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US-based Academic, Prof Adesegun Banjo Who Tried To Overthrow General Abacha Is Dead

Published

5 years ago

March 25, 2019

Editor

By Adewale Adeoye

Former University don, Prof Adesegun Banjo, the June 12 hero who led the attempt to overthrow late General Sani Abacha through armed insurrection passed on quietly penultimate week. In this report, Adewale Adeoye reports on a life of war, intrigues and sacrifices that came to an abrupt end.

He died with a bundle of untold history

The reporter begins the story on a painful, personal note. I knew Prof Adesegun Banjo. I met him around 1996. He was in exile in Ghana. My first meeting with him was dramatic. The late Sanni Abacha’s government had placed a bounty on his head. He was wanted dead or alive. His offence was treason. Prof Adebanjo had truly planted to overthrow the government of Sani Abacha following the ancient axiom that disobedience to an illegitimate order is just. I can only remember a handful of Nigerians that made the sacrifices this Professor of Human Anatomy made to the campaign against totalitarian rule in Nigeria.

The crusade started in the United States, (US) where he had worked as a surgeon. He had saved some 4million dollars through dint of hard work, Spartan discipline, self-denial of the good things of life and support from his charming wife. He then went into the open market. He purchased 3000 rifles, several sub-machine guns, thousands of medical equipment and kits. He even bought machines that could make several bullets. He bought medical equipment for the soldiers he planned to recruit in case they sustained injuries. How successfully beat the security operatives in Europe and America where he may have sourced the weapons.

His calculation followed three years of planning and several reconnaissance home visits. He took his time to study the barracks and the locations of the sentry. At Dodan Barracks, Ikeja and Ojo Cantonments, he took special interests with the hope of seizing them and converting them to his command posts.

He had a near perfect plan. He would bring in the weapons through the sea and land, launch a blitzkrieg of military assaults on important military installations. He would then launch a grand attack beginning from a rural community. From his calculation, he needed few men to start to be tripled after taking over the radio stations and making announcements for more to join the rebellion.

He kept his masterplan to his chest. With his calculation, he would take Lagos in days, followed by Ibadan and then he would move to Abuja. He already had field men in the Niger-Delta and in the Middle Belt and in some parts of the North. The effort was to be coordinated by him. Prof Banjo felt the military had to be overthrown by all means. He raised personal funds, recruited American soldiers including a Vietnamese Major who first trained him in Guerilla warfare. He wanted to build a small, swift and mobile army that would, within the shortest time storm Nigeria and destabilize the military high command.

He was a man of martial intrigues. In the days of his campaign, he suspected everything human; flying objects and creeping things. He was a man driven by suspicion and he had the habit of looking at his quest from one corner of his eyes as if suspecting you were holding a gun or that he had a pistol hidden under his trademark French suit. In Ghana, I had an extensive interview with him. A stocky and strongly built man by all standards, he wore the fierce mien of a revolutionary and the daring eyeballs of a prowling lion.

On that day I met him in Ghana at the Teachers House, through another radical journalist, Bunmi Aborisade, I had waited for about two hours before he stormed into the room, sweating. I thought he was coming from Kumasi, some hundreds of miles away. After the meeting, he left bile on my lips. Nothing can be as devastating as a journalist holding on to an exclusive story but with the instruction never to publish.

I was in The Guardian Newspaper. His fears were genuine. The newspaper had just been closed down and then reopened. He didn’t want the newspaper to be closed again, he explained, adding that more importantly, he was not in a safe place in Ghana. Later, I saw a tainted old Renault pulled up. The driver, a short man with a chest the size of a little bulldozer opened the door for him. He jumped inside. I watched the red, tail light disappeared into the corner of Accra street, far away from the balcony where I stood in awe. It took about 10 years later for me to know that he actually came to meet me from the room next to where I had met him.

