Weighing Umar Dikko on the Scale of History
By Chxta Bee

Umaru Dikko, died recently. He was the foster child of corruption under the Presidency of Shehu Shagari. Dikko ran to London in the days after Buhari toppled Shagari’s regime in 1983. Today's ‪#‎HistoryClass, is about the attempt by the Buhari regime to bring him back to Nigeria. Nigeria, in the early 1980s’ was synonymous with corruption under President Shagari. The amount pilfered between 1979 and 1983 is estimated to be at least $16 billion (roughly $480 billion today). Attempts to audit Shagari administration was a total fiasco as the politics of fires was invented to obliterate the illegalities heaped at Accounts & Records Department, just before the scheduled audit. When confronted with all of these stories, President Shagari pleaded with his Ministers, especially his son-in-law, Umaru Dikko. However, Dikko, and other Ministers, ignored the President. So Shagari decided to take the matter to God. God didn't listen.

Who was this Dikko that was so powerful that the President was too afraid to call him, his son-in-law, to order? At age 30 in 1966, Dikko’s rising profile made Hassan Katsina to ask him to unite the North after January 15, 1966. His power and influence was further amplified after the July 29, 1966 coup, as he was one of those who kept Nigeria together in that coup. Remember that both Murtala Mohammed and Theophilus Danjuma had wanted the Northern region to secede from Nigeria after killing Aguiyi-Ironsi. Dikko was one of the leaders who stopped that at a meeting at the British High Commission, on the night of July 29, 1966.

After that, he became quiet and spent the decade after the war building his power base in Kaduna, Kano and the North-Western states. Then, in 1979, he was made Shagari's campaign manager for the successful presidential campaign of the National Party of Nigeria. His reward after Shagari got to power (in addition to Shagari's daughter) was to be made Minister of Transport. As an aside, during the 1979 elections, Dikko contested for a seat in the Senate and lost. He never won an election.

There were a lot of stories about Dikko's wealth. One of such stories is that he once tried to pay an American contractor $500, 000 cash in his house, when the FG failed to honour the terms of a contract. What is certain is that in the Shagari government, he was the be all and end all, the man who could do and undo.

Nigeria's economy began to collapse in 1981, and by 1982 was in free-fall with a lot of food shortages and some starvation. In 1981, to stave off starvation, the importation of rice became a national affair, and Dikko was made the chairman of the committee that was set up to import the product. Well, the rice never got to the people, and there were accusations of committee members hoarding rice in order to drive up the prices for their own benefit. One of the reasons that Dikko advanced for the failure of his committee was that Ghanaians had sabotaged it, so Ghana-must-go became a government policy.

In 1983, a certain MKO Abiola tried to contest for the NPN's presidential ticket, and Dikko forced him out of the party. Following that, Dikko, in what is acknowledged to be Nigeria's most flawed election ever, was able to get his in-law returned to office for a second term. Finally, at the end of 1983, the Shagari government was kicked out of office in a coup which brought Buhari to power.

On his second day in power, Buhari issued a list of former government officials accused of a variety of crimes, mainly corruption. Dikko topped the list and was accused of embezzling several million dollars in oil profits from the national treasury. However, the man had vanished without a trace, so Nigeria recruited the services of Israel's Mossad to find him.

In January 1984, a team of Nigerian agents, posing as exiles rented an apartment in London. Their brief, to hunt Dikko down. About the same time, an Israeli team moved to London posing as anti-apartheid activists, but with the same brief. On 30 June 1984, he was located, living in luxury in the up market area of London known as Bayswater. Immediately, Lagos and Tel Aviv were informed, and his extradition was ordered. He was placed under 24-7 surveillance.

On July 4, 1984 a Nigerian Airways Boeing 707 cargo plane flew in with no cargo from Lagos and landed at Stansted airport. The British were told that the plane had come in to collect diplomatic baggage from the Nigerian High Commission. However, there were several Nigerian security operatives on the plane, and their presence was noted by the British intelligence.

The next day, the Nigerian team leader, Major Mohammed Yusufu, drove a rented van to Dikko's house in Bayswater. Inside the van were an Israeli doctor, Levi Shapiro, Alex Barak and Felix Abithol, both Mossad agents.

