Fury of a Retired Colonel       
Written by Demola Abimboye     
Sunday, 03 October 2010

Lawan Gwadabe, retired colonel, accuses two key opponents of President Goodluck Jonathan in the race for the PDP presidential ticket of dubious intentions.

It is an allegation of a grand plan by some contestants to ensure that they clinch the presidential ticket of the ruling People’s Democratic Party, PDP, at all cost. But Lawan Gwadabe, a retired colonel, who held top command positions in the Army as well as helped in peace operations in some African countries, has exposed the plot.

In a secret letter to President Goodluck Jonathan dated September 6, the former governor of Niger State and commander of the army brigade in Bauchi until he was arrested for a phantom coup plot in 1995 by the late Sani Abacha, detailed plans by Ibrahim Babangida, former military president, Aliyu Gusau, immediate past national security adviser, NSA, to Jonathan and Atiku Abubakar, vice president between 1999 and 2007, to checkmate the incumbent in his efforts to clinch the party’s ticket at the forthcoming primaries. Should they fail, Babangida was alleged to have perfected a defection plan to the All Nigerian People’s Party, ANPP, “where he is assured of a ticket to sabotage all the efforts of PDP and particularly the aspirations of the commander-in-chief.”

The three men, according to Gwadabe, have a war chest including foreign donations to execute their plan. An oil magnate believed to have links to Babangida since his military presidency was also listed as a major financier of the plot. The magnate recently struck gas, about 3.5 billion cubic feet, in two oil blocks he allegedly got under Babangida. Gwadabe sees this as dangerous as he may emerge as the richest man in this continent. The Brass LNG Company is believed to be negotiating a 30-year gas lifting contract with him. “This is a dangerous trend which the president must stop immediately. This issue has far wider security implications which the president should examine carefully,” Gwadabe wrote.

He warned that because of the potential cash calls, the anti-Jonathan group was confident that incumbency is not a deterrent to their ambitions. He enjoined the president to beam his searchlight on a major auto firm from the Asian continent to establish its link to one of the contestants as well as liaise with the Angolan authorities to unravel the extent of one of the trio’s involvement in that country’s oil and gas sector. “His holding in Equatorial Guinea is already a common knowledge, the NNPC should be able to brief you on that,” he wrote.

Gwadabe, who is chairman of the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, also complained about the antics of the governors who have been holding meetings aimed at presenting Bukola Saraki, governor of Kwara State, as their candidate. He said there are three zones for their campaigns. They are headed by governors Magatakarda Wamako, Isa Yuguda and Emmanuel Uduaghan of Sokoto, Bauchi and Delta states respectively. “In their strategy meetings, they resolved to use state funds at their disposal to buy delegates to ensure their compliance during the primaries,” he said.

Among northern governors, Gwadabe singled out Saraki and Sule Lamido of Jigawa State for special mention. He said the Zimbabwean farmers’ project in Kwara should be probed and that the federal government should ask for the details of Saraki’s involvement in the Intercontinental Bank saga. “He will be caught red handed. Besides, the current scheming that Saraki is doing to acquire Intercontinental Bank PLC is more to cover up their crimes than any altruism,” he wrote, adding “after all, did they not kill Societe Generale bank through the same means of financial malfeasance?”

He listed the companies Saraki allegedly used for the transactions with Intercontinental Bank. They are Linkers, Directrade, Joy Petroleum and Skyview Properties. “Some of them have been on the watch list of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. Mr. President should cause the EFCC to furnish him with the updated information concerning the above mentioned companies. The State Security Services can also be tasked on the same subject matter in order to compare the two results. There are growing indications that the chairman of EFCC has come to that job with a lot of baggage to the extent that sometimes there is a lot more than meets the eye.”   

He warned Jonathan to handle them carefully as they are operating with impunity. He suggested to the president to intimidate them. “They are all corrupt yet they are scared stiff of being investigated.” He recommended that investigators must probe state ministries of finance, local government and chieftaincy affairs and agriculture. “These three ministries are where all the illegal activities of governors are taking place to siphon state funds. There is no exception but Kwara and Delta are quite notorious.”