Prof Banjo endured an extraordinary punishment for his rebellion against injustice. The weapons he procured were, by accident, sighted by Beninoise Gendarmes. Initially, the security operatives praised him, promising that since the weapons were meant to fight Abacha, they would assist him. At Benin Republic, he bribed the officials to the tune of 1.5million. He was almost entering Nigeria when he got a call from Copenhagen asking him to pay some 5000 dollars. He left to raise the money but felt he should offload the goods first. It was in the process than one of the Benin Gendarmes noticed the protruding butt of a gun in the container. He raised the alarm. Banjo was picked up. At first, the officials said they would allow him to go. But information had reached Abacha.

So, the second day, the country was flooded with Nigerian top military echelon including Col Frank Omenka of the Directorate of Military Intelligence, (DMI). Local authorities told him Abacha had passed on 100 million dollars to some Beninese officials. That was how he was detained at the Port Prison. He spent 10 days amidst diplomatic manoeuvres by Nigeria to repatriate their most priced fugitive. He planned to escape with a small knife with 26-hydra heads, cutting the protective fence.

But somehow, a spy was in the midst who hinted Abuja. Within the shortest time, top security officials later told Banjo that the sum of 100million dollars was dispatched to the Benin Republic to oil the hands of officials who had sold him. But it was not going to be easy for Abacha as foreign countries were already alerted many of who did not want him killed. Banjo was bundled into a toilet, his wife separated from him. He spent 10 days in the septic tank relying on the keyhole to sniff some fresh air. He made an attempt to escape, through a jackknife he had kept in his kitty. An alarm was raised, he retreated. Thus began his ordeal. He was taken to court in the Benin Republic. He relied on the ECOWAS treaty that goods in transit must not be questioned. The judge being a Yoruba was moved by his story, especially the courage displayed by his Igbo wife who refused Amnesty offered by President Nicephore Soglo, so that she could go, leaving her husband. The Judge set them free. This was after more than one year in very harsh and dehumanizing cells. But as he walked away from the Court, a call came in from the Beninese President believed to have acted on Abacha’s prompting that he should be detained again. He and his wife were locked in a primitive toilet with constant heaps of faeces. His wife developed pterygoid plexus, an infection of the base of the brain. They spent 14 months in detention before a compassionate female judge freed them again. The two escaped to Ghana through the assistance of a Nigerian journalist, Mr Moshood Fayemiwo who paid dearly for this. Abacha’s agents later kidnapped Fayemiwo who was brought to Nigeria and detained at the office of Directorate of Military Intelligence, (DMI).

When he died peacefully penultimate Wednesday, after protracted struggle with cancer, a bundle of history untold, died with him. The family is yet to make official announcements. Many of his friends and colleagues are yet to be informed. He lay in the mortuary as at press time, but family sources say he will be buried in May this year.

“I had 120 young men stationed at the Nigerian Ports Authority. They were waiting for my weapons. My plan was that if the customs found the weapons by chance, the battle would start right at the seaport”, he had told me in Ghana before he left the country after Abacha had sent a chartered aircraft to plead with him, pick him up and pay him off. When that effort failed, the government of Abacha sent two Nigerian journalists accompanied by one of Abacha’s own son. The assignment was to poison him. They feigned media practitioners who had come to interview him. Prof Banjo awed them when he stormed the venue of the interview with some 15 armed men in Accra. “I was hinted of their plans. So, I prepared for them. Throughout the interview, they were shaking like a lily,” he had told me. He said after his escape from Ghana, the Nigerian military had rounded up many of his local supporters-but some were innocent-and dumped them in the high sea, stones on their necks, no fewer than 100 of them.

One of the emissaries sent by Abacha died in mysterious circumstances in Lagos a few years after Abacha himself had kicked the bucket. History may find it difficult to record another Nigerian academic who stood so fiercely for justice through armed struggle against the military like Banjo. After consistent attempts to kill him in Ghana he had escaped to Uganda. Luckily he knew President Yoweri Museveni. They had met at Makerere University years back. But he could not help him. This forced him to run to Zimbabwe. Abacha had also secured the services of mercenaries, mostly from Saudi Arabia charged to kill or kidnap and bring him to Nigeria. His network in the international intelligence community, mostly of Yoruba stock hinted him in advance.

