Danjuma’s Sour Grapes

Comfort Obi

The interview granted The Guardian on Sunday, February 17, by Theophilus Danjuma, a retired Army Lt. General, former Chief of Army Staff during the first coming of General Olusegun Obasanjo as a military Head of State, former Minister of Defence during the second coming of Obasanjo as a civilian president, goes down as one of the most educative, and one of the most reckless interviews granted by a man of Danjuma’s status.
Between Obasanjo and Danjuma, it also goes down as one of the ironies of life. Here is a Danjuma who adored Obasanjo, who respected him, who had sworn he would go on exile if Obasanjo did not become Nigeria’s President in 1999. He is now the same man calling Obasanjo shameless, a thief, without using that word, corrupt, without a blink of the eye, saying he would have asked the police to throw Obasanjo out of his birthday party if he had shown up, and threatening to send Obasanjo back to prison from where he was released in 1999 and made the President. Danjuma was talking about Obasanjo, a man he once proudly called his boss.
The interview was Danjuma at his best. It was Danjuma at his worst. He was the only person who knew anything, everything. He was the king-maker, the brilliant one, the warrior and he is the only one who smells of roses. But let the truth be told, he was also the instigator to the killing of former Head of State, General Aguiyi Ironsi.
His disdain for Ironsi is so deep, so pathological, that he could barely conceal it. Bemoaning the killing of a generation of military officers of Northern origin, allegedly by soldiers of Igbo origin, he called Ironsi a useless officer, and a desk-clerk Head of State. “If it was necessary that the Army should take over, why was it that this same Army should eliminate the cream of that Army and leave us with absolutely useless people like Ironsi who was a desk-clerk Head of State?” Tried as he did to extricate himself from the killing of Ironsi, he couldn’t. His account of what happened did not rhyme. It was shady. It had many gaps. He said he lost control (of the troops). Yet, he was the one who went upstairs to march down Ironsi. His subsequent dismissal of Ironsi as useless gives him out as the brain behind the killing.
He had no regrets for the subsequent slaughter of a generation of Igbo officers. He called it a revenge. “… we bottled this up (the killing of Northern officers) till July and when the opportunity came, we decided to revenge.” Yet, in another breath, he said he didn’t know what happened until he was woken up by an officer and told that a generation of Igbo officers who were in a meeting had been slaughtered in Abeokuta. What is the truth?
Danjuma tried to extricate himself from the slaughter. But what did he do thereafter? He didn’t try to arrest the situation. Instead, he went for Ironsi, in borrowed fatigue dress. Over 40 years after, Danjuma still tells the story, which he calls a revenge, with relish, and a quiet, mischievous glitter in his eyes.
He called Peter Enahoro (Peter Pan) foolish for calling the coup plotters of 1966, national heroes, and asking for their release. That of course sounds insensitive of Enahoro, given the mood at the time. But the Daily Times, which Enahoro was working for then, was a government newspaper. No government newspaper has the courage to criticise the government in power.
He descended on former Vice President, Alex Ekwueme, and dismissed him as incompetent to be the President of Nigeria. Why? Ekwueme did not approve of the contract to build houses at NIPSS which the NIPSS board, of which Danjuma was a member then, took to him for approval. Ekwueme was of the opinion that the cost was very much on the high side, and that the government had built cheaper houses. Danjuma: “The buildings that Ekwueme described to us ended up being called Shagari Houses. We in the Army got some of them. If you go into any of those buildings, once you put bed in any of the rooms, the room (space) is finished (taken up). You can’t even go in there and find space to sit.” Then he gets down to deriding Ekwueme.
“An architect! An architect, Vice President of Nigeria designed those houses; I believe supervised and approved those houses. Of course, those houses, throughout Nigeria was un-occupyable.
“When it turned out that this man (Ekwueme) was a front-runner, and was threatening to be the next Nigerian President, I said no, I would leave Nigeria if Ekwueme become the president. Because, even in his own profession – his own professional knowledge and applying it to his job as Vice President – he didn’t do it effectively. How was he going to govern this country.” What does this say of Danjuma’s sense of judgement, if he now dismisses the man he supported against Ekwueme as evil?
He takes on President Umaru Yar'Adua, who, thank God, he calls a nice man, but nonetheless dismissed as a standstill President. In a most indiscreet manner, he told us Yar'Adua's election would most likely be cancelled. What really does Danjuma want?
But it was for his former boss, Obasanjo, that he gave the bitterest part of his tongue. He called him shameless. He tells us he would have thrown him out of his birthday party if he had shown up. He said he had damning documents on Obasanjo’s corruption which would send him back to Yola or Maiduguri prisons where he says the mosquitoes are biggest. He plays down Obasanjo’s role in the civil war. He called him, almost, a puppet head of state who was not in charge. He painted Obasanjo as a coward who ran away to hide, after Major General Murtala Mohammed was killed. In sum, he rubbished Obasanjo.
I don’t know whether Obasanjo would reply Danjuma. But it is amazing that Danjuma now holds him in such scorn. Why is Danjuma giving the impression that he didn’t quite know the man whose Army Chief and Defence Minister he was? I am tempted, very strongly, to dismiss Danjuma’s interview as a diatribe. I call it sour grapes. Many strongly believe that Danjuma's problem with Obasanjo is a business relationship gone sour. Both men made money with us. Both men became multi-billionaires doing various businesses in this country. Or, how much is a General’s salary? And how much are both men worth? What is the difference between twelve and a dozen?
Many believe that Danjuma’s recent low opinion of Obasanjo stems from the revocation, by Obasanjo, of the oil blocs allocated to Danjuma’s company, South Atlantic. If it was not revoked, they argue, would Danjuma have had the courage to call Obasanjo names?
Truth is, I don’t see much courage in some of these billionaire-Generals. Courage in terms of speaking up for the country, for the people when it matters most. They keep quiet while the country is burning. They talk only when their business interest is at stake. During the General Abacha era, how many of them were courageous enough to confront him? I remember only two – Obasanjo and the late General Shehu Yar’Adua.
But in all these, how many people have any sympathy for Obasanjo? Is anybody defending him? He is a self-destructive man. In his eight years in office, he succeeded in using people, and dumping them. He gradually destroyed all those who stood by him during his turbulent years in office. He rubbished the founding fathers of the PDP. He succeeded in throwing them out. Even the governors (now former), who stood by him through thick and thin, he rubbished; he humiliated them.
If he had friends and/or loyalists, they would have replied Danjuma. If Obasanjo didn’t cut down everybody and over-reached himself, would Danjuma be talking about using the police to throw him out of a party? But Obasanjo has become so low that not many people want to associate with him. The other day when he visited Ekiti State, there was a protest. When he left, hundreds of people used brooms to sweep his footprints out of the state. Penultimate week when he was billed for Ondo State to attend Governor Olusegun Agagu’s birthday, the people rose in anger. It was so bad that women, under the auspices of Ondo Mothers, took out adverts in newspapers, appealing to President Yar’Adua to stop Obasanjo from visiting the state. They said he was bad news anywhere he went to. So, why wouldn’t Danjuma run him down? Who will defend him?
And this is Obasanjo, a once respected national and international leader. Current leaders, and aspiring ones, should learn from the outcast that is now Obasanjo. It is sad.