From my father’s side, we are Fulanis. The Fulanis are really divided into two. There are nomads, the ones that if you drive from Maiduguri and many parts of the North you will find. They are even in parts of Delta now. And there are those who settled. They are cousins and the same people actually. From my mother’s side and on her father’s side, we are Kanuris from Kukawa.
Kukawa is in Borno State. We are
Kanuris. On her mother’s side, we are Hausas. So, you can see I am
Hausa, Fulani, Kanuri combined (he laughs). I am the 23rd child of my
father. Twenty-third and the 13th on my mother side. There are only
two of us remaining now; my sister and I. I went to school, primary
school, in Daura and Katsina, also a primary school, in Kachia. I also
attended Katsina Provincial Secondary School, now Government College. I
didn’t work for a day.
I joined the military in 1962 after
my school certificate. There was an officer cadet school from here in
Kaduna, called Nigeria Military Training College then. In April 1962, I
went to the United Kingdom (UK), Mons Officers Cadet School. When I was commissioned, I came back
and I was posted to 2nd Infantry Battalion in Abeokuta. That was my
first posting. The battalion was in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I
went there. When I came back from there, I was first in Lagos, as
Transport Officer. That was where I was till the January coup. I was
posted back to my battalion and we were posted to Kaduna here. And then,
there was a counter coup, civil war, coup and counter-coup. We
participated. I too was overthrown and detained for more than three
years. And having had that major political setback when I was made a
head of state and then, ended up in detention, I went out and
eventually, I decided to join party politics, participated three times
and lost as presidential candidate and I am still in and fighting, even
though I said at some stage that I wouldn’t present myself for
candidature again, I said I remain in party politics as long as I have
breath in me.
My interest in the army was built
while I was in secondary school. The emirs of Katsina, from Dikko, were
known to be interested in the military. They always have members of the
military or police in their family right from World War 11. One of the
emirs of Kaduna-Dikko died in Burma. And of course, everybody in the
country knows General Hassan, the son of the Emir of Katsina. He was
grandson of Emir Dukko. So, when General Hassan was in Sandhurst, we
were in secondary school in Kastina. His father, the Emir of Katsina,
Usman Nagogo, used to ask him to go and talk to the senior students who
were in form four to six, to get them interested in the military. And we
were told that he deliberately wanted a military cadet unit in Kaduna
Secondary School. Then, it was limited to Federal Government Colleges or
Government Colleges and we had a military cadet unit, which I joined. That was where the interest started.
I didn’t know my father really. I think I was about three, four years
when my father died. I couldn’t remember his face. The only thing I
could recall about my father was the horse because it threw me down. We
were on the horse with one of my half brothers going to water it and
then, it tripped and I fell. It stepped on me. So, that is the only
impression I have of him. That is the only thing I could recall.
My mother died in 1988 when I was in
detention. I remember then the controversy of allowing me to go and see
her buried. They did not eventually allow me. It was quite an issue …so
much an issue that I was immediately released after she was buried. I didn’t see her buried. It was after I was released that I then went to her grave.
As a childhood in my community then
we were living communal life. Clearly, I could recall I reared cattle.
We had cattle; we had sheep and then, there was good neighbourhood. Not
many children had the opportunity to go to school, but I went to school.
I left home at the age of 10 or 11 and went to school, like I said. And
I was in the boarding school for nine years. In primary school and
secondary school, I was in the boarding house and from there, I went
straight into the Army.
In those days, there were not many
schools and the teachers then were professionals. They were working
teachers and were committed. And teachers then treated the children as
if they were their own. You were made to work and if you don’t,
they never spared the cane really. So, I was lucky to be in the
boarding school for my impressionable years, nine years. I was very
lucky.
The pranks I played as a young
person, is we used to raid the emir’s orchard for mangoes mainly. Of
course, unfortunately we were caught and punished.
When people talk of Buhari today,
they are looking at a disciplined man. I think it was the boarding house that
put me through that, and the military also played a part in my Spartan,
disciplined life. Both did. The teachers then treated
their students as if they were their own children. So, we got the best
of attention from teachers. And as I told you, they never spared the
cane. You were meant to do your homework; you were meant to do the
sports and clean up the environment, the compound and the area of the
school and so on. And from that type of life, I moved into the military,
the military of that time. I think the military was the best
thing that ever happened to me because from primary to secondary school
and in the military, we continue, both the academic and the
physical one. I think it was so tough, but then, once it was inbuilt, it
has to be sustained because you can’t contemplate failure. Failure was not an option.