Unfortunately, when he returned to Nigeria in 2001, life and people became unkind to him, except the love and affection of his immediate family. He tried, but never got a good job. The government and politicians ignored him and treated him like a leper. His efforts to sustain his cancer treatment through medications did not succeed because of funds. He needed only 5 million naira to treat his kind of blood cancer which had a cure, but he could not raise a penny. But one thing is certain, Banjo, who was the immediate junior brother of the late Col Victor Banjo of the Biafra fame, is now totally free from the affliction of a society he tried so much to salvage but that never gave him recognition, not even a wreath after his last breath. His efforts, though aborted, also remain the most striking high-level radical collaborative political efforts between two arch rivals, Yoruba and the Igbo nation.

Before he died, he told me one of his regrets was that the remains of his late brother, Col Banjo lay in an unknown shallow grave, yet to be honoured, even though his covert investigations had revealed the spot is somewhere in Enugu, known only to the late Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu and his few lieutenants.

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Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway: Prioritize Existing Unfinished Projects, Peter Obi Tells FG

Published

2 days ago

April 22, 2024

Eric

Mr. Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 general election, has advised the federal government to prioritize existing unfinished projects spread across the country instead of the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway project.

Obi, in a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, stated that the project was a misplaced priority given the numerous unfinished roads throughout the country.

The former governor of Anambra State mentioned that the budget allocated to the Ministry of Works is insufficient for significant progress on the country’s various unfinished roads, much less their completion.

Obi therefore, advised that the government prioritize the existing infrastructural projects in the country before embarking on any new and colossal projects like the Lagos-Calabar super highway project.

“The Federal Ministry of Works 2024 capital budget of N892,461,262,656.00, additional funding from multilateral loan projects of N94,828,535,243.00, alongside other expected contributions from sources like the China-Exim Bank and the World Bank, will not be enough for serious work on all the critical roads, some of which I enumerated above, let alone their completion.

So, why embark on another huge project that will not be completed in the next 20 or 30 years?

“To do so will only exacerbate the problem of abandoned, uncompleted projects that are not contributing to economic growth and overall development.

“Therefore, while acknowledging the potential benefits of coastal superhighway infrastructure, I urge prioritization of our existing uncompleted projects. We must allocate resources towards repairing and completing existing infrastructure.

“In any development formula, the primary focus should be on completing and rehabilitating existing infrastructure rather than embarking on colossal new projects that may never reach completion within the next 30 years,” Obi said.

Back in March, the Federal Government began constructing the 700-kilometer Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, designed to extend through 9 states with two spurs leading to the Northern States.

Recall that former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, had earlier described the project as a fraud.

“Umahi had announced that Hitech would fully fund the project, and based on this, there was no competitive bidding. He (Umahi) then said that Hitech could only raise just 6% of the money for the pilot phase. This smacks of deceit,” Atiku said.

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2027 Presidential Race: Opposition Parties Under Attack

Published

3 days ago

April 21, 2024

Eric

By Eric Elezuo

While it is still a whole three years before the next general election in 2027, The Boss has learnt that opposition parties in the countries are being muffled to pave the way for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to return to, and retain power.

From the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to the Labour Party (LP), and down to the New Nigerian Peoples Paty (NNPP), crises have engulfed the rank and files, in what a source told this paper was the attempt and making of the ruling party, APC, to decimate, destabilize and make redundant the machineries of the opposition parties.

It is believed that by 2027, the apparatuses holding together the various opposition parties would have weakened irredeemably to the extent the country would seemingly nosedive into the inglorious one party state that every civil right advocate and democrats abhor.

It is alleged that all the crises in all the opposition parties are being engineered by the President Bola Tinubu-led ruling APC, with the hope of getting the fibres of their system weakened, thereby luring the members of the crisis-ridden parties into the APC.

Slightly one year after the last presidential election, the two major opposition platforms, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party, have separately been embroiled in a crisis of confidence which has diminished their capacity to provide viable opposition to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

The crises in both opposition parties got to a head. The Labour Party led by its national chairman Julius Abure held its much-opposed national convention which was boycotted by its 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi; its only governor, Alex Otti of Abia State; federal and state lawmakers elected on its platform, and the organised Labour.

