The fall of the Kaduna Mafia
By A Special Correspondent
With the fall of the Buhari regime, more revelations have come out to expose the behind-the-scenes pressures that have gone into decision-making and appointments into high positions in Nigerian governments. The Kaduna Mafia's role is explained.Tuesday 27 August 1985 is a date that is likely to prove very significant to Nigerians in more than one respect was on that day that the tyrant fell. Second, was the day that signalled the possible downfall of that group of people always reputed to be behind the throne in Nigeria for many years the Kaduna Mafia.
About the fall of Major General "Dan Buzu", we shall have plenty of time to talk about that, the world will come to know the crook and terrorist that Buhari was.
Today we examine the Kaduna Mafia - Buhari's private Councillors. First, who are they? They are an amorphous group of pretenders who survive only on their ability to cling to whoever is in power until they suck him dry and he drops dead.
The first time they came into the limelight was during Obasanjo's regime. General Murtala Mohammed knew them so well and did not allow them to come near him. He had the greatest contempt for them.
With the assassination of General Murtala Muhammed, General Obasanjo took over as Head of State. Shehu Musa Yar' Adua, then a Brigadier, later promoted to Major General, was appointed as Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters. Major General (rtd.) Shehu Yar'Adua was more or less Murtala's boy and he it was who spearheaded the coup d'etat that toppled General Gowon and brought Murtala to Nigeria's Military throne. Hence the choice of Shehu Yar' Adua to the exalted position of Chief of Staff, a consolation to the Hausa Moslems from where assassinated Murtala Mohammed hailed.
Shehu Yar'Adua immediately saw himself as a representative of the Hausa Moslems and a defender of their interest, by his own interpretation. He quickly gathered around him some people on whom he believed he could absolutely rely and so guarantee to General Obasanjo the loyalty of the Forth. With General T.Y. Danjuma as a minority Christian from Wukari, then part of Benue, the arrangement to ensure Northern loyalty seemed complete.
The people that Shehu Yar' Adua collected around him were: Mamman Daura who was his good friend and kinsman, both having hailed from the Katsina/Daura locality. Mamman Daura then invited and introduced Adamu Ciroma who was his predecessor as Editor of the New Nigerian. Of course, Mamman Daura remained eternally grateful to Adamu Ciroma who, after retiring from New Nigerian Newspapers put in a good word for his friend Mamman to succeed him.
The next person that was pulled in to the cult was Musa Bello from Yola who was an under secretary (deputy permanent secretary) in the Govern- ment of the defunct Northern Region. Musa Bello then extended an invitation into the cult to his friend and kinsman Mahmud Tukur, now called Dr. Mahmud Tukur - Buhari's import licence minister. Mahmud Tukur who was at that time teaching at the Institute of Administration, brought into the group people like Abubakar Koko from Sokoto and Abubakar Yaya who was later moved to the Cabinet office to provide real anchor for the group's activities as a kitchen cabinet.
Through Mahmud Tukur, another Bororo from Gombe by name of Sule Kumo came into the fold. The group then recruited Shehu Malami from Sokoto, a traditional Hausa man, a close associate of every man who was ever in power right from General Ironsi.
Then came in the "Super-Famous- Perm-Sec." Alhaji Abubakar Alhaji. As a civil servant in the Ministry of Finance, Abubakar Alhaji was particularly useful to their plan. Later on, lesser persons were drawn into the fold but they remained mainly in the back- ground. These included: Turi Muhammadu from Bida, in-law to Adamu Ciroma and successor of Mamman Daura as Editor of New Nigerian; Tanko Kuta from Kuta in Niger State; Aliko Mohammed from Misau; Hamza Zayyad from Katsina and Aminu Wali from Kano, all of them revolving around the Chief of Staff Shehu Yar' Adua.
Sani Zangron Daura and Ismalia Isa Funtua were brought in to serve the role of spreading the group's gospel. This was the "Sharri" surrounded the then Chief of Staff, group that posing, by their own definition, as defenders and promoters of the interests of the North.
With time and as they grew in strength and as their tentacles spread everywhere, they came to be nicknamed the Kaduna Mafia. The choice of the word 'Mafia' was because of their clannish loyalties and Kaduna served as their capital or as the bastion of their power.
Now, within the Army, who were their associates? Everyone knows the closeness of Yar' Adua to Buhari - "Dan Buzu" the tyrant. Without Yar Adua as Chief of Staff there was no protection.
Major General Magoro and Air what- have-you Muktar Mohammed, were also an extension of the Mafia group. There are one or two others but these are inconsequential.
For the first time then, this shadowy group have been mentioned by name so the guessing game can now end. It is in everybody's interest to remove their mystical mask so that we can all see them. They have no one and represent no North.
One can now proceed to examine their political roles and philosophies and the way they have operated.
