of the game of politics has kept him afloat politically since 1999 when the journey to the current democratic governance in Nigeria started.
So, when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu appointed him as the 21st SGF a few days after his inauguration into office as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, it did not come as a surprise to many. The appointment was applauded by many who saw it as putting a round peg in a round hole.
Born some 69 years ago, precisely on December 27, 1953, Akume is from Wannune Tarka Local Government Area of Benue State. A member of the Great Tender Hall of Fame of the University of Ibadan where he graduated in 1978 with a Bachelors’ of Science degree in Sociology, he had his early primary education at the then Native Authority Primary School at his birth place between 1960 and 1966, and later his secondary education at former Government Secondary School, Otobo, now Model Science School, Otukpo, Benue State, between 1967 and 1971.
His appointment as the SGF, just like every other appointment in Nigeria, drew mixed reactions. While some people expressed surprise and joy, others felt sad. Yet, there were those who felt indifferent, probably because they no longer have interest in government and its activities.
However, the focus should be on the fact that a man with a Midas touch; a man who has conquered and made indelible marks in both the executive and legislative arms of government as a governor and senator of the federal republic of Nigeria, has come to change the equation. He has come with his magic wand to make President Tinubu’s administration a success and one that would bring hope and succour to millions of Nigerians, who are already literally hopeless, disillusioned and disenchanted with the system
There are concerns in some quarters as to what magic he would perform to impact positively on the current government. But, a close look at the steps taken so far by President Tinubu since Akume was sworn in on June 7 as the SGF, and placing them side by side with the responsibilities of the SGF, many agree that his appointment was actually a master stroke.
The office of the SGF, among other functions, is responsible for conducting and supervising the activities of various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government. As the engine room of the Federal Government, Akume is expected to advise the president and provide guidance on policy matters and ensure the implementation of the government’s policies and programmes.
Also, the office of the SGF is responsible for organising the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meetings. The FEC, interestingly, is the highest decision-making organ of the executive arm of government. This leaves the SGF with the onerous task of interfacing with state governments or any sub-national bodies on behalf of the Federal Government.
Analysts are of the view that Akume’s antecedents have adequately put him in a vantage position to excel in his new assignment. They would soon point to his career as a civil servant, where he distinguished himself by rising to the highest echelon without any blemish.
Those who described him as a political machine and a survivalist are not far from the truth. His foray into the murky waters of Nigerian politics was in 1999, at the turn of this current democratic journey, when he contested and won the governorship election in Benue State on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
At the end of his second term in office, his sterling performances helped him to facilitate the emergence of his successor, Gabriel Suswam, who at that time was a member of the House of Representatives. He later went on to the Senate to represent the good people of Benue North-West senatorial zone, still on the platform of the PDP.
However, like what obtains elsewhere, he fell out with Suswam and he was displaced from the PDP as the structures were taken away from him. That would have left him in political darkness, but the survivalist and political dexterity in him came to the fore when he made a deft move to pitch tent with Tinubu in the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).
Many believe that it was his intersection with Tinubu at that point that cemented his relationship with him, apart from the fact that both of them belong to the class of 1999 governors, though in different political parties at the time.
However, his political experience also came to play, when against all odds, he still found his way back to the Senate in 2011 on the platform of the ACN, in spite of several landmines placed before him by the ruling PDP in his state and at the centre. He equally went ahead to clinch the position of the Senate Minority Leader during the Seventh Senate, between 2011 and 2015. And by 2015, the ACN had joined forces with other parties to form the All Progressives Congress (APC). He took the party to Benue State, popularised it and produced a governor in the person of Samuel Ortom, who defeated the ruling PDP. Like Suswam, Ortom betrayed him but could not snatch the party structure from him. He held tenaciously to that, and that forced Ortom to defect to the PDP.
However, he lost his bid to return to the senate for a fourth term to Emmanuel Oker-Jev of the PDP, but quickly former President Muhammad Buhari offered him a leeway to escape political irrelevance, especially at the state level, when he appointed him Minister of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs, a position he held until the expiration of the Buhari administration on May 29, 2023.
Again, during the 2023 elections, Akume equally showed clearly that he is really a political heavy weight as far as Benue politics is concerned. He cut short Ortom’s senatorial ambition, denied Suswam his bid to remain in the Senate and displaced the PDP from the Benue Government House by installing Rev Fr. Hyacinth Alia of the APC as the new governor of Benue State.
Apart from defeating the PDP and producing the state governor in the 2023 general elections, the APC also won two senatorial seats, cleared 10 out of the 11 seats in the House of Representatives and won 21 out of the 32 seats in the state House of Assembly.
To cap his political prowess, he has followed the footstep of his boss, Tinubu who sent his wife, Remi, to the Senate, by equally sending his wife to the House of Representatives to represent the good people of Gboko/Tarka Federal Constituency in the current 10th National Assembly.
The belief in many quarters is that having achieved the foregoing political feats in the last two decades of his political life, he needs no more experience to excel as the SGF.
It is also believed that he has his job clearly cut out for him in his new assignment, unlike in his last role as a minister under former Buhari, where little was known about his official duties; a development that hindered an objective and fair assessment of his performance in that capacity.
By Sunday Ani
The Sun Nigeria
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