The reporter begins the story on a painful, personal note. 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 Sanni Abacha’s government had placed a bounty on his head. He was wanted dead or alive. His offence was treason. Prof Adebanjo had truly planted to overthrow the government of Sani Abacha following the ancient axiom that disobedience to an illegitimate order is just.
He had a near perfect plan. He would bring in the weapons through the sea and land, launch a blitzkrieg of military assaults on important military installations. He would then launch a grand attack beginning from a rural community. From his calculation, he needed few men to start to be tripled after taking over the radio stations and making announcements for more to join the rebellion.
On that day I met him in Ghana at the Teachers House, through another radical journalist, Bunmi Aborisade, I had waited for about two hours before he stormed into the room, sweating. I thought he was coming from Kumasi, some hundreds of miles away. After the meeting, he left bile on my lips. Nothing can be as devastating as a journalist holding on to an exclusive story but with the instruction never to publish.
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 dollars to some Beninese officials. That was how he was detained at the Port Prison. He spent 10 days amidst diplomatic manoeuvres by Nigeria to repatriate their most priced fugitive. He planned to escape with a small knife with 26-hydra heads, cutting the protective fence.
“I had 120 young men stationed at the Nigerian Ports Authority. They were waiting for my weapons. My plan was that if the customs found the weapons by chance, the battle would start right at the seaport”, he had told me in Ghana before he left the country after Abacha had sent a chartered aircraft to plead with him, pick him up and pay him off. When that effort failed, the government of Abacha sent two Nigerian journalists accompanied by one of Abacha’s own son. The assignment was to poison him.
Hmmm, RIP
Incredible story...never heard his name but wasn't surprised he was Col. victor banjo's brother .
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