August 27 (If I should start to talk) 2

 

It is generally believed that had Major-General Tunde Idiagbon, Chief of Staff Supreme (Defence) Headquarters not been away on pilgrimage to Mecca, he would have mounted a counter coup which would have resulted in massive bloodletting. However, what is even more startling is that three former/late heads of Nigeria’s intelligence/security services subsequently confirmed that they were aware that Babangida was planning a coup but he vehemently denied it! However, it remains a mystery why they opted not to alert Buhari regarding the imminent danger. Their excuse was that Buhari was aloof and inaccessible while Idiagbon was overbearing.

To further compound matters, a principal actor in the 27^th August 1985 who is now a Senator on learning that Buhari won the Presidential election on 31^st March, 2015 cynically declared: “Just wait for one year and you will soon know why we removed him in 1985.”

However, General Haliru Akilu the former Director of Military Intelligence [DMI] and National Security Adviser to Gen Babangida has been more forthcoming going by Wikileaks and “Breaking News” on CNN:

“Interest, cracks in top hierarchy of the Nigerian Army led to 1985 coup d’etat”

He then provided more than enough inside knowledge to whet the appetite of serious historians – but it all depends on “If I should start to talk …”

People like me should not talk; we should just thank our lucky stars that the coup succeeded. Otherwise, all those who were at the Chief of Army Staff Conference (both military and civilian) where the coup d’etat was given the final touches would have been rounded up and charged with treason! We all know the penalty for a failed coup – even if your offence was simply to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. We must never relent in giving thanks to the Almighty for his limitless mercies.

When Babangida became Head of State, he invited Chief E.A.O. Shonekan; Alhaji A.O.G. Otiti; Chief Olusegun Oshunkeye; Senator Kofo Bucknor-Akerele; Captain Wole Bucknor; Chief J.K. Randle; Chief Mann Lababidi; and others to constitute his Economic Management Team [F9]. In order to ensure that we had direct access to the Head of State, all the minutes of our meetings were conveyed through Joe Ebuseh whose rank was Commissioner of Police (but he was the second-in-command of the State Security Service). None of us was awarded any banking licence; import licence; oil bloc; arms contract; jumbo contract; or chairmanship of any government parastatal, or knock down price for privatised government-owned companies.

All the same we must be especially thankful that we survived 27^th August 1985 and beyond – but if we should start to talk…!

Memory can be deceptive and unreliable. Consequently, the date 27th August may have little resonance for most Nigerians as they go about their daily struggle for survival in a most daunting economic environment combined with the ding-dong of political turmoil.

Regardless, 27th August 1985 is a date some of us will never forget not out of choice but on account of a huge gamble with death, albeit unknowingly.

Let us wind the tape back. Without any warning (except amongst the more discerning) towards the end of Ramadan a period of utmost sanctity to Moslems Brigadier Joshua Dongoyaro was on radio and television to deliver a special message, with the opening line:

Fellow countrymen,

I, Brigadier Joshua Nimyel Dogonyaro, of the Nigerian Army, hereby make the following declaration on behalf of my colleagues and members of the Nigerian Armed Forces. Fellow countrymen, the intervention of the military at the end of 1983 was welcomed by the nation with unprecedented enthusiasm.

Nigerians were united in accepting the intervention and looked forward hopefully to progressive changes for the better. Almost two years later, it has become clear that the fulfilment of expectations is not forthcoming. Because this generation of Nigerians and indeed future generations have no other country but Nigeria, we could not stay passive and watch a small group of individuals misuse power to the detriment of our national aspirations and interest.

No nation can ever achieve meaningful strides in its development where there is an absence of cohesion in the hierarchy of government; where it has become clear that positive action by the policy makers is hindered because as a body it lacks a unity of purpose.

It is evident that the nation would be endangered with the lack of direction. We are presently confronted with that danger.

In such a situation, if action can be taken to arrest further damage, it should and must be taken. This is precisely what we have done.