So also is the Fulani training of
perseverance because when you have reared cattle, for those who have
been doing it, it toughens you… The sun is there, the rain and you are there with your cattle…The period was remarkable, in the
sense that those who are brought up in the city have limited space. If
you are in a confined school, you learn from the school and what you see
immediately. But the nomad life exposes you to nature. You will never
learn enough of plants, of trees, of insects and of animals. Everyday
you are learning something. You have seen them and everyday you
are learning. You will never know all of them. So, it is so vast that it
takes a lot of whatever you can think of. And then, the difference
again in the environment. In the Savannah, in the Sahel, after harvest,
you can always see as high as your eyes can go. And then, at night when
there is moon, it is fantastic. So, I enjoyed those days and they made a
lasting impression in me.
The remarkable things during my
military trainings? Initially, from here in Kaduna, at the end of your
training, the height of the field exercise was then conducted in two
places. Here in southern Kaduna and somewhere in Kachia area. There was a
thick belt in that forest. You go for field firing and so on. And then
you go to Jos for map reading and endurance. That was why mathematics at
that level, the secondary school level, geometry and algebra, were
absolutely necessary. It had always been, because to be a competent
officer, you may be deployed to be in charge of artillery; physics,
where you help find your position. Wherever you are from, you work it on
the ground in degrees and so on. You have to do some mathematics.
We were in Jos. Again, I was made a
leader of a small unit. We were given a map, a compass and you dare not
cheat. If you are found out, you are taken 10 miles back. So, you have
to go across the country. You find your way from the map; you go to
certain points and on those points, mostly hills, you climb them and you
will get a box. The weather there is cold. You put your own coat and
you cover it over the hills and at the end of the exercise, part of your
scorecards, are those marks you won or you lost. We arrived with one
compass, which led us to a certain bushy hill.
In Jos, and it was night, dark and
it was raining lightly and definitely, our compass led us to that hill,
which means there was a point there. And there were five of us: myself,
one Sierra Leonean or Ghanaian, one from Sokoto, and one other. I think
the other person is Katsina Alu, the former Chief Justice. He was also in the military. He did
the training but he was never commissioned. He went to university and
did Law.
I went up to the hill. I picked the box. I copied the code, and
I said if I were forced to join the Army, I would have left the
following day because that place, a viper or a snake or something or
hyena or lion could have finished me. But I said if I run away the
following day, people would say well we knew you couldn’t make it, we
knew you would be lazy. But because I voluntarily joined the Army, I
said I have to be there. That is one point. The second one was when I
was in training in the UK. I came there and we were drilled so much and
at night again, we were on an exercise. We were putting our formation.
In anyway position was created, and they fired at us. We went down
automatically that day and by the time the commander asked us to move, I
fell asleep. It must be few seconds, not up to a minute. That was how
exhausted I was. It was cold. It was 1962. It was
cold and it was rainy again just like in Plateau. Just between the time
we went down and to move and climb the mountain, I fell asleep. So,
those two moments, I would never forget them.
The late Gen. Yar’Adua was my
classmate. I was together with him throughout the nine years primary,
secondary school and in the military. We were together from
childhood. Well, not the ones that are here. In the military, most of
them did not reach the position I reached; myself, and Yar’Adua. They
couldn’t make it.
Why did I choose the infantry and
not the other arms? Maybe it was the training of the cadet unit in
secondary school. I found the infantry much more challenging and when we
were doing the training, the Federal Government decided that we were
going to have the Air Force. So, I was invited. A team came from the
Ministry of Defence to interview cadets that wanted to be fighter
pilots in the Air Force. I was the first to be called in our group. I
appeared before them and they told me that those who could pass the
interview would be recommended to go to the Air Force training either in
the UK, some went to Ethiopia or United States or Germany. So, they
asked me whether I wanted to be a fighter pilot and I said no. They
asked why, and I said I wasn’t interested. We were given three choices.
Number one, maybe you went to infantry; number two, you went to
reconnaissance then before they became armour and later, maybe
artillery. So, all my three choices, I could recall vividly, I put
infantry, infantry. So, they said why? I said because I liked infantry.
