By Olatunde Abatan
08165660217
tunde2013abatan@gmail.com
For somebody who has been in military circles especially the Intelligence arm for 35 years, Commodore Kunle Olawunmi (retd), the retired intelligence director of Nigerian Armed Forces knows the implication of spilling the beans.
For daring to spill the beans about the grand hypocrisy that has bedevilled Nigeria’s war against insurgency, he knows as he admitted last Tuesday morning during the Channels Television interview, that he has consciously put himself not only in dangers way but in the eye of a big storm.
Olawunmi
It is a storm, which may not only consume him but also has a ripple effect on the intelligence establishment he has so passionately served in the past 35 years.
Thus ,when he got terse message from Defence Intelligence Agency,DIA,a security organisation he had served for decades,that he should show up to offer more explanations on his unusual criticism of the secret activities of the government, he knew it will come and that the hawks in the system he has exposed it’s weaknesses will hunt him.
But then, considering the see nothing, hear nothing and say nothing code of the intelligence community where he spent his prime life, the confidence he displayed during the interview portrays a man ready to put his life at stake for a country he so much passionately served and love. From his statements and disclosures,he portray that in spite of inherent imperfections, he does not want Nigeria his country to go down as a former potentially great nation.
Though the military establishment in it’s statement Saturday said it has not declared Olawunmi wanted, the later himself and thousands of those who listened to the interview and his exposure of a government and system lacking in sincerity,knows quite well that such is not unexpected.
He knows he has crossed the Red Line in spite of his professed love for country and nation.
As an officer who have at a time served in today’s gestapo like government, all subsequent actions in response to his posture by the government should be expected.
Now the issues attacked by the officer.
His criticism of policy of throwing open of barracks mosque every Friday for Jumat service- a practice that is as old as Nigerian army,though logical, hits the underbelly of his top officers, the protagonist of religious irredentism in Nigeria’s armed forces and those who use religion as an instrument of coercion and superiority over other Nigerians.
Again,the location of Centre of Gravity,to use his words,of the fundamental backers of insurgency,is a direct hit of the nail on the head of todays civilian and military dictators that have held the nation bondage and surreptitiously encouraging Islamisation even when they allocate men and resources to fight an insurgency battle they never intended to win.
Another set of aggrieved established institutions he will confront on Tuesday if he did not vote with his feet, are the 400 bureau the change operators feeding fat on funding Boko Haram insurgents and being deliberately kept out of harms way in spite of their culpability,by their supporters inside the President Muhammadu Buharis government.
They are the invisible hands who continued to tie his hand,should there be any seeming attempt to bring them to justice.
Yet,Olawunmi will also meet sitting governor’s,senators and ministers some of who he has fingered and caught funding insurgency but who has survived his indictments.
For revealing United States preference and support for Buhari in the run- off to 2015 election, he may also have incurred the CIA wrath,that is if he didn’t have their support to ‘spill the beans’.
If Washington applauds Olawunmis disclosures, then he might as well be a ‘fall guy’ used as a lamb by the government to express dissapointment with Buharis failures.
On the whole, Olawunmis exposures of cladestine moves..(which many already knew), within the Buhari government to Islamise Nigeria, already in process through government appointments,policies and actions,is a direct hit on the underbelly of Buharis powerful constituency,more powerful as things stand today than the electorate who voted him in by their stranglehold on his government and directive of state policies.
Since,ethno religious feelings have been promoted far beyond the principles of the country’s secular constitution,it remains to be seen whether beneficiaries of the federal government bigotry will be ready to let go without a fight those who oppose or strive to portray their often unchallenged hold on governance in spite of it’s negative consequences.
Again,the challenge posed by the National Youth Council of Nigeria,NYCN, who gave federal government two weeks to offer explanations on allegations of Buharis inertia in fighting insurgency. Likely to be more worrisome is their threat to make the 19 Northern states ungovernable, may be the ammunition needed by Buharis Aso rock cabal to kick the recalcitrant intelligence officer under the bus or put him out of circulation, depending on the level of threat the disclosures and criticism the unusual interview represents.
While,Olawumi will have company in the strong voices that have greeted his revelations,it is apparent that such voices will be found more within the opposition and human rights communities, who are more noticeable in the Southern part of the country.
What Olawunmi decides to do on Tuesday when he is expected to show face at the DIA to be interrogated by his surbodinates in service,will determine the shape of things to come.
Should he vote with his feet,he would also have thrown up many issues for the government to resolve.
Tinubu as ‘tourist object’
For good or bad, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the motivator and instigator of All Progressive Congress, APC’s emergence in national politics has remain relevant in political discourse.
In the politics of his party and by extension the polity, it is either you like him or not.
But since his prolonged absence from the political scene via health challenges in the past two months, he has introduced a new shape into patronage.
Thus, when Lagos governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu paid a visit to his ‘grandmaster’ in his London home on Tuesday August 3,2021, the Lagos state governor has open a vista of pilgrims to Tinubu’s abode.
Even Muhammadu Buhari,who was also performing his annual medical tourism in London,stopped by to see the ‘Lion of Bourdullion’ who to all intent and purposes have also not saying anything ,at least publicly, about the fault lines of the man he helped to power in 2015.
Former Borno Governor ,Shettima and some of his aides also came calling to ‘sight’ Tinubu and be assured of his good health.
It will be recalled that after,Sanwo Olu retinue of public officers like House of Reps member, Faleke, the Speaker,state house of assembly,Rt Hon Mudasiru Obasa and some of his top officials have also joined in the pilgrimage to see Tinubu ,wish him well,discuss politics and tactics..all at public expense.
No one is sure whether Tinubu’s health bills and other matters are not at the expense of tax payers of Lagos state who in spite of all claims cannot access the facilities and treatment that are at Tinubu’s beck and call.
Although, arch opponents of Tinubu like Muiz Banire, also joined in the fray, it is doubtful whether given his change of attitude and political loyalty to his former ‘headmaster’, he would have access to state funds as did Sanwo-olu and others.
Tinubu with sanwo-Olu in London this afternoon
Buhari, Tinubu
Tinubu, Obasa
Yes,Sanwo-Olu could still have kept the Omoluabi virtue as claimed by Banire to justify his care for Tinubu, in spite of differences. But such trips by sitting public officers is injurious to public psyche especially a people that lives in constant denial of one social amenities or the other.
Since Asiwaju Tinubu is also by intent and body language, scheming to occupy Aso Rock in 2023, advertising his private medical sojourn in a foreign health institution, is a direct endorsement of President Buhari who has for most part of his tenure prefer turning his health needs to tourism than using the Aso Rock clinic on which billions of naira is voted annually to maintain.
As for public officers who used state funds to pay political homage to their godfathers ,it is a waste of public fund and a signal that commitment on their part to fix public health facilities is an empty promise.
