Opinion: Buhari, Dikko And Democracy

by Lewis Obi

Major-General Muham­madu Buhari, ex-Head of State of Nigeria, presi­dential hopeful of the All Progressives Congress (APC), must be a good man. Those who worship him are legion, some even dare hoist him up Mount Olympus. But like all men, including even the good men, he is not perfect. He has a few weaknesses one of which is so conspicuous even or­dinary mortals can notice it. He has a special pre-disposition to shortcuts.

There is nothing wrong with shortcuts if they can lead you to your destinations. We all now and then resort to shortcuts. The long route tasks everyone’s patience. And there is some virtue in a certain level of impatience. Judgment makes the difference between the shortcut that leads to your destination and the one that leads you into the wilderness.

When Gen. Buhari overthrew the elected Federal Government of Nige­ria on 31 December 1983 part of his reasons was to end corruption and to recover all the stolen wealth. Alhaji Umaru Dikko was the minister of transport, one of the most influential ministers in the administration of President Alhaji Shehu Shagari. But Dikko had quietly fled the country apparently having been tipped off.

The Buhari regime declared him as the most wanted man in Nigeria. Everyone imagined he must be the real ‘Ali Baba’ since Shagari who was the leader of ‘the 40 thieves’ didn’t cut that image. So, Dikko , it must be, especially since he loomed so large in the affairs of the govern­ment. In addition to being the min­ister of transport Dikko was also the chairman of the presidential task force on rice which handled the importation of rice. It was awash with cash. Massive corruption was alleged. Dikko was thought to have stolen billions of US dollars. The least estimate was $6 billion.

That the kidnapping of Umaru Dikko was masterminded by the di­rector-general of the Israeli Mossad tells you how desperate General Bu­hari was to lay his hands on Dikko. The Mossad agents sought for Dik­ko for weeks, then on 30June 1984, an agent driving down Queensway spotted him and parked his car and then tailed Dikko on foot to his home in Porchester Terrace and later that night informed Nahum Admoni, the Mossad boss.

Three days later a Nigeria Air­ways B707 flew in from Lagos and taxied to a spot in Stansted Airport, guarded by security men who said they were guarding the plane and had come to pick up a cargo.

The following day Dikko was kidnapped. It was a mess. It was so bungled it was apparent that the Ni­gerian High Commission in London did not let a lawyer look through the plan or help with the required paper­work. Two crates were made. One contained the minister and the doc­tor anaesthecist whose duty was to keep Dikko sedated and alive. The second crate contained the kidnap­pers, two other Israelis.

To cut a long story short, Dikko was taken to hospital. He was un­injured. Four men went to prison, three Israelis and one Major Moham­med Yusufu who received between 10 and 14 years. Not a penny was recovered from the $6 billion.

Dikko’s kidnap was a Buhari shortcut. The due process was to painstakingly assemble a mountain of evidence linking Umaru Dikko with converting $6 billion govern­ment money into his own. Then inviting the British High Commis­sioner over to State House, to talk it over with him, showing him all the damning evidence why the British should do Nigeria a favor and extra­dite Umaru Dikko to return home and face the law for his misdeeds. No British government would de­cline such a request as long as it is backed by credible and irrefutable evidence of graft, in spite of British misgivings about the nature of the government.

Another Buhari shortcut was the special military tribunal.

Those tribunals dealt with factual findings, their sentences may have been unnaturally excessive but the procedure was the subject of con­tention between the lawyers and the government. Gen. Buhari would have been able to achieve the same objective had he given up the short­cut which, for all practical purposes, made those tribunals have the unfor­tunate image of a kangaroo court.

Only lawyers would know if the unduly long detention of former government officials was due to the wording of the decree or merely the tardiness of the investigators, but it is considered as one of the excesses of the Buhari regime. The general sim­ply has no stomach for due process.

When I wrote last week about the consequences of Buhari’s poor judg­ment in cancelling the Lagos Metro in 1985, I did receive responses say­ing the man has changed, he was only 41 then, he is wiser now. But there is no evidence to support such optimism. At a certain age in life people do not change long held be­liefs, attitudes, and habits. Buhari is no exception.

As late as 14th January 2015, one month before the election, Buhari stated publicly his loss of faith in the system. He did this publicly, even in the presence of famous interna­tional public servants like former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan of Ghana, and the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Chief Emeka Anyaoku. He expressed his frustra­tions in words that still reflected his lack of faith in due process: “In 2011, I said, I as a presidential candidate will not go to court, but I made sure that my party went to the court. We went there, I think for about nine months or so and again it is the same story. There is no way the ruling party will lose judgment. This is nasty experience, if one looks at how the Supreme Court was split and how relatively other international observ­er teams made their own ruling that the election was messy.

“So on paper, you can’t cage Nige­rians. You can only cage Nigerians on t he fi eld. I n t erms o f p ractical documentation, go to any ministry or parastatal, you will get instruction on how the place should be managed from the cleaner to the permanent secretary and even the minister when he comes.

“You will also get financial in­structions on how to spend the money. I am afraid because of my personal experiences, having gone through the system. All these cred­ible tested intellectual instruction may have been thrown into the waste paper basket,” he said.

It is easy to see from above that he has not a modicum of faith in the system. The Supreme Court was split even in the United States in 2000. There is a quip that it was the “black” vote that gave the presidency to George W. Bush – the vote of Jus­tice Clarence Thomas, the black man in the high bench. Americans would curse and swear at each other and accuse one another of treason and treachery but both sides would pro­fusely express their faith in the sys­tem, even when they half believe it.

A democratic system has one re­deeming feature. It can correct it­self. It may take a while but it even­tually does the right thing because change is embedded in the system. It is easier for a camel to walk through the eye of the needle than to turn General Buhari into a democrat. Ev­ery effort was made to turn General Olusegun Obasanjo into a democra­cy-loving president.

It was a waste of time. Eight years of being an elected president, and eight years after being a party chieftain in a democracy, Obasanjo still thinks like the commander of the Third Marine Commandoes. The next in line in the recycling of gener­als would be of course ex-President Ibrahim Babangida. Then we would have gone full circle.

Lewis Obi can be reached by sms on 08173446632 or email [email protected]

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.