President Mohammadu Buhari is 75 years old today. He was born on 17 December 1942 and has been President of Nigeria since 2015. A retired major general in the Nigerian Army, he was, from 31 December 1983 to 27 August 1985, military head of state.
For the past 75 years, Buhari has been a veteran and survivor of many skirmishes, including the one with his health! One of them, of course was the coup against his regime in 1985, led by General Ibrahim Babangida.
In this 1993 interview with TheNEWS team comprising Dapo Olorunyomi, Seye Kehinde, Timothy Bonnet, Bagauda Kaltho and Monday Emoni who took the photos. Buhari explained what happened…
After years of relative silence, you eventually got us involved. Of course I was told that there were quiet, it seems there has been a new rev up in your visibility profile. You were at the Otta Forum recently and also at General Joe Garba’s book launch in Lagos. Are these pointers to the shape of things to come?
I decided to go to Otta because I identified myself with the efforts General Obasanjo has been trying to make since his first letter to the President at the supposed meeting of the Council of State. I think after eight years it is obvious now to all Nigerians that there is cause for concern in the affairs of the country. Hence my decision at this juncture to come out and identify myself with the sole objectives as specified in General Obasanjo’s letter.
How do you see General Obasanjo’s role over time? Do you see any wisdom in his occasional intervention in our national life?
But he explained this. If you have been following up closely what he said in his letter to the President at the last Council of State meeting and his subsequent interview both in national and international media, what he said was that he made several efforts to see Mr President and put his case across but it was virtually blocked. His only option was to come out and talk to the press, so that the public will know what he said.
Is it true that there were threats to stop people from attending the Otta meeting? In your own case was there any attempt to stop you and in what form?
As far as I know, nobody threatened to stop me. I was not harassed -by anybody, I decided to go and I went.
Did you ever feel that government could stop such a meeting?
No, because General Obasanjo, as he said, informed the government. He told the government that he was holding such a meeting well before he got us involved. Of course, I was told that there were efforts by security agents to stop the meeting at the Gateway Hotel, Otta, to frustrate the meeting. I think that was the reason the venue was changed to General Obasanjo’s farm.
How would you describe the spirit of the Otta meeting?
It was a pity I missed the important part of the meeting because of the mix up. I went to Gateway Hotel, Abeokuta, instead of Otta. So by the time I drove back to Gateway Hotel, Otta and then Obasanjo’s farm, the address had been read by Obasanjo who convened the meeting and participants had read their own papers and comments had been made. So I went halfway through the meeting. But the important thing I noticed was the air of commitment. It would appear that those who attended were prepared to discuss the serious issues of the security and economy of the country and advise government.
Before the meeting, were there contacts between you and General Obasanjo on the situation of things in the country.
No there wasn’t. But only recently he formally wrote and informed me that because of the situation in the country he was convening a meeting.
Tied to this is the relationship between you and Obasanjo. Because there was this important lecture he gave to the Agriculture Society in Ibadan in 1985 where he sharply criticised your government for what he called some form of tilted federalism. It is so ironic that you are both back trying to save federalism at Otta. How do you see all these?
He sent me an advanced copy of the address. Indeed he criticised my administration but I could recall vividly that he visited me several times. In my own case there was never an attempt by me to stop him from coming to see me. I expected him really to be coming to discuss with me. Before he wrote the address I sat with him to discuss the issue and I explained to him what he perceived as my administration being rather partisan in a way. There I asked him which were the incidents. And I was given the example of NEPA, where senior officers were retired. I said well, when we came in, we found out there were so many people. There were too many people in one office. Virtually with the same schedule. The consequence was that there was no productivity. So we asked all ministers to streamline ministries and cut down unnecessary staff. Whatever we did in that regime was argued in the Executive Council. So it was pointed out that really there was no question of one section of the country being punished at that time. There was no incident to prove this, but as you know General Obasanjo, like everybody else had to be susceptible to the pressures of his locality. I tried to explain but the General still went ahead to read the address. Of course by co-incidence, I was removed the same month.
Could it be said that, each time General Obasanjo has had to speak against the short coming of this regime, he had spoken the minds of all retired generals like you?