And they asked if I wouldn’t like to be a fighter pilot. I said no, I
didn’t want to join them. They said why. I said I hadn’t done physics.
Normally, I did some mathematics but to be a fighter pilot, you must do
some physics. They said no, that it was no problem, that I could have an
additional one academic year. So, since I had some mathematics
background, it was just one year purely to do physics and I would reach
the grade required to be a pilot. I said no, I didn’t want it. They
again asked why. I told them I chose infantry. The reason is: when I am
fighting and I was shot at, if I was not hit, I can go down, turn back
and take off by foot. They laughed and sent me out. So, I remained
infantry officer.
I was in Lagos, during the coups and
counter-coups, in the barracks, as transport officer. I was only a
second lieutenant during the January 15, 1966 coup. The coup met me in Lagos. I think
that was my saddest day in the military because I happened to know some
of the senior officers that were killed. In the transport company, after
the 2nd Battalion and we came back, I was posted to Lagos to be a
transport officer and in my platoon, we had staff cars and Landrovers.
So, I knew the Army officers, from Ironsi, Maimalari, because I detailed
vehicles for them every working day. So, I knew senior officers. I was in contact with them somehow because I was in charge of transportation.
I was in Lagos. that night of
January 15 coup. The way I got to know about the coup was this: my
routine then was as early as about six in the morning, I used to drive
to the garage to make sure that all vehicles for officers, from the
General Officer Commanding (GOC), who was then General Ironsi, were
roadworthy and the drivers would drive off. And then, I would go back to
the Officers Mess in Yaba, where I would wash, have my breakfast and
come back to the office. And around the railway crossing in Yaba, coming
out from the barracks, we saw a wounded soldier. I stopped because I
was in a Landrover. I picked him and asked what happened. He said he was
in the late Maimalari’s house and they were having a party the previous
night and the place was attacked. So, I took the soldier to the
military hospital in Yaba and I asked after the commander. Maimalari, I
think, was commander of 2 Brigade in Apapa. He was the 2 Brigade
Commander. They said he was shot and killed. Well, that became a coup. That was
the time I really learnt it was a coup and then there was a counter-coup
of July. I was in Lagos again. I was still in Lagos then at Apapa at 2
Brigade Transport Company. And then, there was ethnic
colouration and all that. And at a point, they asked some of you to go
back to the North, because I was posted back then to the battalion. That
was in Abeokuta. It was first to Ikeja Cantonment, but after the
counter-coup, we were taken to Lagos by train, the whole battalion.
Well, there was a coup. I was a unit
commander and certainly, there was a breakdown of law and order. So, I
was posted to a combatant unit, although 2 Brigade Transport Company was
a combatant unit. You know there were administrative and combatant
units and the service unit, like health, education. Even transport,
there are administrative ones, but there are combatant ones also.
I did not play any specific role. I
was too junior to play any specific role. I was just a lieutenant then.
In 1966, January, I was a Second Lieutenant, but I was promoted, I
think, around April, May, or June to Lieutenant. Senior military officers had been
killed and politicians, like Sardauna, Akintola, Okotie Eboh. They were
killed. And then in the military, Maimalari, Yakubu Pam, Legima,
Shodeinde, and Ademolegun; so really, it had a tribal tinge, and then,
there was a counter. One mistake gave birth to another one. And then long years of military
came. From 1967-75, it was Gowon. When Gowon came into power, I wonder
whether I would recall where I was. It was July 1967 that Gowon came in.
That was when I was in Lagos. I was again in Lagos, then in the
transport company. Gowon took over or Gowon was installed. And then in 1967, Civil war. We were
parked into the rail to Kaduna from Ikeja, 2nd Infantry Battalion and
when states were created by General Gowon, police action was ordered; we
were moved to the border in the East. We were not in Nsukka, but in
Ogoja. We started from Ogoja.
I took active part as a junior officer. My GOC was the late General Shuwa. During that period of the civil war.
I did not think that when the first coup started, that civil war would
just come. No. I never felt so and I never hoped for it. Literally, you
are trained to fight a war but you are not trained to fight a war
within your own country. We would rather have enemies from outside your
country to defend your country, but not to fight among yourselves. Some of those officers we were
fighting were our comrades…I knew some of them. Some of them were even
my course mates. We were facing each other, like when we were in Awka
sector. The person facing me was called Bob Akonobi. We were mates here.
