1^st Assassination Attempt (The Kaduna Golgotha) conclusion

They were three men and a woman. I could see them approaching through the gate by the Sentry Post. One of the men in police uniform was carrying a riffle. The other two men were in mufti but one conspicuously displayed a hand gun, while the other had his weapon concealed, tucked in at the back of his trousers. Hajara, an officer under me in the Operations Department, was the woman. She led the way, pointing at my apartment as they marched with discernible urgency to the direction of the Senior Officers’ quarters.

An electric wave of impulse, a kind of prompting, flashed through me. The malevolent vibrations spewing out of them were palpable. I could feel them. Instantly I knew that they came with the intent to cause harm. On instinct, I pulled my psychic wrap tightly around me, therefore, not only was I completely obscured from their sight, but also, their evil thoughts kept bouncing back at them.

Hajara’s lips were moving quite fast. It was obvious she was saying something to her accomplices. The heaving of her large, amorphous breasts was without any atom of grace as she strove to move her corpulent body faster in her effort to keep pace with her male partner felons. She was swearing and pointing at my apartment when I got out through the front door, which was the only door leading into and out of the apartment. Securely I locked it. Briskly, calmly, I walked to Arinze Agu’s apartment door; turned the handle. It was not locked. I eased myself in, and gently shut the door behind me.

Arinze Agu heard the squeaking of his front door and came out to his living room.

“Good day sir. Oga Chike!” he announced in his usual exuberant manner.

“Come over here”, I said in a hushed voice, beckoning him to follow me as I led him to the front window.

“They are after me, and their motive is sinister”, I said in a low tone. I shifted the window blind a slight and pointed to the three armed men and Hajara who, were hurrying up the stairs, straight to my apartment.

 The loud banging by the men at my door soon attracted other Road Safety officers who immediately gathered. They pelted the intruders with a barrage of questions, and challenged them for daring to invade the apartment of a paramilitary agency’s very senior officer the way they did.

“Are you sure you are really police men?”

“Could you identify your selves?"

“Which police formation are you from, and what is your mission here?”

“Do you know the calibre of officer you have come to illegally arrest?”

“Can you, with such impudence, march to the residence of a Commissioner of Police to arrest him?” The volley of questions soared above the medley of other voices.

I felt like going downstairs to confront them, but an inner voice, firm and compelling, warned me to stay away.

“Chike, there could be an ‘accidental discharge’ if you go down there.” The inner voice said. 

The three policemen, overawed and shamefaced, left the scene with their tails tucked between their legs, as their leader kept stuttering incoherent words. Hajara, her head bowed, kept mumbling as she walked away from the gathered officers, many of who openly voiced their displeasure at her action. Later, in her statement to the Zonal Intelligence Officer, Hajar averred that it was the Zonal Commanding Officer, BaGo, who directed her to ‘arrange’ my arrest with some policemen.

Darwang, the State Commander, later informed me that someone must have deliberately misinformed the Police about my person. He had inquired from the Divisional Police Officer that purportedly sent the police men. The DPO apologized, and promised to bring to book, those police operatives who embarked on the mission.

BaGo was a bag of contradictions. The Kaduna Zonal Command under him was a perfect reflection of Nigeria—a sure reminder of the hypocrisies of Nigeria’s leadership. There was a screaming disregard for order and seniority. Some people from favoured parts of Nigeria could commit offences and get away with it, while there are some who are hounded, and concocted offences heaped upon them, mainly because of the part of the country they hail from. I occupied the topmost spot within the ranks of this latter group.

 

 

2^nd Assassination Attempt

The FRSC highway Accident and Emergency Clinic along the Kaduna – Zaria road was supposed to be our first stop. BaGo, the Zonal Commanding Officer, had informed me the previous day of our inspection tour of major highways in the zone to monitor the compliance of the State Commanders with the directive from the National Headquarters to ensure the removal of all obstructions on the highways.

“We will go through the Kaduna – Zaria – Kano route tomorrow; subsequently we will check other major roads. Ask the camera lady Mariam and Balal the Public enlightenment Officer to prepare. They will accompany us. We will be taking off at 6.30 Hours”, BaGo instructed.

There and then, I sent for the video camera operator and officer Balal and issued the instructions to them as directed by The ZCO, BaGo, in his presence and to his hearing.

“If you have any questions ask now so that the ZCO would clarify such issues.”

None asked any questions.

