A sorrowful dirge wafts through the rhetoric of Sambo Dasuki’s case. Loyalists to the retired army colonel and former National Security Adviser (NSA) like to inflame politics with weird meanings. In their parlance, a victim of witch-hunt would mean Sambo Dasuki, for example. And the incumbent administration of President Muhammadu Buhari may be described as the nemesis or brute in the recurring nightmare of the political class. The notions offer filial and theatrical clarity to ‘Camp Dasuki’ over his perceived persecution.
To opposing minds however, Dasuki’s humiliation symbolises the citizenry’s bright blade of defiance and moral reproof, as it whacks through the wilderness of Nigeria’s political cabals and absolutes. It was difficult for former President Goodluck Jonathan to deploy such a weapon against a mortal friend and his national security adviser, Dasuki.
But what should Buhari do with Dasuki? What should be done if it is discovered that the former NSA indeed, committed acts that were subversive to the stability of the Nigerian state, as claimed by the Department of State Security (DSS) recently?
In the wake of a recent invasion of the former NSA’s Abuja and Sokoto residences, the DSS said its operatives raided his abodes, having obtained credible intelligence that Dasuki was liable of treason against the Nigerian state. This was contained in a statement issued and signed by one of the DSS operatives, Tony Opuiyo in Abuja recently.
Properties belonging to the former NSA on No. 13, John Khadya Street, No. 46, Nelson Mandela Street, both at Asokoro, Abuja, and No. 3 Sabon Birni Road, Gwiwa Area, Sokoto, Sokoto State were ransacked during the raid. The DSS spokesperson however, berated Dasuki for instructing his military guards to prevent operatives of the DSS from gaining access into his residence, noting that the maturity of the DSS agents prevented a violent stand-off.
“The search operations were planned to be simultaneously conducted but Dasuki refused the operatives entry into his main residence located at No. 13 John Kadiya Street, Asokoro, Abuja, despite being presented with a genuine and duly signed search warrant. Indeed if not for the sense of maturity and professionalism of the officers and men assigned this task and the very good understanding and timely intervention of the new Chief of Army Staff, there would have been a clash between the army operatives guarding the house and the service operatives,” he said.
While stressing the fact that Dasuki, as a retired colonel was not entitled to military guards, the DSS disclosed that it found some incriminating items while searching the former NSA’s home. The items include the sum of $40, 000, seven high-calibre assault rifles, several magazines and military gears.
“The team also recovered 12 new vehicles, out of which five were bulletproof. These vehicles, which are all exotic vehicles, were retrieved from Sambo’s residence, having failed to produce evidence of ownership. For instance, what could he be doing with five bulletproof cars as a retired NSA? These cars, which from all available evidence were purchased with tax payers’ money, were being kept for possible sinister enterprise.”
The DSS, said Opuiyo, “decided to move at this time in line with current management resolve to be proactive and pre-empt individuals with penchant for impunity and lawlessness from putting back the nation to the dark days. The Service is also aware that the lethal arms and the vehicles recovered were not reflected in Sambo’s handover notes. Or what could a former NSA be doing with destructive weapons and bulletproof cars which put together could disrupt the peace of any city in Nigeria for a while?”
The DSS said it was aware that Dasuki in his capacity and given his antecedents “might decide to use any of his residences for such diabolical plans, rather than his main residence.” Hence contrary to insinuations that the raid on Dasuki’s residences was a witch-hunt, the DSS claimed it was only doing its job as required by the law.
The truth about his arrest
More facts have emerged to dispel insinuations that President Buhari had ordered the raid on Dasuki’s homes and his subsequent arrest because he was the army officer who led soldiers to arrest him (Buhari), on the day he was overthrown as military Head of State in August 1985. Sources in the DSS revealed that the retired army colonel is wanted in connection with multi-billion dollar funds domiciled in his office as NSA.
It was gathered that all funds budgeted to prosecute the war against Boko Haram terrorist sect and other security issues were all domiciled in the office of Dasuki as NSA. There are allegations that some of the huge funds were diverted for some extraneous purposes rather than the prosecution of the war against terror.
It was alleged that defence contracts, including purchase of arms and ammunition that used to be under the Ministry of Defense, were taken over by Dasuki. With huge funds under his control, he allegedly neutered the influence and effectiveness of the nation’s Ministry of Defence and military service chiefs and other security chiefs also began reporting to him.
President Buhari however, relieved him of his job as the country’s NSA, along with the motley crew of service chiefs for performing below par, lack of commitment to their respective duties and preference for political manoeuvre over military professionalism.
Prior to his removal, Nigeria had committed over N4 trillion in five years, been funding for human and material resources to prosecute the war against terrorism in the country’s northeast, but the huge spending amounted to naught. Besides having too little to show for the huge security spending, the morale of soldiers on the battlefield plummeted pitifully; troops complained of insufficient gears, inadequate food, internal sabotage and desertion by their commanders. Infantry also complained that their allowances were pocketed by their superiors and even more curiously, Dasuki and his principal, former President Goodluck Jonathan were discomfortingly silent on the issue of mercenaries recruited for the anti-terrorism war. Several questions remained unanswered: “What was the true role of the mercenaries?” “What were the terms of their contract?” “On whose side did they fight?”
