EVENTS AND ACHIEVEMENTS AS
HEAD OF STATE
- Buhari made it very clear he would
not be doing any business with the
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
and had no need of their bogey loans
which are in reality, booby traps (IBB
would later gladly take them). Buhari
instead, advocated for barter and
direct countertrade with Brazil and
other nations of the Third World. He
was more interested in bartering oil
for technology, spare parts and raw
materials. Naturally, that pitched him
against the West even if that meant
good news for the economy of the
world’s most populous black nation.
However, this move was severely
criticized by people like General
Olusegun Obasanjo and Major-
General James Oluleye.
- Corrupt civilian governors and
ministers under the Shagari
government were all rounded up by
Buhari and jailed. IBB would later
release them in droves. President
Shagari himself and his vice, Alex
Ifeanyichukwu Ekwueme were
slammed with corruption charges.
-Expulsion of foreigners: About
700,000 foreigners, especially from
Ghana and other West African nations
were expelled from Nigeria following
an announcement on the 15th of
April 1985. The Internal Affairs
Minister dropped the bombshell and
illegal immigrants had to scurry to
meet the deadline of 10th May. The
exodus was massive but it was not
the first time it would occur.
-Death sentence for drug mules: The
Buhari regime is also notorious for
sentencing to death those convicted
of drug trafficking with Decree 20.
However, nothing caused more
uproar than the retroactive
application of the laws even though
this has been disputed. Bartholomew
Owoh, Bernard Ogedengbe and Lawal
Ojulope were made to face the firing
squad. Some argue that Owoh was
the only one arrested BEFORE the
promulgation of the decree. In April
1985, six Nigerians were convicted
by a Special Military Tribunal headed
by Justice Adebayo Adesalu and
condemned to death for drug
trafficking: Mrs. Sidikatu Tairi, Miss
Sola Oguntayo, Oladele Omosebi,
Lasunkanmi Awolola, Jimi Adebayo
and Gladys Iyamah.
I remember clearly one of the women
fainting upon hearing the death
sentence and prison officials had to
come to her rescue. Gladys Iyamah,
locked up at the Federal Maximum
Security Prisons in Kirikiri, Lagos,
was a crippled mother of two and
was the first woman in the history of
Nigeria to be sentenced to death. The
Federal Military Government knew the
implication of executing a paralysed
mother of two and the sentence was
secretly approved. But thankfully, it
was never carried out.
-War Against Indiscipline (WAI): On
the 20th of March 1984, the Buhari/
Idiagbon regime launched this
programme that many Nigerians will
remember biting their fingers and
desperately preventing a tear from
dropping ….lmao! Not a few will
forget the koboko (horse whip)
lashes that lacerated their backs
when they became unruly at bus-
stops or littered the environment.
And if you fail to do the
environmental sanitation activities at
that time, you don enter one chance
be dat. Just pray that a miracle will
occur and Idiagbon’s WAI Brigades
(set up in each state under the
Ministry of Information and Culture)
do not catch you.
The essence of WAI was to instill
discipline and order in a society that
has now all but broken down as far
as morality and etiquette were
concerned. Today, indiscipline and
entropy reign in the Nigerian society.
Even while outside the country, quite
a lot of Nigerians are thoroughly
indisciplined, shouting at airports,
making noise inside the aircraft (or
refusing to switch off phones or use
seat belts), fighting over things that
will leave you smh..ing, not obeying
simple instructions in their host
countries and all sorts of abanilojuje
behaviour.
Nigeria surely needs a new version of
WAI, with vigorous implementation
from the Presidency downwards
because the level of entropy today is
alarming. Soldiers beat up
policemen, civilians are regularly
harassed by uniformed men to the
point that many ‘bloody civilians’
think it is a normal thing…and so on,
and so on. WAI was first launched in
Kano by the late Major General Tunde
Idiagbon.
Then came Buhari and his anti-
corruption goons, and they were bent
on getting their hands on people like
Dikko, who was accused of stealing $
1 billion before negotiating with his
legs. Thus, he was drugged, put into
a crate and labelled as ‘Diplomatic
Baggage’. An empty Nigerian Airways
Boeing 707 plane was already
waiting at the Stansted Airport
waiting for him to be ‘extradited’ back
to Nigeria (I laugh so hard each time
I remember this story, sounds like a
comedy-filled drama). Just at the
last moment, one of the eagle-eyed
British officers at the airport noticed
some unusual activity and demanded
a thorough search. The Nigerian
team of ‘kidnappers’ had rented an
apartment and actually posed as
refugees seeking asylum from
Buhari’s regime while the Israeli
guys disguised as anti-apartheid
activists and tourists from Africa…lol!
Later on, the team combed all the
high-brow areas of London, sifted
through the registries but saw no
trace of Dikko until one day when one
of the Israelis sighted him while
driving. He parked and trailed Dikko
to his home. The Director of
MOSSAD, Nahum Admoni was
immediately contacted and an Israeli
consultant anaesthetist was hired to
administer anaesthetic agents to
Dikko and fit in an endotracheal tube
to prevent him from choking to death
in his own saliva.