I wouldn’t say that. But what he had been saying since are so fundamental. Everybody knows them. It is now a question of who said them. Very many people have said many of what he said before he said it. But the fact that he is a former head of state gave it some weight. People appreciated it. He has told the government publicly each time they’ve gone too far.
From your own vantage position, will you say General Obasanjo has been generally misunderstood? Do you think his real profile has truly emerged to Nigerians?
I don’t think he has been misunderstood. Like I said in one of the newspaper reports before now: how can you quarrel with what General Obasanjo said? Who will say there is no corruption in this country? Who will say there is no indiscipline in this country? Who will say there is no incompetence in this country? Who will say there is no insecurity in this country? I mean both physical and material. These are the issues General Obasanjo has addressed and no Nigerian can deny this.
Who will say there is no corruption in this country? Who will say there is no indiscipline in this country? Who will say there is no incompetence in this country? Who will say there is no insecurity in this country? I mean both physical and material. These are the issues General Obasanjo has addressed and no Nigerian can deny this.
The perception is that a lot of you in attendance were retired military officers and here you are talking of democracy. Do we now perceive this to mean that the retired military officers are passing a vote of no confidence on the role of military in government?
You have the right to think the way you do, but the important thing is: things are going wrong and we as former senior military officers are extremely disturbed that it is a military administration that is perpetrating this mess. It is a pity because those of us who received military training before independence received the best training the military anywhere in the world could received and especially the officer corps. This is because the emphasis of our training was on leadership, leadership with accountability. Here we are, all senior officers, we have been governors, we have been ministers and head of states and so on. We saw what we overthrew civilians for, and what we accused the civilians of, being perpetrated by a military administration. This military institution we know best has desecrated, infiltrated and perverted. The military everywhere in the world is a very patriotic organisation and they are known, for efficiency and you can’t be efficient, if you are corrupt, you can’t be efficient if you are indiscipline. This is what is killing us most.
The focus of the Otta meeting was for better democracy in the country. Do you think the scope was adequate enough in terms of representation?
That question should go to the convener of the meeting. I was invited and I went because I agree with the fundamental facts brought out of the meeting. On this question of democracy, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, a whole empire, and a socialist system, to some of us it is conclusive that democracy is the best system. Let people be firstly properly educated, about their rights and let them choose their leaders. As an avenue for change without shedding blood, democracy is the best. Democracy does not make sense if elections are rigged, if the manner in which the elections are organised continues to be corrupt then that type of democracy is not acceptable.
Let people be firstly properly educated, about their rights and let them choose their leaders. As an avenue for change without shedding blood, democracy is the best. Democracy does not make sense if elections are rigged, if the manner in which the elections are organised continues to be corrupt then that type of democracy is not acceptable.
Would you recommend the widening of the scope of participants to include the human rights organisation who were not well represented there?
You mean at the Otta meeting?
Yes
Well, you are going back to what I said initially. It is General Obasanjo who convened the meeting. Direct your question to him.
If you were to make suggestion or recommendation, what would you say?
I think they have put in a lot of efforts, they’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I mean these human rights organisations have tried. They have been arrested detained and assaulted in so many ways. One of the papers recently wrote an editorial on that. I chooses to invite or decide to coopt. This is his initiative and I think he is capable of handling it.
For the Otta Forum to command the respect of Nigerians and to have the necessary credibility to push across issues that bother on survival of the country, what do you think should be taken into consideration?
The objective is for good governance. I have always believed that the bottom line is accountability. We are not a poor country, that is why a lot of people who we are owing have refused to give us any relief because they know us perhaps more than we know ourselves. That we are not a poor country. They know we have mismanaged our system.
Some people have described the last Generals’ meeting in Otta as an attempt on the part of people like you, General Obasanjo and other retired generals to save the military class from imminent disgrace. Is this a fair reading?
I don’t care about what people may say about the meeting, but definitely I noticed at the meeting that there was a concern, very, very strong concern by General Obasanjo and General Danjuma and the rest of us that our justification if there was any for taking over power was to stop the corruption and the indiscipline in government. This has to do with the nature of our training. But here we are today people telling us to our own face that we the military are the worst thing that ever happened to Nigeria, that the military is so corrupt. And naturally since it was the same military are knew our concern is justifiable. We came to the military, after leaving secondary school, we had training and here we are, our colleagues are messing up the country and nobody can deny it. It is natural that we get concerned and tell them about it. They know it. We cannot save them, they are the only one that can save themselves. We are no longer in uniform, and we are not given any private army. It is the military class that will save itself, if it doesn’t, then – it will go down in history as a corrupt, disorganised and inefficient institution in Nigeria as it is today.