That Dasuki allegedly managed funding of the anti-terrorism military campaign raised several eyebrows during the scrutiny of the immediate past administration’s security spending. The general perception and temperament in circuits of the new power bloc is that if as NSA Dasuki controlled the flow of funds in the prosecution of the anti-terrorism war, how did things turn so awry on his watch? On Dasuki’s watch as NSA, the anti-terrorism war against Boko Haram terrorist sect was inefficiently prosecuted and highly politicised. Among other gaffes, his principal, former President Jonathan alleged and subtly rejoiced that insurgent attacks only occurred in opposition-controlled states.
Thus his removal from office, the raid on his residences and subsequent arrest hardly sums up as a piteous case of political witch hunt outside the perimeters of his political camp; pundits and greater segments of the citizenry applaud the decision to probe the former NSA, emphasising the need to prosecute him in accordance with due process stipulated by the Nigerian constitution.
Hubris and the ‘generalissimo’
Dasuki, a scion of the Fulani Sultanate of Sokoto, in the estimation of his critics, savoured the politically bizarre in act and temperament while he served as the country’s NSA. He envisioned himself a powerful generalissimo even as he painted a portrait of himself as an emperor. General and emperor cleave together in a parody of union urging him to dare the odds and bait his fate in a premeditated onslaught against majority will and the forces of change.
Few people would forget in a hurry the role he played in the transition that ushered in the incumbent leadership. It would be recalled that Dasuki called for the postponement of the presidential elections initially scheduled for February 14.
Dasuki during an appearance at Chatham House, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, is an independent policy institute based in London, United Kingdom (UK), advised the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to consider postponing the elections for some time, about six weeks to be precise, in order for it to distribute voters’ cards to all eligible voters. “What sense does it make to vote three months early when there are 30 million cards still with INEC? That’s my position,” he said.
Dasuki’s pronouncement resonated jarringly to the opposition party at the period, the All Progressives Congress (APC) – which is now the ruling party. It also confirmed initial speculations and fears that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) did not want the elections to hold while nurturing a plan to hinge its refusal to conduct the polls on inadequacies of INEC and the country’s security challenges in the northeast.
Political pundits interpreted Dasuki’s move as a crucial part of a ploy to help Goodluck Jonathan break the momentum of the opposition APC and hand the election to the PDP on a golden platter. Conspiracy theorists also alleged that Dasuki was only acting out a script prepared with the intent to postpone the elections indefinitely thus inciting the opposition to violently react and thus provide ample reasons and opportunity for the PDP leadership to detain Buhari, APC leader, Bola Tinubu and other chieftains of the party. It was also expected to provide the PDP political machinery opportunity to remove Professor Attahiru Jega, former INEC chairman and then follow with a blitzkrieg of half-truths and misrepresentation of reality on how the government discovered plots to subvert Nigeria’s democracy by Buhari and the APC.
While the plot to scuttle the political transition process failed, it irked several segments of the nation’s political circuit to see Colonel Bello-Fadile (rtd), one of Dasuki’s former aides, function as a party agent to the PDP during the collation of the March 28 presidential election results. This among other reasons affirmed fears that Dasuki was inordinately partisan and empathetic to his former principal, former President Jonathan’s administration.
When pedigree is not enough
Born in Wusasa, Zaria on December 2, 1954 into the family of Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki, the 18th Sultan of Sokoto – who was then serving as an account clerk at Gaskiya Corporation in Zaria – Dasuki is a member of the Buhari royal house of the Sokoto Caliphate and a great-grandson of the 19th century Islamic reformer, Shaikh Usman Bin Fodio. He attended Kaduna Capital School and later Government College, Kaduna. He joined the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) in 1972 after the Nigeria Civil War. At the academy, Dasuki met other course-mates and friends-to-be such as Lawan Gwadabe and Abdulmumini Aminu. The trio would come to play a vital role in the August 1985 palace coup that toppled the regime of Major-General Muhammadu Buhari. Instructively, Dasuki, along with other cadets who would also be crucial to General Ibrahim Babangida’s take-over in 1985, had cultivated their relationship with the former military president between 1970 and 1972 when Babangida, then a Major, having recovered from war injuries suffered as Commanding Officer of the 44th Battalion in the 1st Division under Colonel Shuwa, was made an Instructor and Company Commander in the Short Service Wing.
Dasuki passed out of the Academy in 1974 and began a remarkable career in the Nigerian Army. He was first posted to the Army Headquarters as platoon officer/field artillery and later rose to become Staff Officer AHQ Corps of Artillery before the August 27, 1985 palace coup.