That day, Dikko had scheduled an interview with a Ghanaian journalist, Elizabeth Ohene, of the Talking Drum magazine. As he stepped out of his house to make his date, Barak and Abithol grabbed him, Shapiro drugged him. It was done in seconds. There was one snag. Dikko's secretary, Elizabeth Hayes, saw the whole thing and quickly notified British authorities. Because of the fact that the UK authorities knew who Dikko was, and that he was wanted in Nigeria, vigilance was raised at the borders.

Meanwhile, the drugged Dikko was loaded in a crate with Dr. Shapiro, while the Mossad agents were in another. Here, another snag came up. Group Captain Bernard Banfa, who would become head of Nigeria Airways, failed in his task. Banfa was meant to meet with Yusuf and Shapiro before they arrived at Stansted, to give diplomatic papers. He never showed up. Given the kind of cargo that they had, Yusuf and Shapiro decided to go ahead anyway and go to the airport. The van with the crates was escorted to the airport by two cars bearing Nigerian diplomatic plates.

Having been warned by the security forces to be wary, customs officers were unusually inquisitive and vigilant. A customs officer, Charles Morrow, noticed an unusual chemical smell from one of the crates and forced it open. Inside, was a bound and unconscious Umaru Dikko, with his minder, Shapiro. Abithol and Barak were in the second crate.
Dikko was taken to hospital he woke up 36 hours later with no knowledge of all the drama that had happened.

The incident led to a standoff between Nigeria and Britain, which lasted for two years and a huge court case. Barak got 14 years, Yusufu got 12 years, Shapiro and Abithol got 10 years each. They were all deported after release.

After the Dikko Affair, Britain as a matter of unofficial policy refused Nigeria requests for extradition. The consequence of this was that Nigeria's war on corruption fell apart as Britain became a safe haven for corrupt officials. Requests by the Buhari government to extradite Richard Akinjide and Adisa Akinloye were refused by the Thatcher government.

Dikko lived in London for 12 years after the incident, and was invited back to Nigeria by the Abacha government. He participated in the 1995 Constitutional Conference that recommended Abacha as a sole presidential candidate for 5 parties. He was also a founding member of the Arewa Consultative Forum, and finally, head of the PDP's disciplinary committee.

Justice Oputa’s political burial

The late Justice Chukwudifu Oputa was widely respected across the length and breadth of this land as a reputable jurist whose thoughts on different legal matters brought about new sublime vistas and whose judgments, delivered with unusual and deep insights, have continued to excite judges, lawyers and law students alike. It was not for nothing that he was widely regarded as the Lord Denning of Nigeria. Baron Denning, who lived for 100 years has been described as the most influential judge of the 20th century, in part because of the changes he brought to the British common law as well as for the personal touch that he left on the legal profession of Britain and such other countries like Nigeria, whose legal practice is hand in glove with that of the colonial masters.
 
When Justice Oputa also become a household name outside the legal circles on account of the famous panel on human rights abuses which was put together by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration and which he chaired. Even though the recommendations of the panel which was popularly known as the Oputa Panel were not implemented, they had their merit for providing the first national avenue for openly discussing and unearthing, for the first time, some provocative acts of impunity by previous administrations. After the Oputa panel, more Nigerians have found the voice and courage to question, and even challenge, impunity of governance.
 
Justice Chukwudifu Akunne Oputa, died at a ripe old age of 92 on May 4 2014 and has been mourned by all and sundry. It was difficult to see any voice which was raised in anger against the demised eminent jurist. It was, therefore, expected that his funeral would attract the presence and interest of Nigerians from all aspects of the national spectrum, in and out of government, in and out of the legal profession and amongst the ordinary people of the nation. People who make news in life usually make more news at their death. One of the key areas of the news-making process of Justice Oputa was in his having a son in whom he was well pleased, even if that son did not quite conform professionally to what could have been the best tastes of the jurist.
 
His son, Charles who had the best of education that an erudite and caring father could afford his favorite child decided very early in life to toe a path from where he knew he could best express himself for the benefit of his personal satisfaction and that of a public to which he was very devoted. Charles Oputa Junior was better known and reputed as Charly Boy, which was the name that defined the eminent but non-conformist roles he played, not in the judicial field but in the entertainment industry. Charly Boy was very good at what he did in such a unique way that defined him as a distinguished genre.
 