In the Labour Labour, members have been embroiled in endless battle of supremacy with a faction led by Mr. Apapa steadily contesting the leadership of Julius Abure.

Consequently, the presidential candidate of the party in the 2023 elections, Mr. Peter Obi, reverence as a leader in the fold, noting that whatever the party faces presently, that Nigeria’s problems are far bigger than the crises in his party.

The LP has been embroiled in crises — ranging from allegations of misappropriation of funds, and leadership tussle, to calls for the resignation of the party’s national chairman.

TheCable reported that “On March 27, the LP conducted a national convention in Anambra state where Julius Abure was re-elected as its national chairman.

Obi did not attend the convention, fuelling speculations that he may be mulling over ditching the LP for another platform.

Speaking during an appearance on HaveYourSay247, an interactive online session hosted by Rudolf Okonkwo over the weekend, Obi said he is confident that the crises rocking the LP will soon be resolved amicably.

“Whatever is happening in the Labour Party is so minute compared to what is happening in the country,” Obi said.

“So, for me, it is something we will resolve amicably, and it is not anything to worry about. Let us worry about the country.

“Let us worry about how the average Nigerian would be able to have a means of livelihood to be able to eat, that should be our worry.”

Obi said he has no interest in being the party’s leader but only to make sure things are done properly.

“I don’t see what I do in politics as being the leader of any place or not. My position is that just like I always say, I am not desperate to be president of Nigeria, I am desperate to see Nigeria work because I know it can work,” he added.

“We have a more desperate situation. Parties are just a means to be able to contest elections. What is important is that being a leader of a party does not reduce the price of food.

In the PDP, the shenanigans of former Rivers State Governor, Mr. Nyesom Wike, has practically kept the party in constant crisis with many observers concluding that the now Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) is working for the APC, and is just a mole in the PDP. Wike has denied the allegation, however,

But news filtered in last week as that the immediate past Governor of Rivers State, and Minister may have concluded plans to attend the much advertised National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), billed to hold on Thursday, in Abuja.

Impeccable source, who is in the know, told The Boss that the minister, whose membership of the PDP is yet to be revoked even as he frolicks with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), and serving in the President Bola Tinubu government as a minister.

The Source told The Boss that Wike’s impending presence at the NEC meeting on Thursday was not unconnected with plans, already hatched with some governors, to weaken the opposition PDP.

“Yes, we have on good authority that FCT minister, Wike is planning to attend the NEC meeting tomorrow all in a bid to weaken the fabrics of the PDP, and pave the way for the continuation of the Tinubu administration come 2027, and by extension, relapse Nigeria to a full blown one party state.

“From every indication, Wike and his co-travellers, are bent on unleashing the same crisis ravaging the third force, Labour Party, and Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso’s Nigerian National People’s Party (NNPP) on the PDP for the APC to remain the only political party in the country, and ensure that Tinubu has no challenger, come 2027,” the Source said.

It would be recalled that Wike has boasted over and again that there’s no opposition against Tinubu’s re-emergence in 2027, and that they have made sure of that. He has been compensated with the Ministerial job after he withdrew support for his party, and supported the APC and Tinubu to emerge as national government.

The Source further revealed that in the attempt to actualize the intended one party state, a lot of funding is ongoing to ensure that concerned stakeholders are ‘settled’ handsomely.

Wike, prior, during and after the 2023 general elections, has been floating in between the two major political parties; the APC and the PDP. While he claim to still be a member of the PDP, he is functioning as a minister in an APC government, mocking the inability of his party to discipline him.

While political stakeholders concluded that the outcome of the Thursday’s PDP NEC meeting will determine the path Nigeria’s political trajectory will take, and that it may portend the end of multi-party system and political democracy if Wike succeeds in his plan; every page of what finally transpired at the meeting pointed to the fact.

The much touted removal of the party chairman, who is believed to be a crony of the Abuja minister, Damagum, retained his seat, with his executives.

