Coup plot was real�Obasanjo opens up to governors, rulers
Rotimi williams
President Olusegun Obasanjo has opened up that there was, indeed, a coup plot by some disgruntled elements to topple
his administration before it leaked to the authorities.
Obasanjo had before now, along with other top government functionaries, played down on the issue.
Sunday Punch gathered that at a crucial meeting with some governors and prominent traditional rulers at his Ota
farm, in Ogun State penultimate Saturday told them that a divine intervention saved the day.
This, he reportedly explained, was because those behind the plot did not mean well for him as the president of
the country and the fledgling democracy.
The initial official comment on the plot was couched in the euphumism: breach of security.
Major Hamza-Al-Mustapha, the Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the Late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha was sometime
ago whisked away by officials of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) from Kirikiri Maximum Prisons,
in Lagos over the matter.
Even the top echelon of the military was initially circumspect in admitting that there was actually a plot to topple
the democratically elected government in the country.
However, the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Lt-Gen. Alexander Ogomudia later confirmed that some individuals were
undergoing interrogation over a breach of the security of the nation.
But when Obasanjo featured on his monthly programme, The President Explains on the network of Radio Nigeria in
April, he still avoided making a categorical statement that there was indeed a coup.
�I have been an inmate of a prison and I know that when you are somebody in custody, no matter who you are, there
are certain things that are not allowed to happen.
�Once those things are allowed to happen, then you may try to do the unthinkable, plan the unplanable, try to do
the undoable and even try to act the unactable. What I am trying to stress is that there was serious security breach,�
he had declared.
Nonetheless, the president corroborated the earlier disclosure by the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Alexander Ogomudia,
that the panel had been set up to investigate the security breach.
�Security agencies are investigating and the panel has been set up to investigate the extent of the breach. As
soon as it finishes with its investigations, a report would be made public soon for Nigerians to know what happened.
But we already see it as a serious security breach,� Obasanjo said.
Sources at the meeting he held with the governors and key royal fathers told Sunday Punch that Obasanjo claimed
that those behind the plot had him as their target.
He was quoted as saying: �If the plot had succeeded, it would have returned the country to square one after almost
five years of democratic governance.�
He reportedly dismissed insinuations, in certain quarters, that the official claims of security breach were meant
to witch-hunt some perceived enemies of the government.
�He said there is no iota of truth in such insinuations. He added that there was, indeed, a plot by some people
to violently unseat his government before it was leaked.
�According to the president, he was the primary target of those behind the plot. If they had succeeded, they would
have taken the nation back to the dark days,� a monarch, who was at the meeting, quoted Obasanjo saying.
The president reportedly claimed that fervent prayers by Nigerians for the nation since the enthronement of democracy
in May, 1999 largely contributed in preventing the calamity.
Obasanjo was, however, silent on the number of arrests made in connection with the security breach or on the level
of investigations being conducted by operatives so far.
But he was said to have used the occasion to explain the stand of his government on some controversial issues which
have lately generated public debate and heated up the polity.
Among them was the decision of the Federal Government to withhold the allocation from the Federation Account to
five states that conducted elections in newly created local governments.
He justified the action on an alleged constitutional breach by the affected states on the process for the creation
of new councils in the states which include Lagos, Nasarawa, Ebonyi, Niger and council creation.
His explanation followed an advice by some traditional rulers at the meeting that he should have a rethink over
the matter in the overall interest of democracy.
It was learnt that some of the monarchs tried to make the president believe that most Nigerians see the government�s
posture on the issue as a direct confrontation with the Lagos State government, being the only state controlled
by the Alliance for Democracy (AD).
Sunday Punch learnt that the leaders described the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as indisciplined and that
Obasanjo and other top party members to restore sanity.
It was learnt that the parley, which also deliberated on the recent move to remove the Senate President, Chief
Adolphus Wabara, agreed that indiscipline among politicians was the bane of the nation.
Sunday Punch learnt that the paramount rulers decried the level of insecurity, unemployment and the disenchantment
of the people towards the economic policies of the government.
The monarchs also deployed the tendency by politicians to recruit jobless youths to foment trouble.
The leaders lamented the rising rate of violent crimes in many parts of the country appealed to the president to
quickly address the problem.
Sunday Punch learnt that the president, who took time to explain to his guests government�s efforts to put Nigeria
back on track, promised to look into all the issues discussed with view to providing realistic solutions.
Sunday PUNCH May 9, 2004
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