Robert Akonobi who later became a governor. He was my course mate here
in Kaduna. And there we were…facing each
other. It was really crazy. It was unfortunate, but it is part of our
national development. The way we are going, i don't think it is a
possibility again.
After Gowon, Murtala came. By the time I was no longer a small officer…I was just, I think a lieutenant colonel. I then became a governor when
Murtala came, in North-East. This same North East that is giving problem
now. I was there and there were six states then: Yobe, Borno, Bauchi,
Gombe, Adamawa and Taraba. and they were all under my control or
command.
North East went up to Chad; anyway,
they are on the same latitude with Lagos. The bottom before you start
going on the Plateau, Mambilla Plateau, if you look here on the map, the
same latitude was in Lagos and then, up to Chad. That was the extent of
the whole North East. They are now six states. I governed six states
and now, some of them have problems with one state. At that time, because of competent
civil service… I was a military man but once you get to the rank of a
lieutenant-colonel, after major, you are being taught some management
courses. It needs a few weeks for somebody who has gone through the
military management training, you have junior staff college, senior
staff college; by that time, you will have enough experience for most
administrative jobs because you must have had enough of the combat ones.
I think I didn’t have much problem. And then, the competent civil
servants. Civil servants then were very professional. And not political as we have them
now, No. They were really professionals and they can disagree with you
on record, on issues. They were not afraid to make recommendations to
the military governor or administrator.
No, they were never. People like the
late Liman Ciroma, Waziri Fika, who was eventually Secretary to the
Government of Babangida. And the late Abubakar Umar, who was Secretary
to the Government of Bauchi State; and the late Moguno. They were real
professionals, committed technocrats.
There were not much
challenges. There was no insecurity then, like we have in the North East
today. The police then, with their Criminal Investigation Department
(CID), were very, very competent. They interacted closely with the
people. So, criminals in the locality were easily identified and put
under severe surveillance. And really, there was relative peace in the
country.
My major achievements in the North
East as governor I think was the way the state was divided into three;
if you remember, it became Borno, Bauchi and Gongola. So, the way we
divided the assets, including the civil service and so on, I think it
was one of our achievements because it was so peaceful then. We had a
committee on civil service.
Eventually you became minister of petroleum under Obasanjo. That was the only ministry I held under Obasanjo. During my time as petroleum
minister, I was lucky again. When I was made a minister, I met an
experienced man, a person of great personal integrity, the late Sunday
Awoniyi. He was the permanent secretary then before the Supreme
Military Council approved the merger of the Nigerian National Oil
Corporation (NNOC) and the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and made
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Sunday Awoniyi was then
the permanent secretary of the ministry. That was when I was sworn in
eventually, I think in 1977, it became NNPC when the ministry and the
NNOC were merged. He retired from the civil service.
Another competent
technocrat, Morinho, he became the Director of Petroleum Resources and
he had a very competent team of Nigerian engineers, petroleum engineers
and chemical engineers. And as minister of petroleum, I signed the
contract for Warri Refinery, for Kaduna Refinery, for more than 20
depots all over the country, for laying of pipelines, more than 3200
kilometers and I couldn’t recall Nigeria borrowing a kobo for those
projects. And then, by the time I became head of state, because I went
to War College in the United States before the military handed over to
the Second Republic and came back in 1980 and then, there was coup at
the end of 1983. And that time, you can verify from Professor Tam
David-West who was Minister of Petroleum Resources. We were exporting
100,000 barrels per day of refined products.
Exporting from the country refined
one not the raw one they are taking to import to…100, 000
barrels because we had four refineries then. That they have all collapsed…is an indication of the efficiency of the subsequent governments! We achieved so much success and all
that. But there was an issue that later became quite contentious:
N2.8billion. They said N2.8billion oil money was missing, but it
couldn’t have been missing. The governor of the Central Bank then, the
late Clement Isong, said it was ridiculous, that N2.8billion couldn’t be
missing because he said even the king of Saudi Arabia, couldn’t issue a
cheque of N2.8billion. When you have paid your money for petroleum,
they are normally put in the country’s external account and no bank will
release that amount of money at a go because it was deposited. And
then, at that time, Nigeria was exporting about 1.82 million barrels a
day. And the cost of barrel a day was about $18. You work out
N2.8billion. How could N2.8billion be missing and we still have money to
run the country? So, it was just a political…
Shagari did the only honourable
thing. He ordered a judicial enquiry and put a serving Justice of the
Supreme Court, the late Justice Irikefe, to carry out investigation.
