No tears for Sambo Dasuki (II)

General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, after ruling the country for eight years (1985-1993) by sheer force, imagined that he was such a great leader. He even claimed to have re-engineered Nigeria. But we only needed to juxtapose the results of Babangida’s governance style with the heaven on earth he had promised the country. He was going […]

General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, after ruling the country for eight years (1985-1993) by sheer force, imagined that he was such a great leader. He even claimed to have re-engineered Nigeria. But we only needed to juxtapose the results of Babangida’s governance style with the heaven on earth he had promised the country. He was going to, he said, bequeath a viable economy, political stability and social harmony to the country. God! He left the economy in tatters, the polity on the brink of catastrophe and the people ever divided. In August 1993, Babangida fled to Minna in a “step aside” letdown leaving behind, not a democratically elected government, as he had vowed, but a helpless, hand-picked, Chief Earnest Shonekan, nervously watched by a dark-goggled General Sani Abacha to superintend over an interim contraption. Babangida spectacularly failed and everything he has subsequently said is meant to explain this fiasco.
Enter Sambo Dasuki, Babangida’s boy, almost 30 years after, as National Security Adviser. Sambo Dasuki, instead of burying his head in contrition, is back in the news defending his mediocre performance with tales of purchase of obsolete and undelivered weapons for Nigeria. By the way, all those who had a hand in Muhammadu Buhari’s ouster on 27th August, 1985 should be ashamed of themselves because the man is back in full force, and with the people’s mandate! But just like his failed mentor, Sambo is struggling hard to deny the fact that he flunked his brief and the Boko Haram fight was gravely mismanaged.
Sambo’s claim of having purchased all manner of weapons has been pooh-poohed by Air Marshal Alex Badeh, another airman the country happily got rid of recently, who lately told the media: “I think the last time any piece of equipment was bought for the Nigerian Army was some APCs (armoured personnel carriers) that were bought in 2006, and how many were they? They were a few.”
Dasuki said he bought T-72 Tanks among other weapons; but if T-72 Battle Tank was made in Aba in 1973, chances are, by 2013 the Aba people would have made another tank four times more sophisticated than the first product. I mean we shouldn’t mind Dasuki when he said he bought sophisticated weapons to fight Boko Haram; T-72 is a Soviet-era tanked manufactured in 1973; you tell me what is sophisticated in a 42-year old product! And in any case, the pictures of the arms Dasuki claimed to have bought simply showed them being loaded at their port of origin, not that they were offloaded at the port of disembarkation, say in Abuja or Maiduguri; because a lorry load of the Red Sokoto Goat is shown leaving the Miyetti Allah roundabout in Sokoto doesn’t mean that the animals will be delivered at Mile 12 Market in Lagos or Onitsha Bridge end!
Neither is it just a question of weapons; our soldiers fighting Boko Haram had long complained of being denied their allowances; who short changed them? There were also serious and credible allegations of human rights violations during which a lot of young men, particularly in Borno were slaughtered, tortured, detained or disappeared upon mere suspicion; who gave the orders and who condoned the evil? Remember the “I counted more than two hundred graves” in Baga uttered by Senator Maina Ma’aji Lawan before he played chicken and faded out? Remember the consistent complaints of wanton killings, assassinations, torture and humiliation of civilian populace made by the Borno elders against the Nigerian Army? Any wonder the arrogant dismissal of these allegations using smooth language discouraged these Western countries from selling their weapons to an “undisciplined army”?
Abubakar Shekau had no capacity to stop our elections just because he had seized 22 local governments under Dasuki’s security watch, which would have amounted to no more than the 400,000 plus votes or so turned in by Borno in the Presidential election. Even if Shekau had intended to sabotage the elections, he would have found an ally in Dasuki. By unilaterally pushing back the election by six weeks, the former NSA attempted to sabotage them. In a way, Shekau and Sambo shared common aim; to sabotage the election and stop the “serial presidential election loser” from winning it in 2015.
How about the contemptible money smuggling incident involving the private jet of Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, which flew into South Africa and was caught laden with millions of United States dollars in cash? Why is Sambo Dasuki not talking about such a serious matter that made us a laughing stock in the comity of nations and why didn’t PR Nigeria ask him about it? Who are the two Nigerians and the foreigner arrested while accompanying the cash? How can Sambo Dasuki imagine that he can get out of this mess after taking actions that ridiculed the country?
It’s not even Dasuki’s doubtful weapons purchase claim that constitutes the issue; it is whether the country got value for money taken from the treasury while we were sold on a magical “new security architecture” to restore national security. One doesn’t know what Dasuki is claiming to have achieved; he presided over and expended trillions of naira in defence funds, got 1$ billion loan and then bought obsolete weapons that are still – wait for it – yet to be delivered!
It cannot be a mere coincidence that during Abacha’s rule, Col Bello Fadile was jailed for coup plotting while Sambo Dasuki slipped out of the country to evade arrest; and in the Jonathan regime the two buddies were back ensconced in the office of the NSA. Sambo was a key figure in the Buhari coup, the Babangida coup and now alleged to be planning to commit “treasonable felony.” For how much longer could a man continue to plot for power?