“Well then, let’s ensure we keep to time as agreed.” I said.

The next morning, with the exception of BaGo, the rest of us scheduled for the trip were ready before 6.30 hrs. We were all seated in the sitting area of BaGo’s living room. Several times he came out and went back into his bedroom or toilet. By 7.05 hrs, he came out again. Obviously feeling edgy, he stole several glances at his wrist watch. Balal quickly reminded him that we should have left earlier. I noticed that BaGo was indeed fidgety, as he spoke more to himself,

“I think it’s still too early. 730 hrs would be okay. Or, what do you think?”

We eventually took off by 725 hrs. Another surprise. Bago insisted we take a detour, to the Kaduna by-pass through the notorious Kabala area of Kaduna despite our spirited attempts to convince him to the contrary. All this while, he kept glancing intermittently at his wrist watch.       

Just as we entered the Kabala area, about a hundred meters ahead of us, Mr. BaGo spotted a broken down articulated vehicle.

“Stop! Stop behind that parked trailer directly before us,” he ordered Yinusa, the driver. His voice was laden with a palpable strange mix of impish excitation and anxiety. The rest of us observed that the vehicle did not constitute an obstruction since it was parked properly where the road shoulder was so broad that there was till enough space left between the parked vehicle and the traffic lane.

“Let me go and find out what is wrong with that trailer”, BaGo announced in a waspish voice, as he quickly dismounted from the Toyota Prado SUV conveying us. He was still casting curious glances at his wrist watch as he walked away from us.

Hardly had he disembarked from the vehicle than an empty fuel truck from the opposite direction on the other arm of the dual carriage way speed to an abrupt stop adjacent to where we parked.  Three men immediately climbed down the truck. Two of them were dressed in long robes—the type commonly worn by men in most parts of Northern Nigeria. The third, a much younger fellow, wore a faded muddy brown shirt over an equally faded pair of blue jeans trousers. They just stood there talking to themselves; looking more like they had arrived at an agreed meeting point to keep an appointment.

         “Why should they stop there? I will go find out why.” BaGo stuttered as he quickly walked across the road to where the men were standing, beside the fuel truck. Soon he was discussing with the men. They were speaking in low tones. I observed that BaGo was doing more of the talking, also, there was no visible signs of tension between them. Surprisingly, the next moment, we heard raised voices. The men were screaming at BaGo and he was shouting back at them. The altercations seemed like a fast-forwarded flurry of traded tirades rendered in what sounded like an uncommon Upper Northern Nigerian dialect.

“I just can’t understand what the ZCO has gone over there to do. The truck driver has not committed any traffic offence by stopping there. We have a long way to go, yet we are still in Kaduna. He should call off this trip if this is what it is all about.” Balal was visibly agitated as he voiced his displeasure.

Without pausing to think, I rushed across to defend my colleague—my Commanding Officer.

“Do you know who you are abusing?” I queried in a loud tone. “Even if you don’t know who he is and what he represents, would you not respect his age, or do you not have elders in your—?”

I had scarcely completed the last sentence when the youngest of the three men made a dive for my adjustable field-walking-seat-stick. I held on to it as he tried to wrench it from me. The second man joined in the struggle to wrestle the stick from me while the third ran to the tanker. BaGo stood aloof and watched us, an ugly grin scarifying his dark face with a darker hue. Then it dawned on me that I had been set up.

“Don’t let any one of them get close to you.” A voice from within me cautioned. It was a voice I had grown to know so well from my childhood—the voice of that one who has always been with me.

Holding tight to the handle of my field-walking-seat-stick firmly, I pulled hard, adding enough force to make my contenders resist with even a greater force. The third man clambered down the tanker and ran towards us bearing a crow-bar; screaming abuses and curses in Hausa. He was just about two steps behind his two collaborators, the crow-bar raised, poised to strike at me when I suddenly let go of the stick. The duo struggling with me fell backwards, crashing into their onrushing fiendish ally. The crow bar fell down to the ground with a heavy thud. This temporary dislodgement which my assailants suffered gave me ample time to dash across the road, cleverly avoiding being knocked down by speeding vehicles. Soon the man recovered, grabbed the crow bar again and chased after me, as he kept spitting more vile curses in that strange tongue of his.

