Col. Gabriel Ajayi (retd) is one of those arrested, tried and sentenced to death over the phantom coup that took place in 1995 to oust the late Head of State, General Sani Abacha. Ajayi, who was Colonel Administration and Quartermaster General, Lagos Garrison Command and second-in-command to the then Chief of Army Staff, General Ishaya Bamaiyi, later regained his freedom after an agonising experience of torture to the point of losing his manhood. He speaks with BOLA BADMUS on the new book by General Bamaiyi, among other issues.
IN the new book by General Ishaya Bamaiyi, who was the Chief of Army Staff to the late Head of State, General Sani Abacha, he narrated what really took place in 1995 and 1997 coups and your name happened to have been mentioned in connection with 1995 coup. What is your reaction?
It is not in my character to violate the sanctity of superior rank, you understand me? Seniority is very sacrosanct in the military; it is respected so much that, in fact, it’s like worship. But when a General descends into the sewage tank, he cannot expect to come out smelling cologne perfume. That is how I can describe the situation here.
The General descended into the sewage tank. I expected General Bamaiyi to have come out with a book of apology to all Nigerians for the ills perpetrated under the inglorious reign of the reprobate regime of General Sani Abacha. It would have been better for him to have apologised, tell Nigerians that ‘we are sorry for what happened under the regime of Abacha; that such would never happen again. That it was an era of madness.’ If I were General Bamaiyi, that is what I would do and if I had been on their side in all these years, I would have come out to say what I am telling you: ask for forgiveness.
I was a regular combatant officer, infantry officer to the core; I fear nobody. If I am supposed to lead men to battle, where bullets would fly, then, it would be preposterous for me not to be able to stand before a man and speak. Who is that man? There was no General I could not speak my mind to; otherwise, I wouldn’t be a combat soldier. If I am afraid of a man, then what happens in the case of bullet? Then, I am not competent to lead men to battle. I have not read General Bamaiyi’s book, but I have read everything all the papers wrote about the book. The book could be best entitled, “Comedy of Errors,” a fictional thriller. I believe that even thrillers are actually based on truth, but embellished, but from what I have read so far about the book, it is nothing but total falsehood. And I am so happy that General Bamaiyi sold himself out by trying to exonerate Abacha from the financial heist of his government, saying that the General did not steal Nigerians’ money, but helped us to keep the Nigerian money in his family account. Of course, maybe the General was the Emir of Nigeria and Nigeria was his Emirate and you know in the Emirate, everything belongs to the Emir.
I don’t think the book was a display of astuteness and courage, I think the book is an act of cowardice to denigrate his collegues that he handled badly and betrayed. Look at the way he betrayed Daddy Diya [General Oladipo Diya]. I tend to believe everything said by Daddy Diya rather than what Bamaiyi has said, because I know General Bamaiyi in and out. He was my boss; I was like a de facto no 2 man to him. I was in charge of Administration and all the officers under me held their appointments with expertise rather than military ranks. I had the Directorate of Chaplain; the Director of Finance was under me, the civilian section was under me, the medical, the engineering, the public relations, education were those under me and those who headed them were experts in their right and I sat on top of these experts and I have a legal adviser. So, I have never believed in coup plotting. You know as a very strong Christian, my Bible says that rebellion, that is coup plotting, is like the sin of witchcraft and stubbornness is as iniquitous as idolatry.
Bamaiyi was an evil man as a military officer; he was a Garrison Commander until Abacha made him the Chief of Army Staff. It was General Diya, against all odds and even against the advice of advisers, that made him the Chief of Army Staff, and he bit the finger that fed him.
Don’t you think Bamaiyi is trying to set the record straight in his book?
There is no record to be set straight; all he said was full of falsehood. He would have written his own memoir, talk about his own life, about his experience, not about incidents where you say somebody said this. For instance, concerning me, he said they were in a meeting with General Kashe, General Olanrewaju, the DMI and possibly with other people and they decided that some officers should be arrested, including myself. He said based on the directive from the meeting, he came to arrest me, but General Olanrewaju has come out to say that nothing of such happened. He maintained that General Olanrewaju said at the meeting that we were about to strike unless we were quickly arrested. But General Olanrewaju debunked that too, that he didn’t say anything like that. General Olanrewaju didn’t even mention my name; he said he was asked to arrest Lawan Gwadabe, who was based in Yola and one of his commanders, which is the right thing to say anyway. But my name was not mentioned by General Olanrewaju. Bamaiyi put my name himself. I was just a victim of hatred for the Yoruba. Look, Bamaiyi said so many unprintable things about Yoruba, which I cannot say, because I don’t want to cause problem and some of his other colleagues from the North, who did not say what he said, were saying the same thing with their body language. If you know what some of these people think about us, you will run away from them. Some will say Nigeria is not Lagos and Ibadan, but nobody has said Nigeria is Lagos and Ibadan. My brother, don’t worry about Bamaiyi, you don’t know him. The man once told us in a conference that there is no God. He said Imams and chaplains, they are supposed to pray only for the dead; he said so. But in the second edition of my book, I have put a lot of things there that would remove the sail out of what he said.
