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| Gen. Buhari (left) and Gen. Babangida |
In
June 1983, among the new graduates of the Nigerian Defence Academy was 23 year
old 2/Lt. P. Odoba. After commissioning, he was deployed to the Brigade
of Guards Garrison, Lagos to begin a journey, the twists and turns of which he
could not have guessed in his wildest dreams.
On
December 31, 1983, Odoba was the duty officer at the Radio Station, Federal
Radio Corporation, Ikoyi, Lagos. The night before he was casually told by the
Acting Commander of the Brigade of Guards, Lt. Col. Sabo Aliyu that some
armored vehicles and soldiers would be coming to the radio station for an
'exercise' and that he should not ask questions or resist. He complied.
Shortly thereafter, Brigadier Sani Abacha, then Commander of the 9th Mechanized
Infantry Brigade based at Ikeja, arrived to deliver the speech that ended the
regime of President Shehu Shagari and Nigeria's second experiment with
democracy. Brigadier Muhammadu Buhari, former GOC of the 3rd Armoured
Division, emerged as the Head of State, while Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon,
former Military Secretary, was appointed Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters
and Brigadier Ibrahim Babangida, former Director of Army Staff Duties and Plans
- and the operational backbone of the coup - assumed the position of Chief of
Army Staff.
Declaring
itself an "offshoot" of the Murtala-Obasanjo government of the late
seventies, the Buhari regime purged the uppermost echelon of the Armed Forces,
retiring all officers of the rank of Major General equivalent or above at the
time of the coup. But that was not all. Some lower ranking
officers, including Captain M Bala Shagari, the former President's son were
also retired. In time to come his junior brother, Musa, would also be
thrown out of the AirForce Secondary School in Jos. Buhari detained most
political leaders of the Second Republic, accusing them of indiscipline and
profligacy. For the first time in Nigerian history, the country's
security organizations were actively used to track down alleged acts of
corruption through the Special Investigation Bureau, SIB preparatory to formal
military style trials at Bonny Camp. As had been the initial practice by
various prior military regimes, special asset recovery military tribunals were
set up all over the country. A "War against Indiscipline" (WAI)
was launched. Such indiscipline was interpreted broadly to mean lack of
environmental cleanliness, lack of manners (such as failing to take one's place
in queues), corruption, smuggling, desecration of the flag and disloyalty to
the anthem.
The
State Security (Detention of Persons) Decree Number 2 of 1984 gave the Chief of
Staff, Supreme Headquarters (Major General Idiagbon) the power to detain
anyone labeled a security risk for up to six months without trial. Decree
Number 4 of 1984 was promulgated to prevent journalists from reporting news
that could potentially embarrass government officials. Nduka Irabor and
Tunde Thompson were convicted under the decree. Some high
visibility special interest groups, including the National Association of
Nigerian Students (NANS) and Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), ran afoul of
the government and were outlawed. The Labour Congress was banned from
undertaking strike action. In July 1984, in what was clearly a high risk move,
the Buhari government - allegedly assisted by Israeli intelligence -
unsuccessfully attempted to kidnap Alhaji Umaru Dikko, self-exiled 2nd republic
Transportation Minister, from a flat in London. He was grabbed while
taking a stroll, bundled into a van, intubated and placed on ventilator support
supervised by an Israeli anesthesiologist, then placed into a crate and taken
to Stansted airport outside London. Just before embarkation on a Lagos bound
cargo plane suspicious, British Police and customs officers - already alerted
by Dikko's assistant who witnessed the kidnap from her window - aborted the
heist. The incident created a diplomatic storm and even resulted in
tit-for-tat seizures of Nigerian and British Airways aircraft in London and
Lagos. High Commissioners to both countries were withdrawn - and were not
reinstated until February 1986.
To
address economic issues, Buhari introduced austerity measures. He closed the
country's borders - which were not reopened until March 1st, 1986 - and
expelled illegal aliens. Severe limitations were placed on
imports. Smuggling and foreign exchange offenses were viewed as
acts of economic sabotage - with severe penalties. Unfortunately,
accompanied by high inflation, these measures made business onerous for
import-dependent local businesses. Many workers were retrenched in the public
and private sectors at a time prices of elementary food items, caused in part
by famine, were rising. Nevertheless, with all the attributes of a
military operation, the color design of Nigeria's currency was also changed in
April 1984, in part to deal with fake notes in local and regional circulation
thought to be affecting liquidity, but also to undercut corruptly expropriated
cash stocks outside the country. Generals Buhari and Idiagbon secretly
initiated this major undertaking by reaching down to a staff officer at SHQ,
then Lt. Col. MC Alli, who in turn relied on one clerk, Sergeant Ibrahim Audu,
bypassing the Finance Ministry, Central Bank, Supreme Military and Federal
Executive Councils.