One other highly misunderstood issue which in a way links both you and General Obasanjo has been this N2.8 billion issue. Somehow nobody really and understands what happened. How did the money get missing?
What do you mean by people don’t really understand it. Are you saying people don’t understand what happened? I am saying this because when that allegation came up I was the Commissioner for Petroleum Resources and if you look at the terms of reference of the panel that investigated it, headed by Justice Ayo lrikefe, it was virtually from the date I was sworn in to the date I left. If you try and make research as I expect you to do when you are asking me such a question, you should find out how much we were selling our petrol during that period and how much N2.8 billion is and how much percentage of our external reserve and internal reserve petroleum constituted. And then check how could N2.8 billion get missing without Nigeria collapsing. It is only one person who made such an observation. It was the former Governor of the Central Bank, Isong. I read it when I was in the United States. He made that observation in the New Nigerian newspaper. Nigerians seem to believe what they want to believe. That is why it is so easy to misdirect energy and deceive the people of this country. Having made that allegation and having mobilised people to believe that administration stole N2.8 billion, a justice of the Supreme Court was made head of the inquiry and people were asked to come and say what they knew about it .That panel went round and checked the account of Nigeria and they found that nobody stole N2.8 billion and you are still saying people don’t understand. What else could the country do? Here I am, I never ran away, Obasanjo never ran away from Nigeria, he was the head of state, I was the minister. Our accounts were checked, we made declaration of our assets. We have no fronts. We didn’t build any home outside amount we earned as our salaries and allowances and peopIe are still saying they don’t understand. You’ll find out that it was not possible to take N2.8 billion from Nigeria at the time. It was all a lot of rubbish, people said they heard it from motor park from market.
But we had people like the late Professor Awojobi who were ready to stake out their lives that this money was missing. Are you saying they were liars?
Yes they were. Did they bring the facts? Did they have anything to show? You see I signed most of the contracts when Iwas the Commissioner for Petroleum. Whatever little was made was documented. There were documents, the money was audited. It was for the Federal Republic of Nigeria account nopart of it went anywhere until it first went into that account, and then Central Bank would advise and then if you want to send out part of that money there has to be a memo from the Federal Executive Council and it found that there was no money missing. That was the system we had and anybody could examine it. In any case, the white paper came out, people examined it. If the allegations ‘were true, there should be facts, facts are facts.
Some people still feel that indeed there was a N2.8 billion issue and that the spur for it was even something patriotic, in connection with the nationalisation of the British Petroleum because of its policy in South Africa. Why is the government and participants like you and General Obasanjo unwilling even to earn this kind of credit. It was quite true?
Well, what I knew in the system then, and which I made a statements when I was in detention, of course I knew government was trying to buy time. There was a way money is being ac-counted for. If you earned money from cocoa or oil or anything, it goes into the Federal Government account. It came back to Nigeria through the Central Bank, printed into naira and then what you have behind is your reserve. I didn’t see any way the head of state would authorise money to be taken from the Federal Republic of Nigeria account straight into somebody’s account. There was no constitutional allowance for that. I am still to see anybody who can prove General Obasanjo, gave such an order for such an amount. In fact there is no banking system that can allow you take N2.8 billion just like that no matter the amount you have. This is because the money is not just there. You deposit your money for a certain amount of time and you have to wait until it matures but you cannot move N2.8 billion just like that. I don’t know if any other government can do that but certainly not the one I served under.
But there was a prominent columnist at that time who insinuated that he was indeed sure that the amount was paid into the account of one Chief A.O. of Ogun State.