When General Obasanjo was in power, the group, using Chief of Staff Major General Shehu Yar' Adua, held Obasanjo to ransom. They dictated the names of those to be appointed from the North. They were the North! Those who were not in their good books could not get a look-in. Probes were set up by their chosen friends as chairman of panels as well as members. The idea was to come out with reports that would indict their enemies and opponents.
Thus because of their hold on General Obasanjo, the Kaduna Mafia got themselves and their friends nominated to the CDC, the Constitution Drafting Committee 1977-78.
So they were the "capable brains" to draft the constitution for Nigeria. The plan was that from that first step they would move to the next until finally there would be a swap of power. They would be slotted in while their military friends would phase out. Thus their secrets would remain as secrets.
The plan was that the Kaduna Mafia would identify two people from each state and Yar' Adua would influence Obasanjo to appoint them to the Constituent Assembly as representing the Government. It was the group made up of two from each state that would form the nucleus of the political group that would emerge so as to throw their weight behind one of them who had presidential ambitions. With that achieved, Yar'Adua would then be safe in retirement or be subsequently appointed as the Minister of Defence.
There were hitches, however, that made it difficult for the plan to work and in fact it was those hitches that ultimately frustrated the Kaduna Mafia and exposed them. First they did not know exactly what to do with General T.Y. Danjuma and people like Babangida (at that time a Brigadier).
The Kaduna Mafia did not trust them sufficiently to expose to them the real plan. At the same time it was feared the plan would not completely work with these two people and a few others totally left in the dark since they too were (and are) Northerners with completely equal claim. The second hitch came when the results of elections into the Constituent Assembly were known. They were based on an individual merit, not political parties as there were none at the time.
The masses voted for their true sons as their representatives and the kind of people who won were not with the Kaduna Mafia. In particular, President Shehu Shagari was elected from Shagari in Sokoto and Umaru Dikko was elected by the people of Kaduna and B/Gwari Districts. There were many others who were of independent minds and when they arrived at the Hall of the Constituent Assembly, the Mafia soon found itself in disarray.
Even when the Mafia tried to steal the show by bringing up the topic of Shari'a, they bungled. Had the matter been handled with political sagacity, the result would not have been so humiliating to the delegates from the Northern states. How the Constituent Assembly was dissolved is another story, long and interesting but perhaps not so relevant to the present topic.
The mases voted for their true sons as their representatives and the kind of people who won were not with the Kaduna Mafia...
When ultimately the military permitted political activity and party formation, the Kaduna Mafia poured into the National Party of Nigeria with the hope and belief that they could wrangle the nomination of the party in favour of their candidate on whose behalf the Chief of Staff was almost openly campaigning. Luckily, the people saw through this and at the Party Convention, the Kaduna Mafia candidate came third. Alhaji Maitama Sule beat him to snatch second place, while Shagari became the NPN's Presidential Candidate.
President Shagari, with his style of live and let live, his policy of compromise even with a declared enemy, appealed to all to team up and work together. The Kaduna Mafia within the NPN continued to fight until their defeated candidate became the Acting General Secretary of the NPN.
Even with Shagari having bent over backwards to placate and accommodate them, they were dissatisfied and when the 1983 elections approached, they signed a secret pact with Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the Presidential Candidate of the UPN. And yet in the open they remained members of the NPN enough to prove to anyone the kind of people they were! Anyway, you should read what Chief Awolowo said about his brief honeymoon with that lot. His description of them was one of the most perfect.
So they were with President Shagari and against President Shagari. They were so good at this double game. They did everything to undermine him and since they were in league with some newspaper proprietors they had a field-day. But they flopped because the masses were and up till tomorrow they are, for Shagari, given a free hand.
One important and very pertinent question needs to be asked. Why did the Kaduna Mafia try to undermine President Shagari? The issue goes further than their fair weather arrangement with Chief Awolowo.
Why did this clique connive in the overthrow of a regime in which they participated? The answer in a nutshell is: Because they do not believe that anybody from the South should ever be elected to the Presidency of Nigeria.
The Kaduna Mafia became fully convinced that within the NPN, people like the President himself, Umaru Dikko, Isyaku Ibrahim and many others sincerely believed and openly pronounced that the Presidency should rotate.
They said that the zoning arrangement within the NPN must itself be rotational and that at the end of Shagari's second and final term, the Presidential Candidacy should move to the South. They maintained that the basis of coming together to form a National Party in Nigeria was to ensure equal opportunity for all sections. The Kaduna Mafia did NOT believe in this! In their view it must all the time be someone from the NORTH to whom they could cling and wield influence in the name of their selfishly defined North.
When they saw that President Shagari would not budge from his principle, they started their usual game. They began to spread that he did not care any more and so called their military friends to rise up in arms against the democratically elected civilian government of President Shehu Shagari.
With the overthrow of their man Buhari it is likely they would want to strike again. But the joy in this is that the present Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida knows them and we believe will be equal to the task, just as Murtala Muhammed was.