His father was well pleased in Charly Boy and said so in several interviews and public fora. The son was very enamored of the doting father who he cared for after his retirement until the old man joined his ancestors last month. The prayer and hope of every father is to have beloved children who would care for them in old age and finally confer a befitting funeral on him when it pleased God to call him back. Justice Oputa must have died a happy man knowing that he has a son who is capable of doing both.
Those who know the Oputa family well say the late jurist and his non-conformist son were very close and so must have understood and respected each other’s wishes and preferences. So, it was to be expected that Charles Oputa Junior knew how his father wished to be buried and remembered. He knew if his father wanted a politically vibrant funeral such that would have resulted in his body being ferried from pillar to post across the country, or if the man wanted to be buried respectably as a fervent Catholic and a good lawyer and judge. The way it finally turned out to the public looked as if Charly Boy was playing a script which conformed to an instruction that his father had left which was that he should not be buried like a politician, which he was not.
It is generally agreed by the Igbo that while a dead man would usually make a will on certain issues of his death and burial but it is often a convention amongst the Igbo that some elements of such a will are modified to suit the convenience of the living. On a very simple level, there are people who usually instruct that they should be spared the suffocating ritual of being put in the mortuary at their death and should be buried immediately they died. It is seldom that such wishes are respected to the letter because of the difficulty of the logistics of such an instruction on the living. Many people demand a quiet funeral and again because of the way the society is ordered and organized, it becomes next to impossible for a well-known person to have a quiet burial. So, you start to wonder: is it possible for a Nigeria big man or woman to be saved from a political funeral?
 
On Saturday, June 28, Justice Oputa was buried at his Oguta home town, in Imo State. As is usual with such a prominent Catholic a pontifical requiem Mass was celebrated to usher him to the great beyond. Such funeral occasions are definitely more than pure religious occasions. Their ecumenical nature is first and foremost the most eloquent testimony to the fact that the occasion is never confined strictly by the confines of pure religious demands. In such big funerals with high ranking members of the government and other organized and stratified institutions, protocol is observed and in circumstances in Nigeria where the lines between the religious and social affairs are blurred, any presence of administrators of states are given credence and recognition. In other words, many prominent Nigerians and outsiders from outside Imo State who came to attend the Oputa funeral must have enjoyed some protocol, security and welfare extended by the state government. The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) who represented the president must have been received and hosted by the state government officials. No state government ever wants that fact not to be taken into consideration.
 
In other words, no matter how much anyone might want to pretend that the burial of Justice Oputa in Oguta was a family affair, such assertion cannot hold much water due to the stature of the person for whom the bell tolls and on account of the heavy government facilities that are bound to be made available at the occasion.
 
The unfortunate fracas that took place during the funeral service led by Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, last Saturday was definitely unnecessary and avoidable and displayed a shameful lack of maturity on both sides of the fracas. To refresh the minds of those who are very conversant of the event under discourse, Charly Boy had reportedly snatched the microphone from Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State and had prevented him from speaking after Senator Anyim who represented the president. From my enquiries, I learnt that Oputa Junior had insisted that he did now want the funeral of his father to be politicized. I did not hear directly from Charly Boy, otherwise, I would have taken the statement as laughable because there was no way the speech of the governor could have been a greater politicization than that of the president. If there were to have been no speeches from political people, as I have seen done at some other occasions where speeches were limited to the members of the clergy and the bereaved family, it ought to have been observed across the board. To, therefore, stop Governor Okorocha from making a speech was the height of indiscretion and disrespect for the office he occupies. While not everybody in the any state might like the person of the governor but every citizen ought to feel insulted if the office a governor occupies at the behest of the people is desecrated. Snatching a microphone from a governor is the height of such desecration.
It hardly matters what might have been the other underlining issues that might have caused bad blood between the governor and the Oputa family, like the story making the rounds that the N20 million which the governor claimed to have donated for the funeral might not have been true. But the fact remains that nothing should have been done to drag the office of the governor to disrepute, for it was the entire Imo State that was denigrated and not just Owelle Rochas Okorocha. Charly Boy with his very wide exposure ought to have known that.
 
The flipside of the argument is that it was be counter protocol and even irresponsible of Governor Rochas to have sought to speak after the president had delivered his speech, thus, creating the situation whereby the microphone had to be snatched from his hand. Yes, it is unexpected and almost abnormal for the president to have spoken without the governor who was visibly present unless the governor had declined to speak. It is also a big surprise that Anyim had not invited Okorocha to speak before him, unless he saw that as an opportunity to belittle the governor who belonged to a rival party, and that would be most unfortunate.
 
