This report presents a very tense situation between former President Mathew Okikiolakan Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo and this writer at his Otta Farm residence over the suggestion that the latter had information about an alleged coup plot involving some retired and serving military officers.
Whereas Sunday Vanguard was preparing to publish an exclusive report titled PLOT TO DERAIL DEMOCRACY, circumspection was the watch-word because the word COUP evokes deadly consequences for whoever is involved.
The tension in the room was very palpable. The journalists were not only scared, they were perturbed.
There were four Politics Editors and two veteran journalists at the meeting.
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One of the Politics Editors pointedly asked former President Mathew Okikiolakan Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo a very sensitive, but manifestly thoughtless question.
“Mr President, sir,” he said, in a somewhat whispering tone.
“We learnt that there has been a coup.”
Looking rather bewildered than being stunned, Obasanjo turned around to cast a disdainful look at him.
Still perplexed, OBJ, as he was fondly called, thundered in his usually gravelly tone: ”Who told you that? I said who told you that.”
The journalist simply pointed in my direction and said, ”Jide told us.”
This was not a moment of fun, neither was it a moment for niceties.
Coincidentally, I was standing next to Obasanjo. What happened next was not funny as would be disclosed momentarily.
Date was Saturday, April 5, 2003.
Venue was the farm living room of Obasanjo, in Otta, Ogun State.
The time was between 4:45 am and 5:30 am. An interactive session had been scheduled to be held between a very select number of journalists anchoring the reportage of politics in their various media houses and then President Obasanjo.
In fact, the meeting was meant to have been held the previous night.
Unfortunately, the security details around Obasanjo, either out of fear or out of a sense of duty to protect their C-in-C, felt Obasanjo was too tired to attend to any important guest, let alone a bunch of journalists, because he was scheduled to fly out of the country very early the following morning.
Unbeknownst to Sunday Vanguard that an invitation to an exclusive interactive session was billed to hold later that day, the newspaper had prepared an exclusive story meant to be published on April 6, 2003, less than 48 hours later and authored by this reporter. The invitation came around 5:30 in the evening.
Upon arrival at Obasanjo’s farm in Otta, we were told to wait at the Temperance Hotel for further instructions. We arrived there separately but by 8:30/9 that night, we were all present.
It was not until around 12 midnight that we moved to Obasanjo’s residence within the farm. We had hoped to have the session and retire to the hotel for a rest but it was a forlorn hope.
We all sat in the courtyard, lamenting as we battled with irritating mosquitoes amid the silence of the night. None of the security aides made any serious move to contact President Obasanjo. We were simply told to “wait there”.
While we waited, we engaged in all manner of gists, from family to work and other extra-curricular activities. That was when I hinted to my colleagues of what had happened and which was to be published in another 24 hours or so. It was about the plot by some officers.
I did not let out the details but I merely told them that the plot had been foiled and that some senior military officers had been arrested – both serving and retired.
That was how over four hours flew past.
Like an apparition, Obasanjo appeared
Tired, angry, frustrated and with sleep weighing heavily in our eyes, we noticed some movement inside the house and around the courtyard.
Behold, Obasanjo had come down. This was around 4:30 in the morning. Obasanjo came downstairs and noticed through the glass door of his living room that some people were seated in his courtyard ”making noise”.
We could hear him when he asked his security aides, ”Who are those ones making noise there?”
As if choreographed, we shouted back from where we were, ”We are the journalists, sir,” in a rather frustrating tone.
The glass door was quickly slid open and it was a manifestly angry Obasanjo whom we heard berating his aides: ”These were the important people I told you I was waiting for. Why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you come upstairs to tell me.”
He apologised profusely and explained that he had actually waited for us till 11pm before he went upstairs to catch some rest. He also explained that he was billed to travel out of the country very early that morning and that the interactive session may not hold after all. We were visibly disappointed.
Obasanjo, who donned what looked like a grey jalabiya night-gown, ushered us into his living room but requested that he needed to go upstairs and get dressed in preparation for his trip. He told us to wait for him. We waited.
Meanwhile, the quartet of Politics Editors was among a seven-man team of journalists who had interviewed President Obasanjo in September of 2002. We requested to take a photograph with him after the interview but he said he was too busy for that. It was understandable. This was at the height of the impeachment threat against him.
So, when he sauntered back downstairs, struggling to wear his wrist-watch, we all insisted that he could make up for the disappointment by allowing us the benefit of a group photo session. He agreed.
It was while he was still fiddling with his wristwatch that the coup question popped up.
The confrontation and the exchange between Obasanjo and Vanguard
Back to the tension-soaked moment! The person who asked the question was standing behind Obasanjo, while I stood next to him.
What transpired were two key moments of aggressiveness and calming down.
Sounding agitated too, the law of energetics took hold of Obasanjo as he reverted to his native Yoruba language, in a very harsh tone.
Follow the conversation and its translation.
Obasanjo: Jide, ngbo (Jide, so)
Vanguard: Sir!
Obasanjo: Ki lo gbo? (What did you hear?)
