Former Director of Military Intelligence (DMI) of Nigerian Army, Brigadier General Abubakar Sadeeq Hanafi Sa’ad (rtd), has cried out that six months since his compulsory retirement by the Army Council for alleged “serious offences,” five months since he sent a petition to President Muhammadu Buhari and three months since he sent a reminder to the Chief of Defence Staff, no action has been taken by either the Presidency or the military authorities on his petition.
In the petition, he urged the president to stop the “jungle justice and settling of scores” meted out to him in Buhari’s name.
Sa’ad, who was Nigeria’s Defence Attaché in Bamako at the height of the Malian crisis, was retired last June along with 37 other senior military officers. Although his letter of compulsory retirement by the Army Council dated June 9, 2016 did not state any reason for the action, the Minister of Defence, Brigadier General Mansur Dan-Ali, later told reporters that all the officers were retired either for being politically partisan in the 2015 general and other elections or were “financially corrupt,” a reference to the arms money scandal otherwise known as Dasukigate.
But in his 25-page petition to President Buhari dated June 30, 2016, the ex-DMI director said no wrongdoing of any kind was established against him by a competent court or court martial to warrant the termination of his unblemished 32 year military career.
He said he was a victim of “overzealousness, vindictiveness, arbitrary, unfair and capricious application of military laws that violated Nigerian Army regulations and my fundamental human rights to fair hearing as a citizen.”
He then gave a detailed account of events leading to his premature retirement from the army, beginning with his appointment as Director of Military Intelligence in September 2015 at the end of his duty tour in Mali, where he won the country’s medal of honour for his role in resolving the Malian crisis.
Sa’ad’s petition said as DMI, he handled the case of Captain AS Koli, who returned from self-exile after the Ekiti election saga.
He said he set up a Board of Investigation (BOI) to probe Koli’s going on AWOL as well as all issues related to the military’s conduct in the Ekiti and Osun elections of 2014.
The BOI submitted its report which he reviewed and made eight recommendations, all of which were accepted by Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen Tukur Buratai.
Among them was a recommendation for the Army Headquarters to set up a BOI to investigate all alleged unprofessional conduct by army officers in Ekiti, Osun and all other states around the country. This BOI was set up under the chairmanship of Major General Oyebade.
Sa’ad said to his utter surprise, Oyebade phoned and asked him to appear before the BOI to clear certain matters. Since he got no convening letter, written invitation or details of allegations made against him as is BOI’s procedure, Sa’ad did not suspect that he was an accused person.
He appeared before it and said he got the shock of his life when he was asked three questions. One was whether he hosted a PDP meeting at Bamako at which a strategy was worked out to frustrate Buhari’s presidential ambition. He denied that such a meeting ever took place and said he had been apolitical all his life.
He was then asked about his personal relationship with Brigadier General AS Mormoni-Bashir, the Principal General Staff Officer to the National Security Adviser (NSA) and with Colonel Sambo Dasuki himself.
He said Mormoni was his personal friend since their NDA days but he did not know Dasuki personally until his assignment in Mali, which brought them into a close working relationship because of Nigeria’s leading role in solving the Mali crisis and also the established link between the Malian rebels and Boko Haram.
Sa’ad was then asked if Dasuki channeled “huge sums of money” to him as DA in Mali, which were later repatriated to Nigeria and used for PDP campaigns. He denied that such a thing ever happened.
Three days after his appearance at BOI, the Army Council sat over officers’ promotion and withheld his promotion to Major General.
In January 2016, the BOI submitted its report to the Army Chief in which it categorized officers that appeared before it into seven. These include officers recommended for compulsory retirement, those to lose their commands, those for prosecution for collecting financial gratification, those to be probed by the EFCC, those to be placed on a watch list, those to face audit committees and those to receive letters of displeasure.
The former DMI said he was never told which of the categories he belonged to and he was never prosecuted, invited by EFCC, faced an audit committee or got a letter of displeasure. Instead, but was removed as DMI on January 16 and posted to the Defence Headquarters as Director Test and Evaluation. He said the Army Chief told him that he was removed as DMI to allow for unfettered investigation of his case.
He said he was never invited by the EFCC and never faced a court martial but on June 10, he received a phone call informing him that the Army Council had retired him “on disciplinary grounds, i.e. serious offences”.
The offences were never specified, which he said violated the Manual of Military Law (MML) and the Harmonized Terms and Conditions of Service for Officers 2012. Gen Sa’ad also said he suffered withheld promotion, loss of command, compulsory retirement and public ridicule without ever being found guilty by a competent court or tribunal.
Even if Oyebade’s BOI indicted him, he said BOI does not have conclusory powers to pronounce guilt under military law and is only a fact finding body preparatory to a court martial.
In any case, he said the BOI broke several rules in the Nigerian Army Manual of Military Law by not cautioning him before he testified, not giving him the opportunity to be represented at its sittings, not allowing him to call witnesses in his defence, not showing him documentary basis of the allegations against him and not reading over to him the evidence he gave before it for him to authenticate it.
The ex-DMI urged Buhari to use the federal government’s facilities to establish if indeed a PDP meeting took place in Bamako in 2015 “and who attended it, since Mali has only one international airport.”
He said government can also easily establish if Dasuki’s office sent any huge funds to him which he later repatriated to Nigeria.
General Sa’ad however said that during the Malian crisis, Dasuki as well as the Minister of Defence, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Chief of Defence Staff and Director General of the National Intelligence Agency were frequent visitors to Mali because of this country’s active role in the search for peace.
He asked President Buhari to rescind his retirement from the army since his offence was not proved, exclude his name from the list of arms looters and partisan officers since there was no proof, reconsider him for promotion to Major General and then allow him to voluntarily retire from the army since he is no longer ready to serve in it after what he went through.
He said if Buhari however feels he looted arms money or was partisan, then he should cause a court martial to try him.
In addition to being the ex-DMI and ex-Defence Attaché to Mali with concurrent accreditation to Senegal, Gambia, Western Sahara, Mauritania and Cape Verde, General Sa’ad was also Commander of the 118 Counter Intelligence Command, Deputy Chief of Staff Nigerian Army Intelligence Corps, Commander of 81 Division Intelligence Group.
He was Deputy Director Policy and Plans Defence Intelligence Agency and Adjutant of the Nigeria Defence Academy. He has two Masters Degrees in Global Security and National Security and War Studies.
He won many awards during his military career including the Best Overall Student Machine Gun Officers’ Course, Best Overall Army Student Junior Division Staff Course and Mali’s national honour, Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mali.
Courtesy/Daily Trust