He noted that as at the time of writing the letter to the president, EFCC men had just stormed Jigawa and arrested the commissioners for finance and local government affairs as well as his permanent secretary. “People in Jigawa are so happy about these arrests because Sule is running the state like a fiefdom. The people are happy that his corruption is now coming under scrutiny in Abuja.”

Another haven for the governors’ illegal wealth is the United Arab Emirate. Gwadabe told the president to order discrete investigation of two companies in Dubai. “The result will be mindboggling but it will give the president a special impetus to confront the war on corruption with new vigour and that would endear him to the generality of Nigerians who have been systematically impoverished by their greedy leaders,” he said.

Should Jonathan still clinch PDP ticket, Gwadabe revealed that the two camps have agreed to settle for one of two candidates currently working for them. The two men hail from Benue and Plateau. They are both Christians. The strategy is to let the public think that the northern establishment is not desperate about promoting a battle between Christians and Muslims.

In concluding his letter, Gwadabe praised government for prosecuting some of those involved in the $180 million Halliburton scandal. He said the step would put Jonathan ahead of the pack of contestants both in the eyes of Nigerians and of the international community and leverage the hands of government in its fight against corruption. But he urged Jonathan to summon courage and deal with other cases including the Siemens scandal. “For too long this country has been demeaned by the very leaders who were supposed to project its manifest destiny,” he said.

But highly placed sources read a not-too-altruistic mission to Gwadabe’s letter. One of them traced the former colonel’s anger against Babangida, Gusau and Atiku to their failure to rehabilitate him during the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo who was jailed alongside him by Abacha in 1995. Newswatch learnt that when Obasanjo became president in 1999, he had planned to rehabilitate all those jailed for the phantom 1995 coup. Gwadabe was to be brought into the security network around the new president. But the job of national security adviser, NSA, was given to a much more experienced Aliyu Gusau. When Gusau resigned from Obasanjo’s government in later years, Gwadabe had hoped to succeed him. But he did not get the job.

Again, he and Abubakar Dangiwa Umar, former governor of Kaduna State, were reportedly penciled down to replace Farida Waziri as chairman of the EFCC but the plan did not sail through. When Gusau returned to government as NSA to Jonathan immediately he became acting president in February 2010, Gwadabe was always visible around him. The calculation, a source hinted, was that since Gusau has presidential ambition and had told Jonathan he would resign at the appropriate time to pursue it, Gwadabe had hoped to step into his shoes as NSA. But he was not given the job when Gusau resigned recently to pursue his presidential ambition.

The source said Gwadabe’s current posture implies a man offering himself for service by providing unsolicited security report on the president’s opponents. Will President Jonathan sign him on? Time will tell.

http://www.newswatchngr.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2454&Itemid=1

An obvious way of diverting attention from the Terrorist act perpetuated by JONATHAN and "his people" MEND .

You and Gwadabe can fool yourselves, Nigerians now know better


GEJ is immature, inexperience,dull,daft and insecure  SO DEAL WITH IT
as for GWADABE he is just trying hard to be noticed and probably  lobbying  for the post of the NSA , that na uwa bussiness

Ferari90 has come to the defence of the evil genius as usual.

My mind tells me some persons who think they own Nigeria and that without them Nigeria can not move forward will soon find themselves behind the KIRIKIRI walls. It's just a matter of time.

In a secret letter to President Goodluck Jonathan dated September 6, the former governor of Niger State and commander of the army brigade in Bauchi until he was arrested for a phantom coup plot in 1995 by the late Sani Abacha, detailed plans by Ibrahim Babangida, former military president, Aliyu Gusau, immediate past national security adviser, NSA, to Jonathan and Atiku Abubakar, vice president between 1999 and 2007, to checkmate the incumbent in his efforts to clinch the party’s ticket at the forthcoming primaries. Should they fail, Babangida was alleged to have perfected a defection plan to the All Nigerian People’s Party, ANPP, “where he is assured of a ticket to sabotage all the efforts of PDP and particularly the aspirations of the commander-in-chief.”

hehe see jonathan using mallam technique

so IBB and Atiku are scheming to checkmate Jonathan by defecting to the ANPP, wow this must not be allowed to happen!!