And their terms of reference were put there. They said anybody who had
an idea of missing N2.8billion, let him come and tell Justice Irikefe.
Nobody had any evidence. It was just rubbish. Well, later, Tai Solarin
and Professor Awojobi were confronted and Fela, the late Fela, to go and
prove their case. They had no evidence, most of them took the
newspaper cuttings of their allegations to the tribunal as their
evidence…Cuttings of newspapers publications where they said N2.8billion
was missing. That was their evidence. That was what they took to the
Irikefe panel.
There is one other incident that has
also been in the public domain: that Shagari gave me an order and they
said I disobeyed your commander-in-chief. They alleged that he gave me
an instruction not to go to war against Chad or something like that. Well, that was when I became GOC.
When I came back from War College, I was in Lagos. Then, 4 Infantry
Division was in Lagos, in Ikeja. I was in War College when I was posted
there before General Obasanjo’s government handed over to Shagari. So,
when I came, after about four months or so, I was posted to Ibadan, to
command 2 Infantry Division. And after that, I was posted to Jos to
command 3rd Armoured Division. It was when I was there as the GOC that
the Chadians attacked some of our troops in some of the islands and
killed five of them, took some military hardware and some of our
soldiers. Then, I went into Army headquarters and told them then, the
Chief of Army Staff then, General Wushishi, why they shouldn’t just
allow a country, our neighbour to move into our territory, where we had
stationed, to kill our people. So, I moved into Maiduguri, former
Tactical Headquarters, and I got them out of the country. Something
dramatic happened: I didn’t know I had gone beyond Chad and somehow,
Shagari, in the United States, was sent pictures that I was with my
troops and had gone beyond Chad, beyond Lake Chad. So, I was given
direct order by the president to pull out and I did. I did. I couldn’t have disobeyed the
president. So, I handed over the division to Colonel Ogukwe, who was my
course mate but was my… He was later in National Population Commission (NPC). Colonel Ogukwe I handed over the tactical headquarters to him. So, I couldn’t have gone against
presidential directive. He was the Commander-in-Chief. But maybe it was
too slow for them, for me to withdraw, but you don’t disengage so
quickly.
But after that, Shagari was
overthrown. I was invited to head the government after the coup as the
most senior officer. It was not a Buhari coup. I never plotted a coup
throughout my military career. I was not a coup plotter. I was invited. I was in Jos. They sent a jet to me
flown by one of General Gowon’s younger brothers. He was a pilot. He
told me that those who conducted the coup had invited me for discussion. I went to Lagos. I was flown to
Lagos. Yes. And they said ok, those who were in charge of the coup had
said that I would be the head of state. And I was. Twenty months after, same colleagues
who invited me changed their minds. Some claimed part of what they said
when they took over power was that I had become “too rigid, too
uncompromising and arrogated knowledge of problems and solutions to
yourself and my late deputy, Idiagbon.
Well, I think Nigerians had better
identify those who did that and interview them so that they can tell
what happened. From my own point of view, I was the chairman of the
three councils, which, by change of the constitution, were in charge of
the country. They were the Supreme Military Council, the Executive
Council and the National Council of State. I was the chairman of all.
Maybe when you interview those who were part of the coup, they will tell
you my rigidity and whether I worked outside those organs: the Supreme
Military Council, the Council of State and the Council of Ministers.
There was also this issue of Decree
4, alleged drug peddlers who my regime ordered shot. Maybe my rigidity
could be traced to our insistence on the laws we made. But we decided
that the laws must be obeyed. They said it was retroactive, But I
think it should be in the archive; we said that whoever brought in
drugs and made Nigeria a transit point committed an offence. These
drugs, WeWe (Indian hemp), is planted here, but the hard drug, cocaine,
most Nigerians don’t know what cocaine is. They just made Nigeria a
transit point and these people did it just to make money. You can have a
certain people who grow Ashisha or WeWe and so on because it is
indigenous. Maybe some people are even alleging that those who want to
come for operation, brought the seed and started to grow it in Nigeria.