Still running, I tried to manoeuvre my way through the cultivated median which separates the two sides of the dual carriageway. Mistakenly, my right foot stepped into a shrub-covered ditch and I fell down slightly twisting my ankle in the process. In an instant my pursuer was upon me. I was clambering to my feet when, with a triumphant animalistic howl, he brought down the crow-bar. In that split moment, I silently exclaimed the Sacred Word. Before I could finish pronouncing the Word, faster than thought, some strange things happened. I felt as if I was cocooned in a very subtle essence—a rarer than air, force-resistant cloak—an invisible, impenetrable ethereal substance. I could hear some people who had gathered around there scream aloud, fearing that the blow must have shattered my head. I also noticed that the crowbar bounced back, twisting my attacker’s right hand; falling off his grip. The hand momentarily hung there, arrested in mid-air. While all these lasted, Mr. BaGo was clownishly scampering about, speaking – rather blabbering in strange tongues interspersed with the word ‘please’. Yes, it seemed as if he was begging them. But I do not know whether he was pleading with them to spare or spear me.

Quickly, I regained my balance, darted away and jumped into our waiting SUV. Before I could say anything, the driver, Yinusa quickly sped off. About two hundred metres away from the scene, we saw a squad of ten soldiers. We stopped there and I straight away narrated to them what I had just encountered.  Immediately, the leader of the team assigned six armed soldiers to go with us and arrest the men.

When we drove with the soldiers to the scene, the men who attacked me were still there. I identified them to the soldiers as they smartly disembarked from the car. Straight away they moved to effect the arrest of the culprits. We were all taken aback when BaGo, in a swift, started pleading on their behalf.

“I-know them p-please.” He kept stuttering. “I-I am in-in control of-of the-the-the situation. Please d-don’t arrest them. Don’t. I-I will...”

The words died in his lips as the most senior of the soldiers fired a barrage of questions at him.

“Sir, so you know them?” The sergeant asked, a look of disdain and obvious disappointment on his face. “And you let them do this to this very senior officer, while you do nothing but try to pacify the hoodlums; now you are pleading on their behalf? Is that the way you handle such matters in your establishment?”

 

Incarcerate ‘Him’

After the last assassination attempt on my life, I quickly sent my orderly, Adams, to Abuja with a note reporting the incidence to the Director of Operations. He came back with the message that the Director of Operations has instructed that I should leave Kaduna immediately for Abuja. Still traumatized, I proceeded to Abuja, straight to the Acting Director of Operations office.

The Acting Director of Operations was busy at his table when I entered his office. Briefly, he looked up and our eyes met. I paid him compliments.

“Chike, you are here already. Sit down.” he said in a deep, mellow voice, and continued writing for a while. Then he looked at me and casually asked:

“What is really the matter between you and BaGo in Kaduna?”

 I narrated my experiences to him. He seemed quite sympathetic to my situation. I requested that I be given some days pass to go see my family and rest a while. He acceded to granting me only three days pass.

“Giving me only three days for a pass I would be travelling by road from Kaduna to Enugu to spend, after all the traumatic experience I have been subjected to, amounts to virtually not giving me any pass. Would you not instead grant half of my annual leave to me?” I pleaded.

Yet he insisted on giving me only three days. However, because the day was already far spent, I requested that accommodation be given to me for the night at the Officer’s Mess. He there and then sent for the Head of the Intelligence Unit, Officer Kin whom he directed to get me an approval note from the PMC, President of the Mess Committee, to enable me be accommodated in the Mess.

Kin soon came back with a note written on a small strip of paper folded over and stapled at the ends. He handed the paper over to me. The smile on his face did not look quite genuine.  I became suspicious. I pierced him with a gaze through to his innermost being. He tried to avoid my eyes as he stammered:

“Just present this note to the Mess Administration Officer, Simdi, he is waiting for you there at the Mess. He will give you accommodation.’

I proceeded with Kin back to the Ag DOPS. Thanking the DOPS, I saluted and left his office.

I could scarcely wait to find out the content of the note. As soon as I entered my car, I carefully undid the pins and read the note. My suspicion was right. The note addressed to the Mess Administrative Officer read:

Please incarcerate ZHOOPS of RS 3.0 MR Nwaka (AC) in the Mess, on the orders of Ag. (DOPS). (signed) PMC MR Bappa (CC)

For what offence would such a very senior officer like me be ‘incarcerated’, without any administrative procedure whatsoever? I knew that somebody had goofed. I knew that this would eventually turn to my advantage. I therefore made several photocopies of the document, drove to the mess and presented the note to Officer Simdi, the Mess Administrative Officer. He read the note and said to me,

“Sir, do you know the contents of this letter?”

