By Godwin Etakibuebu
The narration on the final presentation of this discuss has to change slightly from part one presented on this page last week. The change is due to three factors. One is the professional arguments put forward by two Nigerian senior citizens that have been involved, at one time or the other, in the running of the Nigerian Intelligence Agency [NIA].
These two elder statesmen warned never to make public the finding of the Vice-President’s investigative panel. Both men made the point adequately clear enough that lives could be destroyed because of the nature of the modus operandi of the NIA. I think we should listen to them to some extent because of their background in that field of spying.
The two men; Professor Bolaji Akinyemi [arguably one of the best as Director General at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs and later as Minister of Foreign Affairs] and Chief Albert K Horsefall – a seasoned police officer, seconded to the Nigerian Security Organisation [NSO] which metamorphosed later to State Security Services [SSS] and now Directorate of State Security [DSS], also was one-time the DG of the NIA, should be respected, at least for now, until the recent revelation made by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission [EFCC] about the ownership of Flat 7B, 13 Osborne Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, where the money [$43,449,947, £27,800 and N23,218,000] was found is fully confirmed.
The second reason for altering the narration slightly is that the advice of the two elderly statesmen is limited strictly, and only on what the investigative panel might be un-earthling about the NIA and its suspended DG – Ambassador Ayo Oke. The two men did not concern themselves with the second man of the suspension armada; Secretary to the Government of the Federation [SGF], Babachir David Lawal. Yet and more importantly there is a third reason why the narration must shift a little from the path it ought to follow.
This has to do with the departure of President Muhammadu Buhari from Nigeria on Sunday night to the United Kingdom in search of good health. The issue being discussed until the latest departure of the president to the UK has been anchored on what would he [the President] do to those he suspended after Osinbajo Committee would have submitted its report? Or differently put, what was there in his mind by the time he directed his “very holy” SGF to go on suspension? It was in attempt to answer these and other related questions objectively that took us back to 1984, when he suspended the Emir of Kano and the Ooni of Ife after recruiting them to go and clean up the mess his own government created in Israel.
The similarities of 2017 and 1984 would be more appreciated if we are able to limit the personae dramatis of both eras to some specifics. In 1984, two people were suspended [and restricted to their domains for the period in question] and these were the Emir and the Ooni. The duo, we heard authoritatively from the grave-vine then, were fully compensated financially for the embarrassment the public opprobrium caused them.
The point being made here remains the fact that Buhari military junta, in 1984, committed a major blunder when it planned and executed the kidnaping [though it was foiled at the Stansted airport in the UK] of Umaru Dikko in London. This blunder was elongated into recruitment of two outstanding royal fathers by the same government, shipped them into Israel for “clean-up operations” and finally gotten them publicly disgraced by instrumentality of suspension while financially compensated them secretly. Not too many Nigerians knew the route of abracadabra General Buhari passed then when this drama was playing itself out. That was in 1984.
Here we are in 2017, with President Muhammadu Buhari as Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, and in question of probity was a man he hand-picked from his maternal North East zone as Secretary to the Government of the Federation. This highly placed individual, with all the fringe benefits attached to his office, against the run of play [apology to my brother Segun Adeniyi] decided to add “grass cutting contracts” to the officially-laid-down benefits. In so doing, Babachir David Lawal was alleged to have corrupted himself financially and the Senate of the Federal Republic did a quick probe of the matter and came out conclusively that the man actually swallowed the “banana and the peal”.
The recommendation of the Senate was simple enough to wit: A man as corrupt as this cannot be Secretary to a Government fighting corruption – ipso facto, remove him from office. A simple motion to President Buhari, so it seemed, until the president, being a man of war, went on the defensive to protect this “holy David”. On the process he even accused the Senate of “offense fabrication”. Mr President even said that “the so-called interim report of the Senate was signed by only three Senators out of eight members Committee”. And this claim was a lie. Why would the President deliberately tell Nigerians lies in defending his SGF?
Eventually President Buhari, for whatever new revelation available to him, brought the hammer of suspension on his hitherto sacrosanct SGF but the man did not have to walk the path of suspension alone. He had as a companion another big man; the DG of NIA [Ambassador Ayo Oke] for admitting that the N13 billion found in a private property of somebody belonged to the NIA. Here again in 2017, two people being suspended. Could it be possible that what happened in 1984 wil repeat itself here again?
The fear of history repeating itself has been eliminated and that should be good news for all of us. The Vice-President shall no more be handling the report of the panel, probing the two “gentlemen”, to PMB as the later has gone on medical leave while the former is now the de-facto and de-jury president, even in acting capacity. He is to take final decision on the matter and he is not most likely to trend the path PMB would have followed. As such, suspension may not result into under-ground compensation to anybody as it was in 1984.
Godwin Etakibuebu, a veteran journalist, wrote from Lagos.