The next day, Dikko was abducted
right in front of his home and put in
a van driven by Yusufu. And off to the
airport, where he was passed off as
‘diplomatic luggage’ from the
Nigerian embassy. Dikko said in an
interview with the BBC in 1985: “I
remember the very violent way in
which I was grabbed and hurled into
a van, with a huge fellow sitting on
my head – and the way in which they
immediately put on me handcuffs
and chains on my legs.”
Unfortunately for them, Dikko’s
secretary, Elizabeth Hayes, had
witnessed the abduction and she
alerted the authorities thinking it was
an act by criminals, even the Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher was
informed. And again, they failed to
actually label the crate as diplomatic
baggage and as the airport officials
were clearing the ‘cargo’, a list
arrived alerting them of a kidnap.
That was how the plan was foiled.
The crate was opened just minutes
before the plane was to take off and
inside it was Dikko, without shoes,
socks or shirt but with a heart
monitor placed on his chest and
handcuffs on his ankles, lying on his
back and the Israeli doctor, who was
inside with his kit of anaesthetics to
ensure that the poor dude does not
die in flight. The cargo manager,
narrated that the cargo was not
labelled and did not have the proper
documentation and they had to
opened and do the accreditation in
the presence of a Nigerian diplomat,
who was already present, he said to
the BBC:
…the cargo manager, hit the lid on
the bottom and lifted it. And as he
lifted it, the Nigerian diplomat, who
was standing next to me, took off like
a startled rabbit across the tarmac,”
Mr Morrow said.
“You have to remember we are on an
airfield which is square miles of
nothing. He ran about five yards
(4.5m), realised no-one was chasing
him and then stopped.
“Peter looked into the crate and said:
‘There’s bodies inside!’
Even after that, the kidnappers
insisted that Dikko was the biggest
crook in the world…lol!
If not, Dikko would have opened his
eyes only to meet himself under the
bright shiny sun of Ikeja and he go
do him like dream……e for sweet
die….lolololol! He was later taken to
a clinic and he sustained no injuries
and later lived in Britain for more
than 10 years before returning to
Nigeria. In an interview in November
2012 with the BBC, Dikko said he has
not forgiven his kidnappers:
”Those that orchestrated my
kidnapping are still alive; it was just
wickedness and blatant lies against
me. They are still alive and why
would I forgive them? Why would I
forgive such inhuman and barbaric
act against human being, without
them asking for forgiveness? This is
the lies we face in Nigeria and the
truth is clear, I haven’t forgiven them,
it is just propaganda that they used
through the media. Have they
repented? Before you forgive a
person, he must repent and say it is
a mistake or intentional, but have
they repented? This is my stand, if
some agreed that they made a
mistake then you forgive them; but
they have not and I haven’t forgiven
them. What have they found after all
these plots?
Diplomatic relations between Britain
was broken off for two years and
even when a formal application was
made to the British government by
Buhari’s junta, it was turned down.
Omo, e no funny o…lol! The drama
did not end there. The Nigerian
Airways crew was detained (Buhari
also responded by ordering a British
Caledonian plane that was already in
the air flying from Lagos to London
via Kano be returned back to Lagos
where it was also detained by the
Nigerian authorities. Immediately the
United Kingdom released the
Nigerian Airways crew, Buhari also
freed the British plane to fly to
London…lol) and total of 17 men
were arrested and four of them were
later sentenced to 10-14 years, these
included the anaesthestist, two
MOSSAD agents who hid in the
second crate and Yusufu. All of them
were released after spending 6-8.5
years in jail and were silently
deported. Nigeria retaliated too buy
promptly picking up two British
engineers (for stealing aircraft….rotfl
mao!!!) in Nigeria and slamming 14-
year prison sentences on them. Do
me I do you, man no go vex…lol!
Interestingly, both the Nigerian and
Israeli governments denied any
responsibility in the saga. However,
Nigerians were overwhelmingly in
support of Buhari at this time and
even called for diplomatic
relationship with Britain severed.
Even the Academic Staff Union of
Universities (ASUU) commended
Buhari for the way he handled the
affair.
NB: I must state that this operation
was covert and was carried out
despite the fact that both countries
were yet to normalize diplomatic
relations. Israel was still getting a
huge chunk of her oil from Nigeria
while Israel was a major supplier of
arms to Nigeria. Both nations still
had underground relations. Even till
today, Israeli forces are involved in
providing security for the Aso Rock
Presidential Villa.
-His regime also managed to reduce
inflation, rejected all IMF’s
conditionalities, such as the
devaluing the naira, sharply reduced
unnecessary imports, minimized oil
bunkering and when bunkered oil
was seized, he used it to get relevant
commodities, equipment and
machinery using the counter trade
policy. The latter measure ensured
that Nigeria was exporting even
above the OPEC quota. Today, what
happens? An entire tanker full of
bunkered oil disappears right under
the nose of the Nigerian Navy…lol!
-There was also a sudden creation of
new notes to halt currency smuggling
and there was considerable
refinancing of trade debt arrears.

The man go perform make una no worry