But cocaine, it is alien to our people. So, those who used Nigeria as a
transit, they just did it to make money. And this drug is so potent that
it destroys people, especially intelligent people.
So, the Supreme
Military Council did a memo. Of course, I took the memo to the Supreme
Military Council and made recommendation and the Supreme Military
Council agreed. There was no dissenting in the sense
that majority agreed that this thing, this cocaine, this hard drug was
earning Nigeria so much bad name in the international community because
Nigeria was not producing it, but Nigerians that wanted to make money
didn’t mind destroying Nigerians and other youths in other countries
just to make money. So, we didn’t need them. We didn’t need them. But there were pleas by eminent
Nigerians not to kill the three men involved in the trafficking. Pleas,
pleas; those that they destroyed did they listen to their pleas for them
not to make hard drug available to destroy their children and their
communities.
It was not an error. It was
deliberate. I didn’t do it as an head of state by fiat. We followed our
proper system and took it. If I was sure that the Supreme Military
Council then, the majority of them decided that we shouldn’t have done
so, we could have reduced it to long sentencing. But people who did
that, they wanted money to build fantastic houses, maybe to have houses
in Europe and invest. Now, when they found out that if they do it, they
will get shot, then they will not live to enjoy at the expense of a lot
of people that became mental and became harmful and detrimental to the
society and so on, then they will think twice.
On Decree 4, the press brought in
Nigeria factor into it. When people try to get job or contract and they
couldn’t get it, they make a quick research and created a problem for
people who refuse to do them the favour. What we did was that you must
not embarrass those civil servants. If you have got evidence that
somebody was corrupt, the courts were there. Take the evidence to court;
the court will not spare whoever it was. But you don’t just go and
write articles that were embarrassing.
Did we go too far? Did we go to the
extreme that public officers could do no wrong, as if they were saints,
calling the decree ‘Protection of Public Officers Against False
Accusation,’ and clamped down on the media? Those who did it, the editors, the
reporters, we jailed them. But we never closed a whole institution, as
others did. We investigated and prosecuted according to the laws,
because shutting a newspaper, it is an institution and we lose thousands
of jobs. But we found out who made that false report, who was the
editor, who okayed it and then, we jailed them.
I have no regrets because we did it according to the laws we made. We neither closed a whole institution and caused job losses.
Then, I was sent packing from power 20 months after…No I didn't leave on my own volition.
Nigerians, they remember War Against
Indiscipline we brought. I think we realised that the main problem of
Nigeria, then and now, was indiscipline and corruption. When I say we, I
mean the Supreme Military Council. Those two, are Nigeria’s Achilles
heels. And I believe the Nigeria elite knew it then and they know it
now. So, we started to discipline them. People must realise their level
in the society and accept it. If you go and read hard and get a PhD,
certainly you will get the best of life than somebody who hasn’t been to
school at all or who has been a drop-out. And then, in the public,
people must behave responsibly. If you go to bus stops, it is
step-by-step or turn-by-turn, and not to force your way. If you go to
bank, you find out if people were there before you. Why can’t you go
behind them? Or you come early and be number
one. I think that was accepted. And up till now, I think it is the only
thing that survived out of our administration, the queue culture. People
accepted it with calmness. And in Lagos, they wouldn't like to
associate themselves with the military, so they call it KAI. That is
right. Kick Against Indiscipline. But it is still the same thing. It is
the same. The only difference is that one was brought by the military
and this one is through democratic system.
Having been out of power and having
had time to reflect for three years, what did I see that was wrong? We
gave them the opportunity in the three councils I told you. Those rules
are supposed to be in the Nigerian archives, except somebody destroyed
them, destroyed the evidence. Otherwise, what did we do wrong to warrant
being sacked? For example, when we overthrew the Second Republic, we
had what we called the SIP, the Special Investigation Panel that
comprised the police, the National Security Organisation (NSO) then and
the intelligence community of the military. We did nothing by impulse or
ad hoc. We went through the system.
Why did we handed down long jail
terms, some 100 years? They would never see the daylight again to commit
another crime against humanity.
