armed insurrection passed on quietly penultimate week. Adewale Adeoye writes on the former don’s life of war, intrigues and sacrifices that came to an abrupt end.I knew Prof Adesegun Banjo. I met him around 1996. He was in exile in Ghana. My first meeting with him was dramatic. The late Sani Abacha’s government had placed a bounty on his head. He was wanted dead or alive. His offence was treason.
He kept his master plan to his chest. With his calculation, he would take Lagos in days, followed by Ibadan and then he would move to Abuja. He already had field men in the Niger-Delta and in the Middle Belt and in some parts of the North. The effort was to be coordinated by him. Prof Banjo felt the military had to be overthrown by all means. He raised personal funds, recruited American soldiers including a Vietnamese Major who first trained him in Guerilla warfare.
So, the second day, the country was flooded with Nigerian top military echelon including Col Frank Omenka of the Directorate of Military Intelligence, . Local authorities told him Abacha had passed on $100 million to some Benin Republic officials. That led to his detention at the Port Prison. He spent 10 days amidst diplomatic manoeuvres by Nigeria to repatriate her most priced fugitive. He planned to escape with a small knife with 26-hydra heads, cutting the protective fence.
That’s my uncles