“It is very clear to everyone that a lot of money politics is being played to cajole many loyal members of the party, forcing them into frustration, and eventually it of the party. The option afterwards, will be the APC. This, will for all intent and purpose actualize the intended one party state as an APC agenda.

The Musa Rabiu Kwankwaso-led NNPP is not faring better either. The only governor under their ticket, Abba Kabir Yusuf, just had the confidence of their party on him withdrawn. He was fighting for his political life until suddenly it was announced the the APC in Kano has collapsed its structure into the NNPP.

“This is just another APC strategy to actualize their hidden intentions. Time will reveal the very sinister agenda they harboring,” an analyst said.

Much as 2027 is still three years away, but intrigues are in play to render Nigeria a one party state, and perpetuate the APC in power. The three other opposition parties are basically under attack to bring to pass this unpopular agenda.

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Akwa Ibom Government, Governor Umo Eno Receive Top Honors at the 10th Wonders of the World Expo in Lagos

Published

4 days ago

April 21, 2024

Admin

The Akwa Ibom State Government and Governor Pastor Umo Eno were recognized with Travellers Awards at the 10th Wonders of the World Expo in Lagos for their sustained enhancement of infrastructure, support for local talent, and dedication to investment in the tourism sector. The ceremony took place at the National Museum in Onikan, Lagos.

While Akwa Ibom won the Most Active Tourism State of the Year, Governor Eno was adjudged the most Tourism-Friendly Governor of the Year at the event that had Minister of Tourism, Mrs. Lola Ade John in attendance.

According to Amb. Ikechi Uko, Founder/Publisher of ATQ Magazine, the organizers of the event which is in its tenth edition, Akwa Ibom State won the top prize “in recognition of its valiant and resourceful efforts to drive and sustain domestic tourism by promoting the industry.

‘In 2023, Akwa Ibom was one of the states that hosted World Tourism Day (WTD ) events. The state also organized the famous Christmas Unplugged, which featured music, food, and cultures from all 31 LGAs as well as ensured friendly policies.”

While hoping that the Travellers Awards would spur Akwa Ibom to do more to dominate the domestic tourism industry, the organizers hoped that the state would gradually evolve into one of Nigeria’s top international tourism destinations.

That was not all, the state Commissioner of Culture and Tourism, Sir Charles Udoh was also recognized as one of the Top 100 Tourism Personalities in Nigeria for demonstrating exceptional leadership and innovation in the travel and tourism industry, while other Akwa Ibom indigenes and entity were also celebrated: Mrs. Ime Udo, Honorary Special Adviser to the Governor( Tourism) won Tourism Promoter of the Year, Favour Udo won Tourism Photographer of the Year, Loretta Effiong and Prince Uduak Sunday (Qua Tours) were listed among the Tourism Personalities of the Year and Ibom Air won Airline of the Year International.

In his remarks, Sir Charles Udoh, who represented the Governor at the event, thanked the organizers for the awards and noted that Akwa Ibom is certainly enjoying the golden era when it comes to tourism development. He stated that Governor Umo Eno is very keen on making Akwa Ibom a leading tourism destination with his programmes and policies.

He revealed that with the new Victor Attah International Airport nearing completion, the purchase of a ferry for the Oron-Calabar route, new developments along its coastline and the restoration work that will be done at all its major tourism sites, Akwa Ibom is well on the way to becoming the number one destination for all domestic and foreign tourists.

In her speech, Tourism Minister, Mrs. Ade John hailed the organizers for hosting the Expo, where practitioners were lectured by top experts while also rewarding those who have excelled in the past year.

She affirmed that her ministry is open to partnership with public and private sector operators, adding that tourism development can only be successful through collaborative efforts.

The event, which attracted leading and budding tourism professionals, also featured interactive and entertainment sessions.

Apart from Sir Charles Udoh and Mrs. Ime Udo, the Akwa Ibom State delegation, also included: Mr. Michael Effiong James, Senior Special Assistant (Lagos Liaison) to Governor, Mrs. Eme Bassey, Special Assistant to Governor (Lagos Liaison) and Akparawa John Offiong, Deputy Director ( Culture) Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

More photos below: