The Umaru Dikko Kidnap Affair: Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
Elizabeth Ohene
With the failure of the Dikko kidnap, the whole scheme has been criticised as being amateurishly executed. Elizabeth Ohene takes another look and comments on the subtle and behind the scenes manipulations which would have made it look otherwise had it succeeded.Since the Nigerian military regime has denied any responsibility or involvement in the Dikko kidnap affair, it is difficult to credit them with some obvious master genius planning aspects of the matter.
What a pity though for it would not harm their reputation one bit to claim the credit for such sophistication. For, far from the amateurish and bungling plot that the kidnap is being made out to be, it appears all very professional to this writer and the timing coincidences surely deserve some praise.
As the saying goes, nothing fails like a failed coup and it looks like nothing fails like a failed kidnap either.
Take just a few instances of perfect timing to appreciate the perfect timing. While three 'middle Eastern types' are abducting Dikko outside his home, the Nigerian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom is sitting down to lunch inside the Foreign office.
Surely, that must mean either of two things: he had absolutely no idea indeed about what was happening or he was being very COOL - which is the way our black American cousins would put it.
There is only one word that can describe it class. If the kidnap had succeeded, one can just read the instant paperback novel that would have told the 'inside story', and the touch of the High Commissioner having lunch with the Foreign office would surely have attracted some admiration.
Back in Lagos, on the same Thursday 5 July, Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon is launching a book titled 'Nigeria and its British Invaders. 1851-1920.' An old military history book, bound to be boring and a standard set book for Nigerian military academy cadets, somebody might be led to think. But Brig. Idiagbon appeared more interested in what he called "British acts of bad faith toward Nigeria in recent years" which he said, included its role during the Nigerian civil war, its indifference toward Nigeria in the negotiations with the IMF and the comfort being provided Britain for fugitives from Nigeria.
If the kidnap had succeeded, one wonders where the speech would have been placed in the minute by minute recounting of the great kidnap in the instant novel - possibly in the film version, it would have been as cutback to a gagged struggling Dikko being given his first forcible injection.
Same Thursday July 5, this time the Head of State Gen. Muhammadu Buhari himself is addressing his newly appointed envoys and what is his admonition to them? 'Watch the fugitives' which if the instant novel had come to be written could so easily have been decoded as 'find the fugitives, have them abducted and sent home by whatever means possible, that is your most important duty'. Cut back to an unconscious Dikko being stuffed into a crate and an NSO operative hammering the last nail in the crate.
Had it succeeded, no longer will people imagine that such exploits are the stuff of which films are made or else in real life restricted solely to the spies of the CIA or KGB... Nigerian Security would also claim to be at par with the best of them.
Doubtless, Sonni Anyang who wrote in the National Concord of the same day that Nigerian security should be dispatched abroad to deal with the fugitives in the same way as the Israelis tackled Adolf Eichmann in Argentina could have claimed either intimate knowledge of the great plot or at the very least, gone into the business of clairvoyance.
But even in its failed state, consider the huge advantages that the Federal Military Government can reap while continuing to deny involvement.
Wink, wink, nod, nod, it must be them you know, at least it shows that contrary to widespread suspicion, the coup-making soldiers had aided the escape from Nigeria of the men they then proceeded to declare wanted. Wink, wink, they are deadly serious about bringing these people back. Nod, nod, the Nigerian Security organisation must still be in the reckoning for gaining international respect. Why did they not almost succeed in out-smarting and out-manouvering the famous Scotland Yard? Did they not almost succeed in spiriting out Dikko under the very noses of the much respected British C13 anti-terrorist squad but for the quick thinking of a mere slip of a girl?
There are not, after all, many security organisations in the world who could have planned such a daring escapade on British soil.
Without doubt a number of yarns will soon emerge about the exploits of NSO operatives both at home and abroad, James Bond-like characters who slip into countries to silence villains on the clear understanding that should they be caught they are on their own.
No longer will people imagine that such exploits are the stuff of which films are made, or else in real life restricted solely to the spies of CIA or KGB or M15/M16, Mossad, Boss or French security. Nigerian security would also claim to be at par with the best of them, and that is a tribute that many ordinary citizens would still grant them inspite of the fact that the cargo did not quite make it to its intended destination.
Another genius of master timing is the way the kidnap story succeeded in overshadowing totally the effects of the jailing of the two journalists from the Guardian. Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor were likely to cause the most embarrassment for the seven- month old government of Gen. Buhari. Decree No 4 a.k.a. the Press Gag Decree was gradually becoming an albatross around the neck of the FMG and by jailing the two journalists for a year each under the terms of this decree, the discontent was bound to go on and gather momentum. The newspapers were not likely to let Gen. Buhari forget a single day that two journalists were in jail, more worrisome were the noises coming from the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC): repeal decree 4, free Thompson and Irabor or else
The Guardian newspaper was playing the story for all it was worth and looked set to engage in full scale war with the FMG.
Next on the scene would have been international press, for if there is one thing that is guaranteed to make any government unpopular with the press, it is the jailing of journalists Amnesty International would have jumped into the fray.
The prospects did not look good and the average Nigerian citizen would have been hard put to it working up any enthusiasm for Gen. Buhari and his friends.
With the events of 5 July the Guardian journalists story disappeared from the front pages and the minds of the people, newspapers, radio and tele- vision have become saturated with the Dikko affair and from their cells, even the two journalists must have caught the excitement generated in the press by the Dikko affair, kicking themselves they were not free to cover the story from all the various angles.
If this does not have all the signs of a master tactician, I am yet to find one.
As a cynic has even suggested, even the foiling of the kidnap was part of the plan, for if Dikko had indeed been presented in Lagos, he would have caused even more headaches. But having been discovered, drugged, unconscious, crated and ready for the journey, the determination to bring him is proved beyond all reasonable doubt. All the blame now should be put on the British Government.
How very inconvenient that the Federal Military Government cannot claim credit for it all.
