Pensioners Threaten to Kill Kwankwaso
Ukachukwu, senatorial aspirant, escapes assassination
From Josephine Lohor, George Oji, Ahamefula Ogbu in Abuja and Tunde Sanni in Ilorin
A group of military pensioners protesting the non-payment of their benefits have threatened to assassinate the Minister of Defence, Dr. Rabiu Musa Kwakwanso, if they were not paid.
Also, six men believed to be hired assassins yesterday swooped on the Abuja house of Chief Nicholas Ukachukwu who is contesting in court the Anambra South Senatorial seat. The assassins murdered a policeman on duty at the residence and wounded a private security guard.
The pensioners in their death threat to the minister of defence, entitled: "Operation Wipe Out" warned that unless their benefits were paid, they would dispatch all those they felt were involved in the non-payment of their entitlements to "heaven" before the year ends.
"We will gun down Rabiu if he remains there as from 1-7-2004 if the whole arrears with the increment of 25 percent plus the new increment with effect from 1-1-2004 are not paid before then", they said.
The letter casts doubt on verification of pay list being undertaken by the Ministry of Defence. The pensioners alleged that the verification exercise was a delay ploy meant to allow pensions funds lodged in fix accounts to yield dividends for ministry officials. They alleged that the minister and other officials of the ministry are enjoying at the expense of the pensioners and vowed not to tolerate this any more.
"We are now arranging professional assassins to assassinate the DMP paymaster, Wale Oke (House of Representatives Defence Committee Chairman) with his team and the Minister of Defence. No retired soldier will be among the 10-man assassins, we only pay for their services," the pensioners disclosed.
They also threatened that, "we are going to kill you all this year with bullets and suicide bombers where necessary. You people's cups are full. We have warned you now (1) Wale Oke and his team (2) paymaster (3) Kwakwanso Rabiu and (4) All those with political appointments in PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) inhuman government".
But in an apparent reaction to the contents of the threat letter, the House Committee on Defence has summoned an emergency meeting of all stake holders next week to address the situation.
A letter signed by the committee chairman, Oke, summoned the National Chairman of the Nigerian Legion and some influential retired officers under the aegis of "Retired Army, Navy, Air Force Officers" (RANAO) headed by Lt. General Joshua Dogonyaro (rtd) to an all stake holders meeting Tuesday next week to discuss the issue.
"We are in receipt of several petitions and threats from your state branches and various groups of ex-military officers and soldiers in respect of the above subject matter. We as representatives of Nigerians feel concerned about the plight of these groups of Nigerians who have spent their youthful age in service to our motherland and now suffering at their old age when they most needed to be catered for.
"We also appreciate the fact that these group of Nigerians also form part of Nigerians that queue in the rain and in the sun to give us their mandate to be in the National Assembly. Conscious of our responsibility, we are inviting you for an important meeting where this problem would be tabled with a view to finding permanent solution to it," Oke's letter stated.
In a related development about 250 pensioners were on Sunday night driven to Ganmo, a sleepy town near Ilorin, Kwara State capital and dumped by yet to be recognised people.
The pensioners, according to sources, were allegedly brought in a trailer from Abuja.
The sources claimed that the pensioners might have been among those believed to be constituting nuisance at the Federal Capital, hence their relocation to several parts of the country.
When THISDAY visited the place where the abandoned pensioners were left, they looked hungry, unkempt and haggard and have resorted to begging for survival.
Some of the pensioners who tried to speak with newsmen claimed that they all met from different locations in Abuja for the arrears of their military pension.
Mr. Samson Echo, a Benue State indigene and retired Warrant Officer told newsmen, "look they are the ones who invited us through radio announcement that our money was ready and we should come to Abuja for collection."
Another W/O Rasaki Yakuba and Joseph Esangbedo said, "If we were approached some of us who are from neighboring states of Abuja could have chosen to return home peacefully instead of facing this trauma and anguish."
According to them, "we were hauled into a trailer like cargo on a journey we know not the destination. Our documents and other personal effects are dumped in Abuja."
Esangbedo said, "they carted us inside trailers from Abuja to Ilorin without any explanation as to our destination, and dumped in Ilorin."
The pensioners claimed that they are yet to receive any pension since 1979 and had been invited more than 10 times for screening exercise.
So far, more than N200 million has been recovered from banks as excess deductions from military pensions funds while more than nine months of the arrears are still owed them from April to December 2003.
But Ukachukwu, who barely escaped assassination narrated the incident to newsmen in Abuja yesterday and said the attack was a clear case of hired assassins sponsored by his political opponents.
"On Tuesday when I got to my house, at about 7.30 in the evening, I changed and came down. I started hearing gunshots everywhere. And when I came out, I saw my police officer lying on the ground. My security man was also shot on the chest and he was lying in a pool of his blood.
"I started asking what happened and I was told that some people came, met my unarmed security men outside, surrendered them and they were asking after me. They said they wanted me.
"For them to be in my house at that particular time showed that they knew that I was just getting to my house. That actually shows that they have been trailing me. It showed that all those petitions and cries were not heard. It has shown that my opponents meant what they were saying, because they want to take my mandate by all means, they want to take my Senatorial seat by all means. Anything short of that, they are ready to take my life.
"It's unfortunate that the Nigerian political atmosphere is degenerating into attempts by people to silence you; trying to take you out by all means; to make sure that you are not heard. What happened on Tuesday, June 23, was a kind of the peak of what has been happening. Of course, you know that I ran for the Senate for Anambra South, won the election, got declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission as the winner and the mandate was stolen. The court returned me and since then it has not been easy.
"It has been one threat here and one threat there. One has been sleeping with one eye open. You see, we continue shouting; we continue talking and continue complaining. We wrote petitions about the threat to our lives, several threats by my opponents, which were said to my hearing and to the hearing of my brothers. I was asked to 'either give up this mandate or you cannot live to enjoy the mandate'. And these are the kind of threats that have continued.
"Initially we ignored the threats but later on we realized that they are serious about it. We wrote petitions to the President and Vice President, and to the Inspector General of Police, asking for more security and for the issue to be investigated. We were asking that our opponents should be called to order and let them know that it is only God that can take somebody's life. It is only God that makes a life."
Asked if he had contacted the police after the incident, Ukachukwu replied, "In fairness to the police, since that Tuesday incident, the Divisional Police Officer for this area has come, the Operation Fire for Fire has come, and the Commissioner of Police himself paid me a visit to sympathise with me."
Ukachukwu stated that if the police was not forthcoming with additional security he would have no option but to do that for himself. "Life is so precious and life is for the living and it is only the living that can fight for their rights," he said.
Ukachukwu had challenged the election of Senator Okechukwu Uba at the Anambra Election Petition Tribunal on the basis that he, not Uba, was the validly nominated candidate of the PDP for Anambra South district in the April 12, 2003 National Assembly elections.
While one of the other three petitioners in the same shoe with Ukachukwu, Chief Ben Obi, had gotten judgement in his favour, Ukachukwu's case had become controvesial as the Appeal Court in Enugu has not been able to give a decision on the matter.
The case has been sent back to a reconstituted panel of the court after the first panel became mired in accusations by both parties.
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