(Laughter) You Nigerians, especially the journalists, you have to help this country. In fact there are some things that you shouldn’t publish. What I am telling you is this: Which is the richest country in the world now? Don’t tell me United States because the U.S. is in debts in trillions of dollars. The richest country in the world cannot go to the bank and say I want N2.8 billion now and write a cheque for it. You have to give the banking system time to mobilise that kind of money. I am not a banker, but you have to give the banking system time to mobilise the money. It is all over the world invested. That is the truth about it. This is the thing the former Governor of the Central Bank, Clement Isong was trying to explain in the article I read. But .you the Nigerian Press will mobilise for whatever reason to make Nigerians believe that N2.8 blllion was stolen by the Obasanjo administration.
Was there any issue of the money being moved for fear of British reprisals on British Petroleum nationalisation?
As far as I know, no. No money was moved, because I was not here. l was in the United States War College: But what I believed under that government was that there was accountability. That was why I identified with what they did. It was not a slip of the tongue because I worked under this administration and I knew there was accountability, Up till the time I left this country anybody caught stealing public money was punished.
How did you feel when such rumour was being spread then?
I felt extremely bad especially when the money purportedly came from the ministry I was in-charge. I knew the place very well, I knew the NNPC. There was no fire outbreak up till the time I left. So nobody burnt the documents. If they were burnt, it was after we left the place and after the inquiry before they burnt the damn place. The whole documents were placed in the Ministry of Justice, Central Bank, Ministry, of Finance. The documents are still there.
Was that why you were not quite happy with the press, when you came to power?
Yes, I told late Dele Giwa that I will tamper with the press freedom and I fulfilled my promise; didn’t I? (Laughter) Am — I was disappointed with the press. I was disappointed because like I said before some things are not supposed to be published. For example if some illiterate brought to you something very sensational and unbelievable, you must have the integrity to resist it if it is against national interest. There are some journalists who are known to publish rubbish. But those who consider themselves serious:’ they have to guard their integrity. If you write rubbish and I have the facts, I will tell you so.
I told late Dele Giwa that I will tamper with the press freedom and I fulfilled my promise; didn’t I? Am – I was disappointed with the press. I was disappointed because like I said before some things are not supposed to be published
During your last interview with the late Dele Giwa and on the FRCN, Kaduna, Hausa Service, you gave indication early in the administration that you will tamper with the press. Why the need to muzzle the press?
Yes, I told late Dele Giwa that if we are going to do any meaningful work the situation of things in Nigeria in 1984 demanded that the press be dealt with.
But don’t you think you needed to carry the press along considering the enormity of the problems you faced?
We did attempt to carry the press along. If you could recall the Chief of Staff was giving the press monthly briefings and interviews and keeping the public informed on how much money the country had and how much was recovered from people who misappropriated public property and what was being done. All these things are factual. I listened to the press. Every day I made it a point of duty to listen to the news at least twice- in the morning and at 9 p.m. Everyday Nigerians were being told how the country was being run, what we didn’t of objectivity on the part of some like was lack journalists.
How often did you get upset with reports you read in the papers?
Often. After that, of course, people still complained, the reports changed and journalists changed the way of conveying this. The cartoons became more eloquent than before. ?.
Was it necessary, to promulgate Decree 4 when there were ‘other laws in the country to check the excesses of the press?
Well, we found it necessary that is why we put the decree in place.
Was it not too high handed on the part of your regime to muzzle the press the way you did?
Well you’ve said it was too high handed so what do you expect me to say. But really I don’t think so because what you shouldn’t do was clearly specified.
Don’t you think such a Decree which saw truth, as no defence was faulty?
If journalists fall foul of the decree, then the tribunal will sort it out. If you could recall, there were some people who were tried for some offences and sentenced to twenty-one years and the Supreme Military Council reduced it to five years or less after a review. You check the task given to Justice Bello then: to review sentences passed on people.
When people were saying there was no appeal and so on, they were thinking of normal judicial processes. Certainly, normal judicial processes were suspended because how could you deal with those people. How? If you could recall our first announcement was that people should be reporting to the police station nearest to them. Instead they were reporting outside the country. So we would have ended up with nobody to ask with the misuse of public property. That is why subsequently people had to be arrested and then later taken to t .he tribunal for prosecution. Others were not prosecuted, they were released.
So, how do you assess the Nigerian media given your experiences inside and outside government?