I think I have always been the same
person. When I came out of detention, I was amazed, amazed in the sense
that people in my immediate constituency didn't seem to bother about the
major setback I had. They were still coming to me, expecting me to help
them in a way. Not in terms of material help, because they knew that I
didn’t operate any money house or any petroleum bloc or any filling
station…As a whole oil minister like I did
not have any oil licence. No. Not one, and not any for any blood
relation or anybody close to me. Really, somehow, people in my community
felt that I can still help them. But with that setback, I was wondering
how. So, the only way for me, I think, was to join partisan politics
so that I can have a platform to speak about the opinion of my
constituency, immediate constituency. But the thing that convinced me
more than the pressure from immediate locality was the change in 1991,
the collapse of the Soviet Union. I have said this so often that an
empire in the 20th century, collapsed and a lot of people ran back home,
leaving strategic installations behind, like missile sites, nuclear
formation and so on. And now, there are about 18 to 19 or 20 republics.
It was then that I believed, personally, in my own assessment, that
multi-party democratic system was and is still superior to despotism. That was the turning point. But
there is a big caveat: elections must be free and fair! And that is what
we need. Elections must be free and fair, otherwise, the whole thing
will be something else.
During our tenure, one case kept
coming up: the 53 suitcases. We had ordered the border shut and my Aide
de Camp (ADC), Major Jokolo, was alleged to have escorted 53 suitcases
into the country. There was nothing like 53 suitcases.
What happened was that there was my chief of protocol; he is now late.
He had three wives, and I think about 12 children. He was in Saudi
Arabia as Nigeria Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. He was in Libya before, as
ambassador and later, he was posted to Saudi Arabia. And then, I
appointed him as my chief of protocol and he was coming back. Three
wives, about 12 children. And then, by some coincidence, the late Emir
of Gwandu, the father of Jokolo, who was my ADC then, was coming back
with the same flight. And somehow, some mischievous fellows, everything,
including the handbag of maybe, their small daughters, were counted as
suitcases. Atiku then was the Commandant of Murtala Muhammed Airport as
customs officer. And that day, we were playing squash. Jokolo my ADC and
I. At some point, I said to him, ‘Mustapha, is your father not coming
back today again?’ He said, ‘yes, sir, he is coming.’ I said, ‘what are
you doing here? Why can’t you go and meet your father?’ He said yes,
sir. He went to wash and meet his father. I am telling you there was no
53 bags of suitcases. It was a bloody lie. It was a bloody mischief. He was not detailed. He was not even
about to go. I was the one who made him to go and meet his father. He
was a respected emir, in fact, if not the most respected emir in the
North then. He was learned, he had fantastic credibility and personal
integrity. And this man was just coming on posting with his wives and
children and they counted every imaginable thing, they said 53
suitcases.
I don’t think I retired Atiku. I
can’t recall because I had nothing against anybody. But the argument was
that the border was ordered shut. Those people came by air. We didn’t
stop aircraft coming in. They came by air, from Jedda to Lagos. They
didn’t drive through Chad to Maiduguri and… People just say 53 suitcases
when all borders had been ordered shut because that is how you can sell
your papers.
Would I still do politics at 70 years, elective politics, offering yourself for election? This is what I told the audience
that came to listen to my address before we started the campaign for the
2011 elections. But my party and supporters were sending
representatives. Up till today, they haven’t stopped. But what I told
them was that we are in the process now of reorganising the party and
perhaps, come into an alignment with other parties. Whatever the parties
decide, whether my party or the new party that align and we are hoping
to develop; if they give me the ticket or recommend me, I will consider
it. That is the position we are now.
Until we get to that stage, there is no clear answer now. Let’s wait and see.
People say General Buhari is so
austere. Nobody is associating me with millions. I used to smoke, but of
course, I abandoned it I think in 1977. I stopped smoking before you
became head of state. I have never taken alcohol. Never. Even as a young
man. No. Even in the military tradition, how they break you in, I said
well, the military did not stop anybody practising his religion. My
religion said no alcohol and no alcohol. So, that was respected. I was
never forced to take alcohol and I have never voluntarily taken it
because I want to remain alert all the time. There is a tendency that
when you drink, you would want to have a bottle more, or a glass more
and do something stupid.
I didn’t drink, I smoked, I had
girlfriends; it was true. We had too much eventful time, professional
career. It was too eventful. There were too many things happening almost
at the same time. If I could recall, the 30 months civil war that we
had, I was just having two weeks after every six months to come back
home just to see my old mother and some of my relatives because I
refused to get married till after the war. It was deliberate.
