Whether you like or you know like after you hear this TRUE Talk.... According to Fela Anikulapi Kuti! This is how, Wikipedia tells the story of Buhari and the 53 SUITCASES FULL OF HARD CURRENCY! 1983 – 1985 Due to Umaru Shinkafis sudden resignation, President Shagari immediately appointed Ambassador Mohammed Lawal Rafindadi as the new NSO Director General (DG). Ambassador Rafindadi was a career diplomat and pioneer officer in the Research Department intelligence unit. Unlike Shinkafi whose background was in the Nigeria police Rafindadi was an experienced intelligence officer with several foreign postings including the United kingdom, Republic of Ireland and Germany. Not considering his relatively short stay in office, Lawal Rafindadi was the most controversial director general of the NSO because of activities during his tenure and after he had been removed from office. The NSO definitely achieved the most notoriety under the leadership of Lawal Rafindadi, [17] it has been alleged in some quarters that it was only General Buhari, Tunde Idiagbon and the Director General of the NSO that ran the government; the NSO was superior to all other intelligence organizations. [21] One month after Shagari nominated Rafindadi as the DG of the NSO, precisely on 31 December 1983, Gen. Muhamudu Buhari toppled the civilian administration of Shehu Shagari in a military coup. Surprisingly, Rafindadi was confirmed as DG NSO by the new regime even though Babangida had tipped the DMI boss Col. Aliyu Mohammed for the position. Rafindadi, a Katsina native like Buhari had been described as belonging to the Kaduna Mafia , a powerful group of northern elite who attended elite schools in Kaduna, ..the elite mobsters move to positions and transactions, and their main goal is to secure the supremacy of Islam in northern Nigeria for good. This requires an alliance with the army, dominated since colonial times by men from the north. [22] Rafindadi quickly settled down to his job as the DG of the NSO aware of the distrust the military had of him and his organisation and also of the fierce rivalry that existed between himself and his opposite in the DMI, Mohammed Gusau . The Buhari government in prosecuting its war on corruption gave the NSO unprecedented powers of arrest and detention, the NSO was no longer the tame organisation it had been under the civilian government. On 3 February 1984, NSO officers arrested Mrs. Marie McBroom, an American businesswoman at gunpoint. Mrs. McBroom had been in the country during the December coup and had stayed behind to conclude several deals in foodstuff and fuel for her new import/ export firm. Mrs. McBroom was detained alongside another businesswoman Dorothy Davies who was arrested on similar charges of attempting to negotiate the purchase of crude oil and gasoline without first obtaining an export license, they were initially held at an interrogation cell at NSO headquarters before being transferred to Kirikiri prison later on. Davies was released and deported after 40 days in detention, McBroom was not that lucky she was held for nine months before she was finally arraigned before a four-man military panel on 30 November. [23] The regime promulgated the State Security (Detention of Persons) Decree Number 2 of 1984, which gave the NSO the power to detain anyone suspected to be a security risk indefinitely. Detention under decree 2 was in 3-month tranches renewable at expiry. Another draconian decree was the decree 4 which made it a punishable offence for anyone to publish any material deemed embarrassing to a government official, two journalists from The Guardian newspapers, Nduka Irabor and Tunde Thompson were jailed under this decree. [24] On 11 April 1984, NSO operatives arrested Irabor and Thompson. They were tried by a military tribunal headed by Justice Olalere Ayinde and charges of falsely accusing public officers of the Federal Government. This was sequel to the summons issued by the Special Military Tribunal. The summons given to them on 2 June 1984 read: Form 2 Public Officers (Protection Against False Accusation) Decree No. 4 of 1984 summon to accused. That you Tunde Thompson and Nduka Iraboh of The Guardian Newspaper, Limited, Rutam House, Isolo on April 1, 1984 at Rutam House, Isolo in Lagos, did publish “False statement contrary to section 1(1) of the Decree No. 4 of 1984. You are therefore summoned to appear before the Tribunal mentioned above sitting at Federal High Court on the 4th day of June at the hour of 9.00 a.m in the forenoon to answer the said complaint. Also accused along with the men was their employer, Guardian Newspapers Limited. [25] In 1984, Rafindadi and the NSO were embrollied in controversy when the Emir of Gwandu (father of Buharis ADC Major Mustapha Jokolo) and his entourage were allegedly allowed to clear 53 suitcases through customs on arrival from a foreign trip. Atiku Abubakar , then the customs Area Administrator at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport went on air to announce the incident in an apparent move to take credit and at the same time discredit his boss Abubakar Musa , the Director of Customs. Because of the impending currency change in the country at the time, the press went to town with a story alleging that the suitcases had contained hard currency smuggled into the country. The actual culprit at the time was Ambassador Dahiru Waziri, a friend of Rafindadi who had just returned with his family from a posting in Saudi Arabia to resume as the Chief of Protocol in the State House. Waziri had flown in on the same aircraft as the Emir of Gwandu and his luggage had been collected directly from the aircraft by a protocol officer in the Sate House and ferried directly to the State House without passing through customs. Another member of the Emir of Gwandus party was Buharis half brother, which led to the Emir of Dauras (Daura is Buharis hometown) name being mentioned originally in the press instead of the Emir of Gwandu in an attempt to implicate the Head of State in the affair. In an attempt to protect his friend, Rafindadi later claimed that it was he who had received the suitcases on behalf of a colleague in the diplomatic service and that the suitcases were to have been ostensibly filled with personal effects and not hard currency as alleged by the media. [26] National Security Organization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.m.wikipedia.org/.../National_Security... Dimka had visited Gowon in exile in the UK and under interrogation claimed ... Just before General Olusegun Obasanjo handed over power to the civilian regime of .... to town with a story alleging that the suitcases had contained hard currency ...
Posted on: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 14:18:41 +0000
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