Well, you are at the receiving end. There are some of you who are fighting very hard, others have collapsed. But the important thing is that like any institution there are still some honourabIe people in it and they are suffering in the interest of; all Nigerians and everybody knows about it. But if ~ we take the question of generalizing I’ll say most of t he press has been killed.
Your regime has been described in various ways. What was the salient philosophy behind your administration which was not so visible to Nigerians? How would you describe your 20 months in government?
As I told you we are a developing country. There is no way a developing country can harness its resources, both material and human without discipline and good leadership. It’s basic. If people can do what they like, when they like, how the, like, you are going to end up without anything. So the philosophy behind our government was that through discipline we were going to harness the resources of this country both human and material for the development of the country and our way of mobilisingthe people was through War Against Indiscipline (WAI) and you know there were so many stages of WAI. But what do you find today? People are not patriotic, they are not accountable. We are nearing the chaotic condition now. If you accept that there are people who are above the law, whichever sets come, whether military or civilian they are allowed to I steal as much as they can, what will then remain? What is happening in the country today is sad. This country is finished.
There is no way a developing country can harness its resources, both material and human without discipline and good leadership. It’s basic.
But don’t you think you and Idiagbon ruled with too much force, too much high-handedness?
Yes. We had to. People were made to feel so because we alienated ourselves by Decree 4. We also aliented the political class for questioning their integrity, for arresting them and asking them to account for the trust put in them. We alienated those people who think they were above the law, by questioning their integrity. And by the time we were removed, we were justified.
But didn’t you see the possibilities of miscarriage of justice in trying to bring this Second Republic politicians to book?
There is no system no matter how perfect where you don’t have miscarriage of justice. But the important thing is for the people to be convinced that that leadership is honestly trying and I thought by the time we left, not even to talk of now, Nigerians knew we had tried. The mistakes we made were honest mistakes. Unlike what you find today. We did not make mistakes in encouraging stealing, or protecting those that had stolen because they are our friends or because we share in the loot with them. Most of the mistakes we made were made because we were in a hurry because so much damage had been done in the country. Things were that bad. But after eight years now Nigerians know better. I challenge you to conduct public poll, know how people feel. Nigerians are tired of what is going on now.
There is no system no matter how perfect where you don’t have miscarriage of justice. But the important thing is for the people to be convinced that that leadership is honestly trying and I thought by the time we left, not even to talk of now, Nigerians knew we had tried.
How do you explain the way some of your soldiers broke into some politician houses like that of the late Unity Party of Nigeria leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo in search of evidence to try them?
You see leadership means you have to trust people. You have to give them jobs to handle and power to achieve goals. But our administration was unlucky. There was a fifth columnist amongst us, and the success of that fifth columnist is what we are in now. There were certain people in the society who were embarrassed, that shouldn’t have been embarrassed, becausethere was no reason for such embarrassment. One of them was Chief Awolowo. l didn’t know anything about the raid on his house. I didn’t have to know about it, but I ought to know about it. I ought to be told that the house ‘of a person like Chief Awolowo was going to be searched. That should have been discussed at the Supreme Military Council (SMC). Alhaji ShehuMusa’s house was searched, 1 was told Gumi’s house was searched by some policemen. I got to know about these incidents after they had happened but I chose to keep quiet. I knew someone was playing games. These incidents happened because the security had the right to such a level, to quickly check on security issues. But then it was later I realised it was one of the master plan of the fifth-columnist in my government to discredit me through embarrassing some leaders in certain localities without really having apparent reason to do so. It is too late for Chief Awolowo and Alhaji Gumi to know the truth now. They’ll never know but Shehu Musa is still alive, his house was searched. Certainly I didn’t send anybody to search his house. He was a civil servant, a former secretary to Shagari. He was not found guilty by any Tribunal or anything so I don’t know why his house was searched or why those people organised a search or what they were looking for.
When you heard of all these searches, what did you do? Did you set up a panel of inquiry?
No. I didn’t need to. As a head of state, you deal with your security chiefs on a day to day basis. That is what I am trying to tell you. There are so many ways of dealing with people. Sometimes you even allow people to make mistakes to prove to them that you are either more experienced or that your argument is more superior to their own. That is if you are put in a position of public leadership. No matter who you are, you make mistakes but the important thing is that you must not be afraid to discuss your mistakes with your colleagues.