Nigeria’s ‘most wanted’ man declares war

Press, 31 January 1984, Page 19

Nigeria’s ‘most wanted’ man declares war

By

CAMERON DUODU

Nigeria’s “most wanted” politician, Alhaji Umaru Dikko, brother-in-law of deposed President Shagari and known as his “third ear,” has declared war on the Supreme Military Council which is now ruling the country. In an exclusive interview with the “Observer,” Dikko said: “Everyone can be trained to use a gun. The junta in Lagos is made up of politicians in uniform who turned their guns on the elected Government they had sworn to defend under the Constitution.

“The true professionals in the Nigerian Army will make the distinction between soldiers and politicians in uniform. Nigerians cherish liberty and democracy above everything else and will fight to restore them before long.” Nigeria was torn by a civil war between 1967 and 1970, in which about two million people were killed.

Few contracts could be approved in Shagari’s Nigeria without Dikko’s tacit approval, and the popular belief is that he is worth about £1 billion. He was in charge of the election campaign of Shagari’s party, the National Party of Nigeria (NPN). The party is known to have received huge donations from businessmen anxious to ingratiate themselves with its leaders in order to obtain lucrative contracts fcsr its second term injower, which Y fl?

was to have ended in 1987. Most of the donations are believed to have been put in foreign bank accounts. Dikko was dismissive of charges that he was in control of huge funds. “A politician’s first aim is to obtain votes, and that is what I was concerned with.

“Besides, whatever money a politician makes goes back to the people, because he wants their votes. The military, are talking about money because they can think only of their own bank accounts.”

Dikko, aged 45, was born in the northern town of Zaria and graduated in maths at London University. He also holds a doctorate in law and a D. Litt. He worked for five years with the Hausa section of the 8.8. C. External Services and taught in Nigeria for some time before entering politics. Describing his dramatic escape from Nigeria after the New Year’s Eve coup, he said: “I took the risk of driving to the Benin border after lying low in Lagos for two days. “I could have been stopped on the way at any time and picked up, but I thought the risk was worth taking because I was tipped off that I would be killed if the military got their hands on me.

“There is evidence for this in the fact that although they gave every politician a deadline of seven days within which to report, they declared me a ‘wanted’ man after only two days. “They would have shot me and then put out a story that I was resisting arrest or trying to escape.” Dikko confirmed that his father, who is over 90, had been arrested and released. He also disclosed that his 17-year-old son, a student on holiday, had been detained. “They have turned me into some sort of Hitler, whom everyone is looking for, here, there and everywhere, and who is sighted by different people at different places at the same time.” When he reached the Benin border he abandoned his car to avoid the frontier police and made the perilous crossing on foot by bush path. Once in Benin he hired a taxi to Lome, Togo, from where he flew to Amsterdam and thence to London. He later flew to Canada and the United States and he spoke to me from Germany as he was preparing to leave for a Middle Eastern capital. Dikko claimed that Shagari was overthrown because of quarrels with the “Kaduna Mafia,” the northern power-brokers who are alleged to have been responsible for overthrowing (general Yakubu

Gowon in July 1975. They disagreed with the idea that a southerner should succeed Shagari as president in 1987, through the “rotation” system accepted by Shagari’s National Party of Nigeria.

The former Vice-President, Alex Ekwuene, would almost certainly

have been the N.P.N.’s candidate in appreciation of the help that he and other southerners had given Shagari. Dikko alleged that the most prominent member of the “Mafia” is Major-General Shehu Yar’Adua, who was Chief of Staff in Lagos between 1975 and 1979, after the

overthrow of Gowon. Yar’Adua is reported to have been in London during the Christmas holiday period and to have “master-minded” the coup from there. He arrived back in Kano on January 5. Another subscriber to the theory that the “Kaduna Mafia” was behind the anti-Shagari coup, Alhaji Issiyaku Ibrahim, told the “Observer” that when General Yar’Adua arrived back in Kano he was “given full military honours, though he had retired from the Army.” Dikko also says the “Kaduna Mafia” was upset that Shagari allowed Gowon and his opponent in the civil war, General Emeka Ojukwu, to return to Nigeria. The final reason for the “Kaduna Mafia’s” coup, says Dikko, was Shagari’s award of the country’s “highest honour” to his arch-rival, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, leader of the United Party of Nigeria (U.P.N.). .Shagari, Dikko said, was dedicated to building up national unity, and therefore honoured Awolowo, who is regarded as the undisputed leader of the Yoruba people. Dikko claimed that he had information that the military are already finding it difficult to maintain law and order. “A whole port — Tin Can Island in Lagos — has been looted,” he said. Copyright — London Observer Service.