Vanguard: No, sir. Ko ri be (It is not like that)
Obasanjo: Won ni pe o gbo nkan (They said that you heard something)
Vanguard: No sir, nothing sir
Obasanjo: Won ni pe o mo ni pa igbese awon ologun kan. Da mi lo’un (They said you know about what the military wants to do. Answer me)
Knowing how Obasanjo enjoys praise-singing and hero-worshipping, flesh and blood did not reveal to me that I needed a better response strategy that would douse the tension. Apart from what Obasanjo and I were saying, you could hear a feather drop as there was utmost silence in the room. Divine wisdom came.
Vanguard: Awon oloriburuku, awon ti aiye won ti ba je, awon alaide da eniyan ni sir (It’s a bunch of never-do-well, some unfortunate individuals, some evil people)
Obasanjo: E hen, ki ni won se, ki lo gbo (Yes, what did they do? What did you hear?)
Vanguard: Ise ribi-ribi ti-een se; ise takun-takun ti een se fun orile’de wa; ise nla-nla ti een se fun orile’de wa, ni oun bi awon kan ninu (It is the wonderful things you’re doing; it is the hard work that you’re straining to do for our country that some people are jealous of).
I did not allow Obasanjo to say another thing as I continued raining curses on those I termed ‘enemies of the state’, while simultaneously heaping praises on Obasanjo for his good deeds that are the envy of some dark forces in the country.
As I continued talking, my colleagues were just watching as nobody would want to be asked by the president of a country what he knew about a coup plot.
This went on for some two to three minutes.
I concluded by saying ”Olorun ti mu won; won ti ti won mo le; Olorun ti ka pa Esu (God has caught them; they have been imprisoned; God has tamed the devil)
After my rant, Obasanjo, still struggling with his wristwatch, cleared his throat and said, ”ma lo ko o” (don’t go and write it o).
But because the report had been prepared, sensing that Obasanjo glowed as I praised him for his good deeds and his triumph, which helped to douse tension, I quickly said: ”A ti ko, sir. Sugbon a ko so pe awon ologun fe gba ijoba. A kan so pe awon kan ngbero ete la ti ta ko ijoba alagbada” (We have written it, sir. But we did not say that the military wants to take over. We said there was a plot to derail democracy).
To this Obasanjo simply said, ”ko bu ru” (Okay).
Thereafter, we gathered to take the group photograph, by which time I was too frightened to stand beside Obasanjo.
I moved away from his side and he jokingly said, ”Jide, ni bo lon’lo?” (Jide, where are you going?)
I said I needed to “allow my more senior colleagues to stand beside him” for the group photograph, to which everybody laughed. But it was not funny.
The April, 6, 2003 Lead Story: Plot To Derail Democracy
The story was still published by Sunday Vanguard and its title remained ‘Plot To Derail Democracy’.
The story was about meetings that had been going on for some time, in different parts of the country, and specifically in some military formations aka military barracks.
It all started sometime between September and December of 2002, but was preceded by the heat of the attempted impeachment of President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Unknown to the legislators who claimed to be on a legislative crusade, some retired military officers were on their own peculiar crusade.
Leading them was a retired Army officer, one step short of becoming One-Star General. The individual had served as an ADC to a former head of state. At that time, he hailed from the North-West Zone of the country. Another officer involved had variously served as military governor and interim commander of the presidential guards in the very early 1990s. The two other officers involved had also served at one time or the other as military administrators of two North-Western Zone States.
The ultimate aim was to derail democracy through the instrumentality of either an uprising or a military intervention.
Two groups had been formed. One was in Abuja and the other was in Lagos.
Under the guise of trying to find out how the middle cadre officers of the Nigerian military were faring as well as suggest possible ways of re-invigorating its activities, these groups of officers officially visited military formations clandestinely. However, whatever was promised as a better life for those with whom the meetings were being held had to contend with a major factor: The Americans. Now, as a demonstration of its commitment to the Nigerian project on democratic governance, the American government had entered into a pact with the Federal Government on military assistance. That pact had been on for quite a while. One of the major planks of that pact was the needed re-professionalisation of the Nigerian military. While there had been what could be safely described as modest achievements in that area, it had, at least, sent the right signal that whoever was attempting to monkey with the civilian government in place had better think twice before embarking on such a venture. It was this aspect of the pact that had instilled some elements of loyalty. Which may explain why at the height of the impeachment saga in 2002, the Chief of Army Staff, General Ogomudia, came out to pledge loyalty to his commander-in-chief.
Before the officers and their civilian collaborators could do any harm, they were arrested one by one.
Part of the larger plot was the increasing campaign in some quarters that the 2003 general elections should be postponed while the country settles for another Interim Government. Mind you, preceding all these was the campaign to create disaffection in the polity through the publicised introduction of Sharia Law which some people wanted to deploy with the aim of discombobulation of the polity, as well as the tension that arose from the notorious attempt to impeach Obasanjo.
It did not end there. In early 2004, over two dozen mid-ranking officers were implicated in what was described as a ”serious security breach”.
According to a report by TheCable, ”in October of the same year, four military officers and a civilian were charged with plotting to kill Obasanjo by shooting down his helicopter with a missile.
Last month, the Federal Government cancelled a parade scheduled to celebrate the country’s 65th independence anniversary on October 1. There were reports that the parade’s cancellation was linked to an alleged military coup attempt. But the Defence Headquarters (DHQ) dismissed the reports, saying the cancellation had no links with the alleged coup attempt”.