The measure of a life of service, By Umaru J Abu

My prayer for my mentor, leader and friend is that the God whom he has served so faithfully will grant him many more years in good health and strength; that the wisdom accumulated over seven decades will continue to benefit our country and coming generations; and that the seeds he has planted — in public institutions, in the Church, in education and in people — will continue to bear fruit long after the stories of our present politics have faded.

It was already past 11 o’clock that night when I finally got home.

We had spent much of the day poring over data on the performance of ministers, interrogating numbers, testing conclusions and considering what they meant for the work of government. It had been a long day, even by the standards of an office where long days were quite normal. I took my bath and was preparing to retire for the night when my telephone rang.

It was Boss Mustapha.

There was something important that needed to be resolved. A decision had to be reached, and the resulting document needed to get to President Muhammadu Buhari the following morning. He apologised for calling so late and asked if I could return to the office.

So, back to the office I went.

We worked into the early hours of the morning, going over the issues until he was satisfied that what would reach the president was clear, considered and fit for purpose.

For me, that night captures something essential about the man whose 70^th birthday we celebrate today.

For the better part of the nearly six years that Boss Mustapha (CFR) served as Secretary to the Government of the Federation, I had the privilege of working closely with him, providing technical support through the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and its Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn (PERL) programme. That vantage point afforded me something more valuable than a knowledge of the public record. It allowed me to observe the man behind the office.

And what I saw was an extraordinary devotion to duty.

Boss, as many of us simply call him, was a workaholic in the truest sense of the word. Midnight was not an unusual closing time. Files were read. Briefs were interrogated. Assumptions were challenged. Decisions were rarely taken casually. The demands of the office were enormous, but his appetite for work seemed even greater.

Yet, hard work alone does not explain Boss Mustapha.

The office of Secretary to the Government of the Federation occupies a peculiar place in Nigeria’s governance architecture. Its occupant must understand administration without being imprisoned by bureaucracy; politics without becoming consumed by partisanship; policy without losing sight of implementation; and power without forgetting that public office is ultimately a trust.

Boss understood these balances remarkably well.

He was a politician who understood the language of the public service and a public servant who understood the realities of politics. He could navigate both worlds without confusing their respective purposes. He understood when consensus was necessary, when bureaucracy needed to be pushed, when political judgement was required and, importantly, when the evidence simply had to speak.

That capacity became particularly important as we worked to strengthen performance management at the centre of government.

With the support of the FCDO through the PERL Governance Programme, we worked with his office to develop what became the first structured centre-of-government performance management system of that administration. It was demanding work. Building systems at the centre of government is rarely glamorous. It requires painstaking negotiations across ministries and agencies, agreement on what should be measured, the discipline to distinguish activity from results and, perhaps most difficult of all, the willingness to confront evidence when it is uncomfortable.

Boss provided the leadership space for that work to take root.

For someone like me, working alongside him was an education that no classroom could have provided. Through his mentorship, I gained a deeper appreciation of the inner workings of governance and public service at the highest levels: how decisions are shaped before they become announcements; how competing institutional interests are reconciled; how seemingly straightforward policy choices become complicated when confronted by political, administrative and fiscal realities; and how consequential decisions often rest upon hours of work that the public will never see.

Some mentors teach by instruction. Others teach by example.

Boss Mustapha did both.

I learnt from his discipline. I learnt from his attention to detail. I learnt from watching him manage difficult personalities and competing interests. I learnt that proximity to power should increase one’s sense of responsibility rather than one’s sense of importance. And I learnt that, at the highest levels of government, competence without character can only take a person so far.

Perhaps this is why it is impossible to understand Boss Mustapha fully without understanding his faith.

His Christianity is not an accessory to his public identity. It is central to the man himself. He is not merely a Christian by profession; he is a preacher and a man who has consistently committed his time, influence and resources to the service of God.

There is something instructive about a man who has occupied one of the most powerful offices in the country still finding fulfilment in building for God and for generations he may never meet.

His support for the Lutheran University of Nigeria in Demsa, Adamawa State, is an example. Through the mobilisation of resources, a major complex comprising a Senate building, administrative block and library was developed and donated to the university. Appropriately named the Wesley Mustapha Complex, the facility is more than brick and mortar. It represents an investment in knowledge, faith, human development and posterity.

That, too, tells a story about Boss.

Public office eventually ends. Convoys disappear. Titles change. Doors that once opened automatically begin to require appointments. What remains is the question every person who has been entrusted with responsibility must eventually answer: What did you do with the opportunity you were given?

Boss Mustapha has much with which to answer that question.

His years as SGF coincided with some of the most difficult moments in Nigeria’s recent history. He worked at the heart of government through economic challenges, complex political transitions and, most notably, the COVID-19 pandemic, during which he was called upon to lead the Presidential Task Force coordinating Nigeria’s response. These were assignments in which decisions had real consequences for millions of people.

Through it all, the characteristics I witnessed remained remarkably consistent: discipline, stamina, dependability and an abiding sense of duty.

But on this occasion of his 70^th birthday, I find myself thinking less about the titles he has held and more about the lessons of the man.

Seventy years is a significant milestone. It provides an opportunity not merely to count years, but to examine what has been poured into those years.

In Boss Mustapha’s case, there has been service to country, to community, and to God. There has been a distinguished professional career, political engagement, stewardship at the highest level of government, investment in institutions and, perhaps less visible to the public, the mentoring of people who had the privilege of coming within his orbit.

I count myself fortunate to be one of them.

There are things I understand about government today because Boss allowed me to see government beyond textbooks and organograms. There are lessons about leadership I carry because I watched him work when there were no cameras present and no applause to be earned. And there are standards of professional commitment that remain etched in my mind because I witnessed a man, already occupying one of the highest offices in the land, still willing to sit over a document into the early hours because it mattered that the president received the best possible advice the next morning.

That late-night telephone call many years ago therefore remains with me.

Not because returning to the office at that hour was particularly remarkable. Many people in public service have similar stories. It stays with me because of what it revealed: that for Boss Mustapha, responsibility did not observe office hours.

When something needed to be done, it had to be done.

Today, the files are different. The office has changed hands. The relentless rhythm of his years as SGF has given way to another phase of life. But the values that sustained him through those years remain.

At 70, Boss Mustapha can look back upon a life of consequence. But knowing him, I suspect he will be more interested in what remains to be done than in what has already been accomplished.

And perhaps that is fitting.

For a man whose life has been defined by service, seventy should not simply be a celebration of arrival. It should be thanksgiving for the journey and a commissioning for the road ahead.

My prayer for my mentor, leader and friend is that the God whom he has served so faithfully will grant him many more years in good health and strength; that the wisdom accumulated over seven decades will continue to benefit our country and coming generations; and that the seeds he has planted — in public institutions, in the Church, in education and in people — will continue to bear fruit long after the stories of our present politics have faded.

Happy 70^th birthday, Boss.

Thank you for the privilege of learning at close quarters.

Thank you for showing that professionalism and politics need not be enemies, that public power can coexist with humility, that faith can find expression in service, and that leadership, at its best, is ultimately about the responsibility one accepts for others.

At seventy, the offices Boss Mustapha has occupied are part of his biography. The lives and institutions he has helped to shape are his legacy.

Umaru J Abu can be reached  through [email protected]