The Nigerian public has been made to believe that the slow pace of action of the Federal Government headed by Major-General Muhammadu Buhari was due to the enormity of the problems left by the last civilian administration.

Although it is true that a lot of problems were left behind by the last civilian government, the real reason, however, for the very slow pace of action is due to lack of unanimity of purpose among the ruling body; subsequently, the business of governance, has gradually been subjected to ill-motivated power play considerations. The ruling body, the Supreme Military Council, has, therefore, progressively been made redundant by the actions of a select few members charged with the day to day implementation of the SMCs policies and decisions. The concept of collective leadership has been substituted by stubborn and ill-advised unilateral actions, thereby destroying the principles upon which the government came to power. Any effort made to advise the leadership, met with stubborn resistance and was viewed as a challenge to authority or disloyalty. Thus the scene was being set for systematic elimination of what, was termed opposition.

All the energies of the rulership were directed at this imaginary opposition rather than to effective leadership. The result of this misdirected effort is now very evident in the country as a whole.

The government has started to drift. The economy does not seem to be getting any better as we witness daily increased inflation. The nation’s meagre resources are once again being wasted on unproductive ventures.

Most of the audience readily completed the rest on their own! We had gotten used to military coup d’etats. The only difference this time was that it was the military toppling their own government headed by Buhari. His deputy, Tunde Idiagbon who was generally perceived as the strongman behind the throne had been sold a dummy. He was lured into undertaking the pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, just to get him out of the way.

Till today, his loyalists swear that if Idiagbon was in the country, the coup plotters would not have dared to strike. If they did, it would have been the bloodiest counter-coup in the history of military putsch in the world. The news soon leaked that General Buhari had granted approval to General Idiagbon to the effect that on his return from Saudi Arabia, the Supreme Military Council would immediately announce the retirement of Major-General Babangida as Chief of Army Staff.

In faraway Rio de Janeiro, Brazil a friend of mine called to say that he was staying in the same hotel as Lt General TY Danjuma who on learning that the government had changed in Nigeria coolly declared straightaway:

“Ibrahim Babangida is going to be the new Head of State. It is his boys who are behind the coup”.

He was right on the botton. It was a pre-emptive strike. Only the previous week, Buhari/Idiagbon regime had announced the retirement of Brigadier Aliyu Mohammed Gusau who was Babangida’s right hand man.

The active participation and presumed leadership of the coup by the erstwhile Chief of Army Staff, Babangida triggered off the alarm bells. Some of my friends were in panic as they remembered that only a few days earlier IBB had invited me to Minna, Niger State as the Guest Speaker at the Chief of Army Staff Conference under the auspices of TRADOC (which I believe stands for Training and Doctrine) then headed by Brigadier Ishola Williams.

The venue of the conference was the Shiroro Hotel where we lodged for three days. Colonel David Mark who was then the Military Governor of Niger State was the host. Unknown to me, the conference was a camouflage for coup plotting!

Anyway, the only other civilians at the Minna conference were Chief MKO Abiola who would eventually win the 1993 presidential election and Professor Isawa Elaigwu who was then serving at the Military Defence Academy in Kaduna and had been a contemporary of IBB at the academy while then Brigadier Ibrahim Babangida was a lecturer/instructor.

By 9 pm Abacha was back on the air. This time the announcement was short and sharp.Major-General Ibrahim Babangida has been appointed as the new Head of State and Commander-In-Chief Armed Forces of Nigeria.

 

 General Ishola-Williams

Another person who is superbly qualified to talk is the anti-corruption crusader Major-General Ishola Williams (Rtd) who was then the Commander of Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). He does not appear to have said much specifically about the coup d’etat of 27 August 1985 recently.

It is also instructive that although the then Colonel David Mark was the host in Minna (as Military Governor of Niger State) at the Chief of Army Staff conference which was used as the camouflage for planning the coup d’etat under the pretext that the then Major-General Ibrahim Babangida wanted to confer with his officers on the contribution expected of the army towards Nigeria’s economic and social development, Mark who recently retired as the President of the Nigerian Senate, has not said much about the coup d’etat either. The only civilians invited to make presentations at the conference were late Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola, Chartered Accountant; Professor .Isawa Elaigwu, Political Scientist and my humble self. I have no intention of saying much either but if I should start to talk…!