Were you that surprised that you went through that experience despite your closeness to General Bamaiyi as his second-in-command?
I was surprised because my mind was never closed or hidden to him. I am one of those officers that were brutally frank and I made my mind open. One thing that I would not do and did not do was to draw anybody to shoot my own people. I commanded in the North, I never shot anybody, and then I would not say I am wearing the same uniform and come to Lagos and shoot people in Lagos, no. I would not be part of it. What the military was doing that time did not go in line with the principle of keeping the peace and even what we are still doing today does not follow the principle of keeping the peace. The job the military is doing now is the job of the police and there was no time the police ever said they were overwhelmed and they need military support. There is no record. There must be a written record from the police that ‘oh, we are overwhelmed, we need military backing.’ They cannot be overwhelmed by any problem; it is the job of the police. They are supposed to secure even the military; the job of internal security belongs to the police. The police are our security, they are our guardians. You know they took over the job of police, because we know we have superior weapons, but the job of everybody is different. The police’s job is totally different. The policeman is a diplomat, he is a doctor, he is a pastor, he is an imam, he is a chaplain, he is everything rolled into one; he settles disputes even in families, even does humanitarian job, that is the police. Our job (military) is to shoot and kill, defend the territorial integrity of Nigeria and deter attack and if there is war, we bring the war into conclusion in favour of Nigeria.
Maybe they saw what took place aftermath of the annulment of June 12 poll as akin to a war situation.
Yeah, it was supposed to be a war against the Yoruba people; it was supposed to be a war which Yoruba never fought. They did not understand that Yoruba never fought a war it cannot win. Do you know the appellation of Yoruba, “Yoruba omo a sun nle jagun?” You see more than war, all along there has been this undeclared psychological war against the Yoruba race in all spheres of life; economy, social, education, medical and all that by successive Federal Government of Nigeria and that is why we find ourselves in this impasse we are. It is the outcome of that war being waged against the most sophisticated part of Nigeria, the palace that God designed to open up Nigeria, the palace that God designed to be the pathfinder for Nigeria, the palace that God designed to lead Nigeria, the palace that God designed to put shine and life to Nigeria, the palace that God designed to be the recipient of all other people of Nigeria, the palace that God designed to be the distributor of largesse to other parts of the country. They wage war against that portion and that is what we are in today. That is why, today, Nigeria is one huge supermarket, instead of an industrial base in Africa.
The location of South-West should have been the industrial region of Nigeria; from here it goes to other parts of the country. The light here will shine to the other places; the wind blowing here would blow to other places. Nigeria is supposed to take the baton from America spiritually. The world power shifted from Egypt, it got to the Roman Empire and other people took over until it got to British Empire. It left Britain until it came to America and Russia. If you look at them all, they have been White or Coloured and this is the time of the Blacks; we are supposed to take over the leadership of the world. It started with Obama, he got there by spiritual design and Nigeria is the largest concentration of Blacks in the world; it is not by coincidence. It is by the desire of God. We are supposed to be the light to the rest of the Black people. The Black people all over the world are supposed to be looking up to Nigeria; people are supposed to be running here for succour, for direction, for leadership. But because of this myopic thinking by our secular leaders, who think that, like the proverbial worm, they can kill the dog and not kill themselves, we are in this state. So, Bamaiyi represents what is bad in Nigeria as an intrigue maker. He belongs to the group of coup plotters, imaginary coup busters and fake nationalists. Since [former President Olusegun] Obasanjo 1999 booted out this group of people in 1999, have you ever heard about rumour of coups again? Since Bamaiyi has been sent out of service, there has been peace. 99 per cent of soldiers in the Nigerian military have no business with coup. People want to do their job and many people lost their jobs because some people wanted to rise to the top. But a tiny minority of military officers, working with heir civilian collaborators, are the ones that have held this country hostage for so long, stunting the growth of an otherwise vibrant nation created by God.
From the way you have spoken so far, it appears you will be on the same page with those who hold the view that military intervention in Nigerian politics was a disaster?
It was a disaster. You see, people don’t understand that it was the incursion of the military into politics that caused 90 per cent of our problem. Those who staged the January 1966 coup were the crème-de-la-crème of the Nigerian military. They were the ones who would have been Generals, they were well-trained in the best military academy in the world, but they failed and so, they were wiped out of the service. The remaining ones were wiped out in the following coups while others went with the Civil War and so we had new hands.
