The Making Of A Billionaire
Whispering Drums With Maigani
By Musa Ibrahim
Prominent among these was Dr Umaru Dikko, erstwhile Honourable Minister for Transport and Aviation and the man that directed the successful re-election of the incumbent president. In spite of his apparently enormous political fortunes in Nigeria, Dr Dikko remained to the outside world, particularly to Britain where he had escaped to, as an insignificant figure and a possible political refugee. Then Cameron Doudu came onto the scene.
It is not known whether it was the personal reputation of Cameron Duodu as an 'expert' on African affairs or the reputation of the paper he freelances for in London - the Sunday Observer, but the first interview granted to the press by Dr Dikko was to Cameron Duodu, writing for the Observer.
Issues discussed in that interview, which was published by the Observer in one of its January issues, were varied and controversial. It was in this interview that the ex-minister made his stand known against military regimes in Africa. He detests them.
But what really attracted the attention of other journalists around the world as well as the curiosity of other governments including that of Nigeria was a statement made in the article that "Dikko is reputed to be a billionaire". Today, that glib statement has become a standard litany. People are no longer saying that "Dikko is reputed to be a billionaire ." They are saying that Dikko is a billionaire. And with this have come other insinuations. For instance, we are being made to understand by the world press that Umaru Dikko 'stole' (or made through corruption) this money from the day he assumed office as Minister of Transport in the Shagari administration four years ago.
We are told ad nauseam that Dikko is Shagari's brother-in-law, with the clear implication that the only claim Dikko had to having been in government was that his sister was married to ex-President Shagari. He was therefore suddenly brought from the gutter by his brother-in-law and within four years, was transformed into a billionaire!
Nobody seems to be interested in the fact that Dikko did not just come into being in 1979, his PhD in Mathematics obviously counted as nothing.
Nobody has offered any evidence towards supporting the claim that Dikko is a billionaire, nobody has made mention of the companies he owns or those that he owns shares in, or the assets he owns.
No wonder that when Dikko was captured, one of the theories the police were working on was that some people had believed the 'billionaire' story and had kidnapped him in hopes of a handsome ransom.In this country it is not likely that anybody can call somebody a millionaire let alone a billionaire without bringing some evidence of his property, ownership, companies etc, or else evidence of lodgements in a bank, and yet from that one irresponsible statement in The Observer, Dikko became a billionaire.
When BBC Television had their interview with Dikko, they asked him nothing about corruption charges alleged against him by the soldiers, they asked him nothing about being a billionaire and yet when the interview was shown, the accompanying commentary said he was reputed to be a billionaire, he was supposed to have had a hand in every contract that was negotiated in Nigeria - the very words of the Observer interview.
After the television interview, Nigerian newspapers then started quoting the British press as the source of information that Dikko was a billionaire! From that time people have moved on from ‘presumed' or 'alleged', Dikko simply become a billionaire.
Thus from an irresponsible statement in one interview that offered no basis or evidence, the entire British and international press took up the chorus
In reporting the kidnap attempt various British newspapers have put their emphasis on this billionaire issue One of the newspapers described his Porchester 'mansion' as being worth £250,000, yet another newspaper, The Times, described it as £400,000.
No wonder that when Dikko was captured, one of the theories the police were working on was that some people had believed the 'billionaire' story and had kidnapped him in hopes of a handsome ransom.
It is known for example that after the BBC interview Dikko protested to the BBC about the commentary which among other things described him as a billionaire and the reporter who interviewed him disclaimed any responsibility for the commentary, promising that a correction would be made in subsequent programmes.
Of course no such corrections were made and the consequence has been what everybody is witnessing today.
From other interviews had with the ex-minister by other journalists, Dikko has consistently denied being a billionaire. Bewildered, one of the journalists that interviewed Dikko wrote: "Umaru Dikko in flesh and blood is not at all like his reputation makes him out to be... He has no horns and certainly did not have the trappings of the sterling billionaire that the London Sunday Observer claims he is believed to be ." From where did The Observer then get its information that Dikko is reputed to be a billionaire?
One thing that is worth further consideration is the fact that as Minister in Civilian administration, Umaru Dikko was subjected to accountability by the National Assembly. It is crystal clear that during the Shagari administration, contracts above a million naira mark had to have the National Assembly's approval before it could be awarded. Nigeria was not Umaru Dikko's personal estate and so could not have operated it as such. Again from available information, the allocation by the then civilian Federal Government to the Transport Ministry headed by Dr Dikko in four years, never went anywhere near a billion naira. The mind boggles when Western journalists who are supposed to know better especially when it comes to figures behave as illiterates. I wonder how many billionaires there are in the world today. Any way, Dikko better have that billion or billions otherwise his ongoing nightmare would be bound to continue.