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| Babangida, right with Buhari ...now as civillians |
The
credibility of the currency exchange exercise was, however, severely
tested when the late Emir of Gwandu, father of Major Mustafa Haruna Jokolo
(rtd) who was then the ADC to the C-in-C, arrived back in the country from a
foreign trip with a large delegation of wives and children. Newspapers
reported that aided by connections to the regime, he cleared 53 suitcases, none
of which were inspected by the customs service at the airport which was then
under (later Vice President) Abubakar Atiku. However, the issue remains
controversial with latter day unsubstantiated comments from General Buhari
himself as well as aides to former Major Jokolo (who is now the Emir of Gwandu)
claiming on the one hand that the count of "53 suitcases" was
inaccurate and on the other that the scenario was contrived by then NSO Boss,
Lawal Rafindadi allegedly to protect a friend of his in the diplomatic
service.
To
deal with the emerging problem of narcotics trafficking, a retrospective law
was passed to have suspects arrested, tried, convicted and shot. Irrespective
of the merits of taking a harsh line to the problem, the retrospective nature
of the decree - leading to the deaths of Bartholomew Owoh, Bernard
Ogedegbe and Lawal Ojuolape - was inherently controversial to many neutral
observers. The fact that a death sentence was the prescribed punishment
was considered too severe by others. On the other hand the risk that
investigations would someday target well placed military officers and their
mules became a source of quiet background agitation, particularly when some
very prominent businessmen like Dantata, Isyaku Rabiu, Maidaribe, Bako
Kontagora, Amali Sokoto, Haruna Dan-Ja and others were arrested for this or
other reasons or their relatives investigated.
Separately,
the Buhari government (or agents purportedly acting on its behalf) humiliated
several important personalities and opinion leaders in the country. The
O'oni of Ife and Emir of Kano were publicly cautioned and restricted to their
domains after they paid a visit to Israel, a country with which Nigeria
did not have diplomatic relations at the time, dating back to OAU actions in
solidarity with Egypt during the 1983 Arab-Israeli war. A team of
soldiers was sent to the Park Lane residence of Chief Awolowo in Apapa where
they proceeded to ransack the premises, searching for nothing in
particular. Sheikh Mahmoud Gumi, a revered moslem cleric, was allegedly
removed from chairmanship of the Nigerian Pilgrims Board, his salary terminated
and official car impounded - ostensibly because he disagreed with the decision
to execute cocaine traffickers. It remains controversial to this day
whether some of these activities were undertaken, not by the Supreme
Headquarters per se, but by lower echelons in the Army (specifically the
Directorate of Military Intelligence) as part of a psyops campaign to discredit
the regime and set it up for the kill. I recall, for example, that while
leading members of the NMA were being hunted down by the NSO supposedly on
behalf of General Buhari, at least one prominent activist claimed to be in
touch with the Chief of Army Staff, Major General Babangida who was said to be
sending signals to aggrieved Doctors at variance with the public posture of the
regime.
As
fate would have it, twenty months later on Sallah Day, Id-el-Kabir August
26/27, 1985, Odoba, now a full lieutenant, was again at the FRCN Radio station
in Ikoyi as the duty officer. Once again he was told by his Garrison Commander
not to resist when he sees armored vehicles approaching for yet another
'exercise'. Shortly thereafter, Colonel Joshua Nimyel Dogonyaro, Director of
Manning ("A" Branch) and concurrent Director of the Department of
Armour at the Army Headquarters arrived, barely taking notice of the young
officer. At 0600 hours on Tuesday August 27, 1985, snoozy from the laid back
atmosphere of a moslem public holiday, unsuspecting Nigerians woke up to
familiar cycles of martial music interspersed with a radio announcement made in
an unfamiliar voice. It was Dogonyaro. Among other things, he said:
'A small group of individuals in the
Supreme Military Council had abused their power and failed to listen to the
advice of their colleagues or the public, about tackling the country's economic
problems.' He then announced that the regime of Major General
Muhammadu Buhari had been deposed. Hours later, at about 1 pm, the more
familiar voice of Brigadier Sani Abacha, then GOC, 2nd Mechanized Division of
the Nigerian Army, based in Ibadan, came on to announce the appointment of
Major General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, then Chief of Army Staff, as the new
Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Babangida, having
flown back to the capital from Minna, in his home state, where he was allegedly
on vacation, subsequently took the title of 'President'. The position of
Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters was eliminated. Navy Commodore Ebitu
Ukiwe, then Flag Officer Commanding, Western Naval Command was appointed to the
new position of Chief of General Staff (CGS) at the General Staff HQ.
This subtle change in title neatly removed the service chiefs from any kind of
direct reporting relationship to the new CGS.
To
be continued…
© Nowa
Omoigui
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