But some people believe that those behind the first coup led by Major Kaduna Nzogwu had genuine intention. What is your view?
In my book, I described their action as very naïve and childish. It was naïve of them to think that they could solve fundamental political problems with the use of machine guns and hand grenades. The political problem at that time was fundamental and intricate as a result of youthfulness of Nigerian nation, which required political engineering, give and take, conferencing, dialogue and everything. The idea of some people fighting to the finish should have been discouraged and to think that such crisis could be solved with the use of machine guns and hand grenades was a wrong calculation, because once you carry machine guns and hand grenades to start something, the other group may carry the same machine guns and hand grenades to fight back and another group will grab the same instruments to fight back. So, you continue to have successors of machine gun carriers.
When in Egypt, they overthrew King Farouk in 1952, they called it Egyptian Free Army Officers. It was supposed to have a republic, so it was a genuine movement and when they came out, they didn’t kill anybody. They made General Naguib the Head of State, but General Naguib was not part of the young officers. The young officers were led by Colonel Nasir. And so by 1954, they eased out General Naguib and young officers took over, but they did one thing, because they were genuine. You know what they did? General Nasir said all of them that wanted to take part in government must drop their uniform. If you want to wear uniform, remain in service. That if you want to join government, drop your uniform; you must be a civilian. So they formed the Egyptian Socialist Party. The late Anwar Sadat became the speaker, he was a Lt. Col. and he remained that Col. till he died while others that remained in the Army rose to become Generals and the rest. There was no question of competition.
Then, the one in Ghana was a vicious cycle. General Afrifa wrote a book, which I got in 1972, entitled “Politics of the Sword.” It was in that book that he wrote that anyone that must have left the military service for one political office should never be allowed back to the Army Barracks again. You see, I have been a book freak. I have been having my library from 1971 and by the time I was arrested, I had one of the largest individual libraries in the military, of contemporary books and biographies. But my library was looted when they came to search my house; I couldn’t get back most of those books when I was set free. They said I should go to DMI at Apapa and I went to their archive to go and search, but I couldn’t find most of my books. I found only a few. It was a bad experience for me. These people dealt with me badly. For God sake, they should hide their heads in shame to have dealt with human beings the way they dealt with us. I was tortured beyond human comprehension. I lost my manhood in the torture. You could still see me; you met me in the hospital. Since 1999 that I came out of prison, this has been the experience, today hospital, tomorrow hospital. If I show you the drug I have in the house, you will think I have a pharmacy here selling drugs, because of the torture. All the joints, I can’t hold tumbler with these hands, it will fall off. I was tortured beyond human comprehension. What did I do?
What do you think you did?
What I did was that when I was leaving ECOMOG, at the ECOWAS Secretariat in February 1994, I wrote a position paper to the then Chief of Army Staff to General Abacha, asking him to de-annul the June 12 election, call the winner and hand over to him. I asked him to become Nigeria’s Fidel Ramos of Philippine, write his name in gold in the annals of Nigeria’s history and make the future generation say there was a General. The title of my paper was, “Let People Say There Was a General.” I advised that in the history of Nigeria, people will say there was a General; be that General.
When we got to the Oputa Panel Sitting, it was the draft of that paper that they got from my close fellow’s file and brought as evidence that I was dissatisfied with the annulment of June 12 and I wanted to remove the government of General Sani Abacha and install Chief MKO Abiola, my kinsman as president of Nigeria. For that, I was said to be guilty of constructive conspiracy and sentenced to death by firing squad. As a matter of fact, nothing was found against me, no link with any other people, I was the only one picked up in the garrison, the whole of the garrison.
But when you wrote the memo, didn’t you know such memo ought not to have been written by a serving military officer?
As a colonel in the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, under the law, I could write a position paper and send to my Commander-in-Chief through the appropriate channel, which I did through appropriate superior authority. If we don’t write that, how would they make correct decisions? How do you want them to make correct decision through sycophancy? You have to tell them the truth. My training company commander in the Nigeria Defence Academy, an Indian, Major S.K. Tripatty, said ‘Gabriel, the day you cannot look your commander in the face and tell him the truth, then this job is not for you; drop the uniform and go that day.’ You have to be able to tell your commander the truth, when they say commander is always right, it is because he has very good staff, who would tell him the truth. If you want to launch an attack, you must get the true fact of the enemy’s disposition; otherwise you will end up in disaster. The Head of State or the head of the Army must be exposed to the true situation. Somebody must be able to tell the people in power the truth and I did so. It was a position paper.