Bamaiyi and Vindication of a General (II)

Bamaiyi had just retired as a Lt. General and Army Chief of Staff when he was arrested and transported to Lagos in leg shackles in October 1999 on route to Kirikiri Maximum Prison to face trial for an allegation of complicity in the attempted murder of Alex Ibru the publisher of the Guardian Newspaper. Eight years down the line in April 2008, he won his case in court, was discharged and acquitted of any wrong doing in the saga, and was so released. He recently released his memoir, Vindication of a General, where he wrote about his travails particularly on why he was made the fall guy and had to pay the price of incarceration of eight long years for opposing the candidature of a retired General in the 1999 General Elections. We have captured those issues in my piece last week. Today we turn to Bamaiyi’s unique insight into problems associated with the Kirikiri prison, its operators and the plight of its occupants. We shall also touch on his views on the fall of discipline in the Nigerian Army.

Certainly Bamaiyi was not the only Nigerian high-ranking official to spend time in that infamous penitentiary. General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, the 2nd in command in the military regime of 1976-79 was there in 1995 before he was moved to Port Harcourt and finally to Abakaliki Prison where he died in mysterious circumstance two years later. Many years earlier Vice-President Alex Ekwueme was also incarcerated in Kirikiri along with a host of Ministers and Governors of the 2nd Republic. Alex Ekwueme ended up in Ikoyi Prison before he was released. His prison memoir is aptly titled, From State House to Kirikiri.

I have read many biographies of high-ranking officials that have found themselves in Kirikiri, or some other Nigerian prisons. Admittedly a lot of them have made comments here and there but I have seen none to compare with the depth of feelings expressed by Bamaiyi on the condition of the prison and its hapless guests as recounted in Vindication of a General. He said, ‘the prisons were set up to correct the people who were imprisoned. One does not believe that with the present set up of our prions and the calibre of warders, we can ever achieve any kind of character reformation - - - Prison Officers do not see themselves as reformists but exploiters and therefore lack what it takes to reform people’.

He was horrified by the kind of corruption he experienced in the prison where everything was for sale. Discipline was totally lacking but he identified the Federal Government as the greatest culprit as it had totally neglected the prisons. Kirikiri was overpopulated and lacked everything – space, good feeding, and above all prisoners just idle away the time. Bamaiyi said, ‘there is no way to learn a trade because there is no equipment for training. There are big machines for learning all sorts of trades, which were put by the colonial masters, but they are all obsolete and spare parts are not available. Inmates have nothing to do from 8am when they are let out of their cells to 6pm when they are back’.

There was a clinic in the prison but there were no equipment or drugs. There was also a well-equipped laboratory but the equipment could not be used because they were supplied without reagents and accessories. To worsen matters the doctors lived far away from the clinic. Similarly all other staff lived away from the prisons even though there was enough land near the prisons to build accommodation for them. He lay the blame firmly at the feet of Obasanjo who was President at the time, ‘It is sad that the 8 years rule of Obasanjo who was himself imprisoned and knew the condition of our prisons did nothing to improve prison condition or provide facilities for prison officers to ensure inmates were given sufficient training to sustain themselves once they left prison’.

Bamaiyi’s hard stance on the state of discipline among the various cadres in the Nigerian Army is understandable. He had joined the Army in 1967 when it was at the beginning of its long sojourn into the political arena of the country. He had participated in the civil war and at its conclusion watched how discipline dissipated in the Nigerian Army particularly after the 1975 coup. This was when seniority started taking a back seat even in consideration for purely military appointments. Of course this scenario worsened after the 1985 coup when relatively junior officers were appointed Governors and some were posted to run some key Federal Parastatals. And due mainly to these distractions of lucrative extra-military duties the level of discipline had plummeted.

Long before Bamayi became Chief of Army Staff one of his predecessors General Salihu Ibrahim in a fit of anger at the meddlesomeness of the Nigerian Army in the country’s political affairs had dubbed it as an army of anything goes. But matters only got worse after the exit of General Salihu Ibrahim in September 1993 as the Army itself witnessed instability in its leadership as there was a rapid turnover of its Chiefs. Three Generals - Aliyu Gusau, Chris Alli and Alwali Kazir - held the post in quick succession before Bamaiyi was appointed in March 1996. In that intermission was also a most unsettling period in the country due to the aftermath of the June 12 debacle. A successful coup occurred, followed closely by two foiled ones. All these and other unsavoury happenings, such as the sorry image of Generals indicted in a coup attempt caught on video genuflecting before a Major, must have coloured the view of Bamaiyi that discipline had indeed irredeemably gone downhill in the Army.

Bamaiyi’s Vindication of a General will continue to be thumbed by analysts and historians alike for some time to come, in the bid to uncover the truth about so many events that occurred in the 1990s that are still mired in mystery. He was very much in the arena of the events and many would say: he should know! Well he has said his bit and what is so refreshing about his narration is that it goes against the grain. It is his firm belief that there was nothing like Abacha loot. Money discovered kept in various private accounts in foreign lands by General Abacha was to meet national exigencies, considering the pariah status of the country then.

The general belief was that the 1995 attempted coup was a phantom. Bamaiyi said it was real. We believed that democracy prevailed in 1999 at the election of Obasanjo as President. Bamaiyi said it was all prearranged by a troika of retired Generals to hand over the reins of power to one of their own. What really happened on the day General Abacha died? Did Bamaiyi make an attempt to claim the throne as reported by the influential Major Al Mustapha and other Generals? Bamaiyi pooh-poohed those claims and asserted that he could have seized power but allowed his right judgement to dissuade him.

Vindication of a General has given us another version of the events of the 1990s that saw the country tottering at the brinks. Other key players have written earlier. General Obasanjo has written books on the happenings. There is a book on Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, A Life of Service. And Col Gabriel Ajayi’s harrowing account is detailed in his very engrossing book, End of the Road. Many journalists caught in the cross-fire of these coups have also written. But many of the critical players are yet to put pen to paper. We are still expecting the memoirs of General Oladipo Diya, Aliyu Gusau and Olarewaju as well as Brigadier Sabo, Col Omenha and Major Al Mustapha. We reserve our judgement till then.