Some of our colleagues, like late
Vatsa, like Babangida, they were more adventurous than myself. They took
a weekend and had a quick marriage and went back to the front. I
thought I would be putting the poor girl or the poor woman under a lot
of stress. So, I said if I survived the war, I would get married, but if
I didn’t survive, no woman should cry for me other than my relatives.
Some of my General-colleagues also
became stupendously rich. Today, they have means. My assets were on
record, I told some of your colleagues when they came. When
Murtala/Obasanjo regime came, they made sure that certain grades of
public officers must declare their assets when they assumed that office
and they must declare when they were leaving. So, when I was sworn in as
governor of North East, I declared my assets.
I declared surprisingly, even the
number of my cows then. Even if they were supposed to be producing
every year, but I declared them the time I was there. And when I was
leaving governorship, I became petroleum minister. When I was leaving to
go to War College, I declared my assets. I could recall General
Jemibewon then, was the Adjutant-General of the Army. He rang me and
said he was sending me asset declaration form, that I must fill it, sign
it before I left for the United States. And I did. General Jemibewon is
still alive. And when I became head of state eventually, I declared my
assets again. So, all of us; when I say that, I mean Obasanjo downwards,
those who are alive who were governors, ministers, head of states, they
had declared assets. So, if you people are serious and interested about
political officers becoming multi-billionaires, you can find out from
Murtala downwards. And those of us who were not very good in making
money you should pity us.\
Everybody likes money but I am not
very good at making money. Let me put it that way. I borrowed from the
banks to build the house in Daura and the one in Abuja that you
mentioned and the one in Kano. The bank then was Barclays, now Union
Bank. Kaduna State or North Central then housing scheme and the Federal
Mortgage Bank for the house I am in and AIB, which was, I think,
terminated by Central Bank. So, when you go through the records, you
find out that the houses I built, I borrowed from there.
On my relationship with others,
Obasanjo, my former boss and at a point my political opponent, General
Babangida, the man who took over from me and then, Shagari…I think the
worst thing anybody can do to oneself is to have either hatred or grudge
on daily basis. One thing will happen and you better forget.
I have forgiven Babangida publicly, I did and some papers published it. I said as a Muslim, I have forgiven him.
Of course, I was angry because I
can’t recall what I had done for him to mobilise the military to
overthrow me and detain me for more than three years. Yeah, it is
natural for me to be upset.
Was I going to retire him before my
overthrow, as has been alleged? Something like that happened but not
him. I moved to retire his Director of Military Intelligence. General
Aliyu Gusau. Yes. I took a paper to Army Council. Babangida was there…As
the Chief of Army Staff. Idiagbon was there, Bali was there as Minister
of Defence, and I was there as the head of state and
commander-in-chief. And reasons for him to be removed was in that memo.
Go and find out from him or from Babangida. They are both alive.
Not against Babangida per se. Some I
didn't know about the claim that if I touched Gusau, his intelligence
chief, invariably, that we were going to inch towards the Chief of Army
Staff, Babangida. Eventually, he might have been touched. I didn’t know
but at that point, it was Aliyu Gusau. But yes, we were inching closer.
You could say that.
I have forgiven him. I said it and
it was printed by some of your colleagues. But I didn’t say it will be
forgotten. It cannot be forgotten. If I say I forget about it, I will be
lying. But I have forgiven him, just as I expect Shagari to forgive me
as the one who succeeded him.
Shagari said you detained him and then…I too, was detained.
Obasanjo; he mobilized Nigerian voters against me . No, I haven’t forgiven him.
On my daughter who has just passed on? She would have been 40 before she died, when life was just beginning. She was a sickler and she had complication when she was delivered by Caesarian. And that remains a very sad incident for me.
How do I want Nigerians to remember me, if you have the chance to write my epitaph?
I want Nigerians to be fair to me.
Like this case of 53, 55 suitcases, like the case of N2.8billion. I want
Nigerians to be fair and to be fair, all these documents are in the
Nigerian archives. As I said, I didn’t do anything important outside the
three organs of government: the Supreme Military Council, Council of
States and Council of Ministers. On serious issues, Nigerians should do
some research. That is why I always make emphasis on investigative
journalism. If you want to be fair and impartial, I am sure you can have
the capacity, both intellectual and resource to make an in-depth
investigation. Nigerians should be fair to me.
Former Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari, excerpts from an exclusive interview with SUN Newspapers
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