In concluding his letter, G[b]wadabe praised government for prosecuting some of those involved in the $180 million Halliburton scandal.[/b] He said the step would put Jonathan ahead of the pack of contestants both in the eyes of Nigerians and of the international community and leverage the hands of government in its fight against corruption. But he urged Jonathan to summon courage and deal with other cases including the Siemens scandal. “For too long this country has been demeaned by the very leaders who were supposed to project its manifest destiny,” he said.

Fecking hell journalists should be shot for giving these senile imposters space, in fact they should stop interviewing anybody over 50 years old in nigeria!

Something tells me there will be a great clearout of the system. The "owners" of the country have come to a dead end.

How come MEND do not like bombing the likes of Gusau and IBB? Why the innocent ones. MEND shd re-strategise and change their model sharp sharp

Some people are brain-washed.Everything IBB is bad while everything GEJ is good.

The three men, according to Gwadabe, have a war chest including foreign donations to execute their plan. An oil magnate believed to have links to Babangida since his military presidency was also listed as a major financier of the plot. The magnate recently struck gas, about 3.5 billion cubic feet, in two oil blocks he allegedly got under Babangida. Gwadabe sees this as dangerous as he may emerge as the richest man in this continent. The Brass LNG Company is believed to be negotiating a 30-year gas lifting contract with him. “This is a dangerous trend which the president must stop immediately. This issue has far wider security implications which the president should examine carefully,” Gwadabe wrote.

Who is this magnate?
I believe Gwadabe has some bombshells that could be of use to the govt. They need to tap him up, even if unofficially.

At this point  I will agree that anything about IBB TRYING TO COME BACK TO ASO ROCK IS NOT JUST BAD, IT IS A TABOO.

There is nothing he can say or do that would be GOOD ENOUGH. It is as simple as that. If anyone else wants to challenge GEJ, they should be free to do so - but not Babangida. DAMAGED FOREVER IS HIS NAME.

Abagworo:

Some people are brain-washed.Everything IBB is bad while everything GEJ is good.

So GWADABE is chairman of FRSC?

Y is it that we dont give deserving and eager people the chance to achieve something.

Answer is because we simply are too scared.

This country is at the threshold of a new beginning and we must all be wise in analysing issues.

The single most important thing to Jonathan now is the 2011 elections and this is because he cant achieve much, the cabal that holds this country dont give up easily, they are almost everywhere, they can mess up then country for any president.

The important thing to us is how to see that Jonathan gets the presidential seat peacefully in 2011 and then it would be for four years then he can start to bring these people to book bit by bit.

Let us not demand a Buhari enthusiasm from our president because as we have seen you wont last, ask buhari he would explain to you, all that Buhari truly stood for were in the interest of the nation yet he couldnot last 2 yrs while all ibb stood for was in the interest of the cabal he built and not inthe interest of the nation yet he lasted for 8yrs, Buhari can not bring himself back to power yet IBB is the godfather of the Nigerian presidency.

Goodluck may make some mistakes but he is human, the bomb blast was meant to rattle him yes he was rattled but then do we condemn him for that, we cant throw Goodluck Jonathan the baby out with the dirty water of Nigerian politics.

Gwadabe should be left in the cooler in 2011 we can make him NSA or EFCC chairman.

We need people who can prosecute corruption diplomatically, at least we can all see Ribadu and Buhari as examples.

Lawan Gwadabe was at the Armored Corp Center Bauchi and not a commander of the brigade there ( the guy na armor not artillery). IBB is an evil man GEJ is not far behind.

hercules07:

Lawan Gwadabe was at the Armored Corp Center Bauchi and not a commander of the brigade there ( the guy na armor not artillery). IBB is an evil man GEJ is not far behind.

There are a lot of folk that think condemning everything is somehow right. Be careful that you do not condemn the man that can bring us soccour in these barren times simply because you are going along with a fad.

On what basis can any rational Nigerian compare Jonathan and IBB? Your words above are shocking.

Ferari90, pls i knw u hav gone thru the fore wall of education, face facts not politicking,

why waste such a talent?

Some choose to say GEJ is '' immature., inexperienced n whatever, '' GEJ has a team of very experienced and influential Nigerians with him.! He made a move of changing service chiefs unexpectedly and Naija people hailed him, amongst other moves made by his govt. Why crucify him over night, ? HYPOCRITES, !
Steps he and the govt are taking is okay and in the fullness of time, , those involved in this senseless and shamefull bomb killings will be brought to book,