Many observers I spoke to are describing the fracas as having been caused by three ‘big babies’. As angered and miffed as he might have been – and justifiably so – Governor Okorocha should have maturely kept his cool and allowed the funeral take its course in tandem with the respect which he claims to harbour for the man who was being celebrated. He and his government have ample avenues and opportunities to speak out later and complain against the slight and disrespect against his office, and therefore, the people of the state. To whom much is given, much is expected. Before that occasion there must have been incidents that would have provided him with the inkling that things were not on a proper keel between him and the Oputa family. Needless to say that Charles Oputa’s act was most disgraceful, immature and unexpected.
 
The event at Oguta last week ought to provide a watershed and redefine the role and behavior of high political figures when it comes to the funerals of the high and mighty. It has become almost an epidemic what infests political leaders and makes them see it as a right to hijack funerals with high visibility. It happened during Ojukwu’s burial, when governors of the component states had made more sound and fury than the whirlwind. These were the governors who had promised to bring down the cloud for Ojukwu but had ended up contributing nothing that could make the memories of the man and his times enduring. With all the noisy carnival that the likes of Governor Okorocha organized for Ojukwu in Owerri, he reportedly contributed nothing to efforts to produce materials that would immortalize the man. I was in the Ojukwu burial committee, so I know.
 
As funerals have become the biggest events in Igbo land, it is only such self-effacing leaders like Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State who do not run around hearses and throw their weight about in self-adulation. It might have been such showy attempts to wail louder than the bereaved that might have infuriated the likes of Charles Oputa Junior to the extent of exhibiting the type of unbecoming show that he enacted before the world on his father’s funeral. He should not have allowed the antics of desperate politicians to push him into an act that tends to denigrate the memories of a man who deserved the respect of Nigerians, especially at such a solemn occasion of a pontifical requiem Mass.

By Uche Ezechukwu

Oga OBJ, Where Are Your Boots?