Colonel Mark was an excellent host. We were well looked after at the Shihoro Hotel, the venue of the Conference. Here is a little stuff on Senator David Mark, who was nearly consumed by General Sanni Abacha who became our Military Head of State (1993 to 1998 ).

David Mark fled into exile in Dublin, Ireland.

“Investigations by Sahara reporters have uncovered questionable deals involving David Alechenu Bonaventure Mark, a retired army general who was on June 5, 2007 chosen as President of the Nigerian Senate. Mark’s election to head the upper legislative chamber made him the third most powerful Nigeria in the current political order.

His election has put him firmly in the spotlight. Apart from his inexplicable accumulation of wealth while holding political positions in General Ibrahim Babangida’s regime, Mark’s apparent renunciation of his Nigerian citizenship has also come to light.

Incidentally, it was the 2016 Presidential Policy Dialogue hosted by Dr. (Mrs.) Nike Akande, CON President of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, under the chairmanship of Aliko Dangote, with Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo as the Special Guest of Honour held on August 11, 2016 at the Eko Hotel Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos that reminded me that during the Buhari / Idiagbon regime (31^st December, 1983 to August 27, 1985). I as the Chairman of Eko Hotel had initiated “The Gold Medal Lectures” to encourage dialogue between the government and the business community – against the backdrop of overwhelming poor communication between the two critical players in the Nigerian economy. Anyway, then Major-General Ibrahim Babangida was invited to deliver a lecture on the role of the army in our nation’s socio-economic development. His address was superlative and held the audience spellbound not just with the paper he delivered but also during the question and answer session which followed. Unknown to most of us in the audience, tension was already brewing between the Military Head of State, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari and late Tunde Idiagbon in one corner and the faction of Chief of Army Staff, Major-General Ibrahim Babangida.

It is instructive that the same issues we were discussing thirty-one years ago are virtually the same ones we are still agonising over now – the parlous state of the economy; over dependence on oil as our revenue earner; scarcity of dollars; low productivity; inflation etc. We have been dealing with the same problems all these years but they remain unresolved regardless of the intellectuals and geniuses amongst our kith and kin.

Anyway back to 1985, it was then Brigadier Ishola-Williams who was serving as the Director of Commander of Army Training and Doctrine Command [TRADOC] based in Minna that Major-General Babangida instructed to convey his invitation to me – to deliver a paper at the Chief of Army Staff conference. When he called at my office in Lagos, he was informed that I was in London en route New York. He got through to me by phone and made it very clear that his boss, the Chief of Army Staff would not take no for an answer. Reluctantly, I returned to Lagos as a call to duty.

On my arrival in Lagos, a military plane was waiting to get me to Minna in time for the conference. Somehow, I had managed to put my thoughts on paper and I delivered an address to the array of military officers with then Lt-Colonel Anthony Ukpo as the Master of Ceremonies while Major-General Babangida presided over the proceedings.

At 6am on Tuesday August 27, 1985 Brigadier Joshua Dogonyaro announced in a nationwide broadcast that Buhari had been overthrown in a bloodless military coup. After having a champagne breakfast to toast their success, the plotters’ inner caucus held a meeting at Bonny Camp to flesh out details of the new leadership. The meeting was attended by the following officers who arrived dressed in combat fatigues: Babangida, Maj-Gen Sani Abacha, Brigadier Joshua Dogonyaro, Brigadier Aliyu Mohammed (head of military intelligence), Navy Commander Murtala Nyako, Lt-Col Ahmed Abdullahi (Minister of Communications), Lt-Col Tanko Ayuba (commanding officer – Nigerian army signal corps), Lt-Col John Shagaya (commanding officer – 9th mechanised brigade, Ikeja), Lt-Col Anthony Ukpo, Major Abubakar Umar (Administrator of the Federal Housing Authority).