In August 1985, Col. Dasuki participated in the coup d’état that ousted General Buhari. In that military exercise, he, along with four other majors, namely, Abdulmumini Aminu, Lawan Gwadabe, Abubakar D. Umar and John Madaki, were reportedly assigned to effect the arrest of the then Head of State at his residence in Dodan Barracks in Lagos. The event of August 27, 1985 was no doubt a turning point in the life and career of young major as he was appointed the ADC to the new military president Ibrahim Babangida and served in that capacity until 1988 when he fell out with Chief of Army Staff, late General Sani Abacha.
Dasuki, at his appointment as the country’s NSA, was described as a thorough professional soldier. For instance, Col. Aminu Isa Kontagora (rtd), a former Military Administrator of Kano and Benue States during the regimes of late Gen Sani Abacha and General Abdulsalami described him as a humble man, who is very accessible and has contacts within and outside the country, which would help him to deal with the security situation in the country.
Sadly, his tenure as the country’s NSA could hardly be termed beneficial to the nation. And it is for that reason that he currently has a bull’s eye on his back.
Taunting history
Notwithstanding the perceptions about him, Dasuki, in the wake of his arrest by DSS operatives and the raid on his homes, attempted to rewrite history to his advantage claiming he had always been sympathetic to the APC before the party emerged as the ruling party.
Dasuki in a recent interview made shocking pronouncements that have been severally touted as his last ditch effort to save himself from imminent prosecution by courting the goodwill of the President Buhari-led APC.
In an apparent bid to rewrite history and redefine himself in the eyes of the citizenry, claimed that he never arrested Buhari in 1985 after he was overthrown as a Military Head of State in August 1985 and that he begged Bola Tinubu and Bisi Akande to field Buhari as their presidential candidate.
He said he had supported Buhari’s presidential aspiration in 2003, 2007 and 2011. According to him, he knelt down in 2011 for the former National Chairman of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Chief Bisi Akande, to make Buhari a joint candidate of the ACN and the defunct Congress of People’s Congress (CPC).
Dasuki made the claims in the wake of insinuations that his house arrest might have to do with a retaliation of a similar maltreatment against Buhari in 1985. The ex-NSA also spoke against the backdrop that he attempted to truncate the election of President Muhammadu Buhari in March and inauguration on May 29. Dasuki said: “I always respect and dignify my seniors and those in positions of authority, whether in service or after. Though as a young officer, I was reluctant to be among those that arrested him. And I was not.
“I only met him afterward at Bonny Camp with Lawal Rafindadi. There is no way I could have maltreated him as being alleged in some quarters. I am glad most of the actors are still alive.”
On the December 1983 coup d’état, Dasuki admitted that he and two young military officers ‘travelled to Jos to brief Major General Buhari, who was then the GOC of 3rd Armoured Division on the furtherance of the planning of the 1983 coup which made Buhari the major beneficiary of the ouster of the elected President Shehu Shagari.’
Asked why he participated in the ouster of Buhari just less than two years afterward, Dasuki simply answered that “General Buhari should know whom he should blame.”
He said he had been part of Buhari’s presidential aspiration in 2003, 2007 and 2011. He said Nigerians could verify his claims from respected Northerners, such as Adamu Adamu, Bashir Kurfi, Wada Maida, Sule Hamman and Kabir Yusuf among others.
On the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, which was won by the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola, Dasuki said he was one of those who confronted the late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha.
The journalist who interviewed him said: “Dasuki told me the story of how he and some others confronted late Gen. Sani Abacha over June 12 election which was won by Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola (MKO). This led to their premature retirement. The persecution that followed forced him into exile where he teamed up with opposition elements struggling for the return of democracy in Nigeria.”
There is no gainsaying Dasuki is in troubled waters, but while his loyalists advance reasons bordering on the spurious and outright frivolous to defend his honour, political pundits and critics of his administration would rather he man up to disprove or admit to whatever charges are leveled against him instead of tangling reality by invoking ghosts long dead and buried.
Thus is the predicament of Dasuki. Despite his touted wisdom, humility, enviable pedigree and acclaim, he could neither learn nor deploy the nobler dialects of statesmanship and elevated tact to tame the odds to his advantage.
His recent interview, according to pundits, will accomplish no miracles, save its affirmation of his claims to victimhood. Critics of Dasuki will describe it as a treacherous theorem of truth, advanced to curry the empathy of the public and favour of the new power bloc – the same power bloc whose emergence Dasuki worked assiduously to truncate.
Will his ‘truth’ cause the citizenry to rise in his defence? Will it help redefine him and recreate him as godlike, to his motley crew of loyalists? Or is it some expedient and premeditated plan to enthrall and excite unearned goodwill in its wake? Does Dasuki’s ‘truth’ establish him a true hero; heroic in thought and manhood; heroic in what he has said and perhaps still more in what he did not say and did not do? Or does Dasuki’s ‘truth’ make him appear highly desperate and pitiful even as his veiled plea appears vague?