Uche  Ezechukwu 

— June 2, 2014  

One of the very few things that helped to heal the deep physical and psychological wounds inflicted on the dissipated former Biafrans after the 30-month civil war was the savoury episodes of heroic exploits told by the ex-combatants. The war-weary demobilised soldiers, drawn from boys and men of variegated background, would be surrounded regularly by relatives and friends, listening attentively and in awe, as they lapped-up stories of exploits at the different theatres of the war.
The length, style and flavour of those accounts varied from person to person, depending on the expertise and disposition of the ex-soldier. But every returnee had a story. Of course, there were those who, stunned and still traumatised by their experiences, remained tongue-tied and only uttered a few words when they were compelled to. But, as it later became evident to those who listened to those told-and-retold heroic accounts – with more salt and pepper being added with every subsequent retelling – those who weaved the loftier stories of the war exploits turned out to be those who might not have even gone to the warfronts, but had only performed the less tasking chores at the ‘rear’.
Many of those ex-soldiers, were mostly recognisable through their dresses, which consisted of different varieties of worn-out military dresses and always of old boots. The boots were the most distinguishing features of the ex-soldiers in those days. There was this John whose very grandiose stories must have shown-off as one of the bravest and most gallant soldiers in Biafra, had started attracting a lot of doubts on account of their mutation into several versions. Soon, the impression grew that he might not be telling the truth. In fact, very soon, many people started doubting if, indeed, he even served in the army, especially as he never ever wore a pair of boots.
Nobody mustered enough courage to challenge John until on one bright day, a daring 12-year old boy, aware of the general skepticism that John’s antics had evoked in the community, stood up and queried him: “Dee John, ka igara Army, olekwanu boot gi? (Bro John, if you were in the Army, where are your boots?)”
The non-relenting, and now, nauseating tendency of President Olusegun Obasanjo to see himself as the only cock crowing in the yard in Nigeria’s affairs and as the man who has the ultimate and exclusive knowledge of the right things to do at every situation has continually evoked the memory of Dee John to me. Last week Obasanjo was at it again, talking down on the present administration under President Jonathan, who, he had, in his ultimate wisdom, enthroned as his co-successor. In interviews with the Channels TV and the US-based Bloomberg, Obasanjo, in his usual omniscient scathing ways, wrote off the present government in many ways.
The rough storm raised by the very un-presidential 18-page public letter which he addressed to President Jonathan early this year and which was roundly condemned by all including his own daughter, has hardly settled before he has now launched into another series of attacks on the government’s handling of the Boko Haram issue. He is also attacking the government’s handling of the Chibok kidnap issue as well as what he sees as the inappropriate tactics of the military in its ongoing challenging efforts to stem the tide of terrorism and more urgently, to rescue the school girls, still in captivity.
The need to respect a man of Obasanjo’s stature is never in doubt to any Nigerian, in and out of politics, especially on account of his age and precedents. However, and it is a pity that the fact that respect is earned and not commanded seems to have been lost permanently on President Obasanjo, as he persists on the delusion that a kingmaker would also remain the king. Many discerning observers see Obasanjo’s regular and unrelenting swipes at the Jonathan leadership as a sign of frustration for not being allowed to dictate to those at the helm, both in the top civil and military positions. It would have been normal for him to be content with proffering advice to the leadership on a variety of issues, but he should have also been the first to appreciate that no leader is bound to take every advice. It was even Obasanjo himself who had popularised the saying that he was not compelled to accept an advice of his own appointed advisers.
The tragedy of Obasanjo’s intrusive politics is that he has refused to accept his huge inadequacies both as the leader who institutionalised many of the vices which have held the country hostage today, like corruption and electoral malpractices. Today, he refuses to bat an eyelid when he sanctimoniously stands aloof and pours invectives in the mien of a man who instructs that, others do as he says but not as he did. Because there was nothing redeeming about the Obasanjo’s tenure as president, he has always lacked both the moral and statutory right to breathe down the neck of subsequent governments with prescriptions. One is even irked the more by Obasanjo’s pretentions to superior knowledge on military matters presumably because he served as a field commander during the war against a ragtag Biafran army or because he was a military head of state. Obasanjo had in “My Command”, a book of his exploits during the war, painted a picture of a very tactically competent and intelligent military strategist. His hyperbolic accounts of personal heroism where only puny credits were grudged others were later found to be like those heroic accounts of Dee John after the civil war. Those who knew him and his performance during that era of appropriated military heroism have since given a lie to most of those claims.
A recent book by the very cerebral retired Brigadier-General Godwin Alabi-Isama, entitled “On-the-Spot Account of the Nigeria-Biafra War in the Atlantic Theatre”, showed how most of the earlier claims of Obasanjo about his military prowess were falser than vows made in wine (apologies to Shakespeare). In other words, Alabi-Isama, like the courageous Igbo boy after the war, seemed to have asked Obasanjo, “Where are your boots?”
I am personally miffed about the flippant tendencies of Air Marshal Alex Badeh, a man who currently runs the Nigerian military, in my belief that he often puts his mouth in motion before engaging his mind in gear. I was pained when as he was being sworn in only a few months ago, he claimed, rather gratuitously, that the Boko Haram terrorism would be ended by April. Again, when last week, he claimed that the military knows where the kidnapped Chibok girls are, I had raised eyebrows but some of my military friends suggested that the statement must have been made to achieve certain effects and to generate certain reactions. Not used to questioning strategies of people in their areas of expertise, I held my peace and adopted the siddon-look attitude.
But Obasanjo, obviously in order to show how much superior knowledge he has about the Boko Haram insurgency and military strategies started making very dangerous insinuations about both, aimed at blaming the government for the escalation of the Boko Haram, and showing off his excellent record in religious harmony management. Obasanjo conveniently forgot that Boko Haram was created more by economic factors rather than religious ones, and that in the field of economic management, he cannot claim to have done better than the Jonathan administration.
Let me end with a story of an encounter between President Obasanjo and his then Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Victor Malu who got so exasperated with Obasanjo’s tendency of always wanting to lecture senior officers on military issues that one day, Malu, like the courageous Biafran boy, frontally confronted him with a few home truths about the changing times in the military, like with everything else in life.
“Sir, you left the military after 17 years as a lieutenant-general”, General Malu reportedly observed, “today I am in the Army as a lieutenant-general after 34 years in service. If you enter a tank today, you will not recognise anything because they are now mobile computers, and a far-cry from your days. So Sir, things change…”
So, is there no one who can nudge Obasanjo and urge him that it is time to go for a most deserved retirement, having become a dinosaur in most aspects of life?