“Yes.” I answered, in a tone of apparent unconcern.

“Sir, I cannot carry out this type of directive.”

“Why? It’s the PMC’s order.” I said.

“Order to incarcerate a very senior officer like you, without any prior administrative procedure? This order is unlawful and will definitely put me into trouble should I obey it.

  I left the Mess and put a call through from a nearby phone booth to MR Lawrence Alobi, the then DCP Fed.OPs. There was no GSM services in Nigeria then. When he heard what happened, he was quite furious. Of course he did not waste time in calling the Ag. DOPS and made it clear to him that even the Inspector General of Police had no right to detain an officer of my category without due process. The Ag. DOPs however vehemently denied knowledge of such an order. But he, the Ag DOPs, betrayed his ill disposition towards me by telling Alobi, among other malicious things he spewed against me, that I was in the habit of overstaying my pass, an allegation which is completely untrue.

The Director, Operations might insist he does not know. After all he signed my pass. Or, did he verbally ask Kin to tell Bappa to make such an order on his behalf? Did he put a phone call through to the PMC while Officer Kin was on his way to the President of the Mess Committee’s office? Is it possible that Kin knew the content of the slip he collected from the PMC? I couldn’t say for sure. One thing is certain however: among the three of them, the Ag DOPs, Deputy Director Intelligence Unit, and the PMC, any two or the three of them knew what transpired.

 

Bago’s Open Expression of Hatred

“Even if your mother died, I would never allow you to travel.” Bago blurted out. His voice was tinged with unmistakable evil passion. From his eyes spewed forth palpable streams of intense hatred. Then he cackled—an ominous, dark, coarse laughter which offensively ricocheted against the walls.

Those words twanged at my ears—they were the very sound of the devil’s bow strings—lethal arrow shots targeted at me from a mighty evil bow. My instinctive reaction was to unequivocally voice out my displeasure with him for showing disrespect to my aged mother, but as I made to speak, the words stifled my throat. A bottomless rage gripped me in the middle. I felt the blistering stroke of an overwhelming terrible hurt flicker and fall with every choking breath of mine. A pang of pain possessed my heart, seemingly squeezing and expanding it at the same time. Still advancing upwards, the pain, so excruciating, clawed at my pharynx as if attempting to stop my breath. By some inner strength, I found myself struggling within me for that self-mastery required to subdue simmering emotions in order to remain calm in extreme provocation. It was therefore with a great effort of the will that I held at bay the enormous anger brewing at the pit of my stomach.

“Permission to carry on sir”, I throated.

“Carry on”, BaGo blurted a tart response.

As I made to go, I side-glanced at his face—a momentous brief look into his eyes. A repugnant twinkle of sardonic smile, malevolent like that of insanity, glowered in his eyes. Quickly, he tried to stifle it as my eyes met his.

 

I had gone to Bago’s office to personally submit to him, my response to the query he issued to me on why I ordered the temporary release of  a junior staff he got locked up for more than 48hours without being fed and tried. I also requested that he approve half of my annual leave, to enable me attend to my sick mother. There, I met Bulus Darwang, the State Commander, Kaduna state Command. The Zonal Auditor, Mr. Vincent, Mariam, the Zonal Protocol Officer, and Amina, the Accounts Clerk, were also there.

 

What Is the Secret of your Power?

The ZCO, BaGo, sent for me. When I entered his office, I saw him there. He was sitting at his office table, reading through a file. I complimented him. Barrister Uche, the Zonal Legal Officer was seated at the opposite side of the table. I sat down on the only empty chair by the table.

“I called you to seek your advice on the recent misdeeds of the Jigawa State Commander, Fadogba. That is why I also invited the Zonal Legal Officer, Barrister Uche. Let us, together, decide on what to do. Do we Set up a Disciplinary Committee to try him, or…?” BaGo asked.

“Sir, I began. Last week, you asked me to make a written comment on this matter, arising from the audit report on Jigawa State Command’s accounts. I am sure I made an explicit recommendation in the appropriate place and the file was returned to you. I do not know if you have availed the Legal Officer of that file, for his input. However, let me restate my earlier written comment orally here.

“Yes, the State Commander made a virement without obtaining authorisation from you. However, I do not think it was ill-intentioned. Several months ago, he applied through you, for the supply of tyres for the only functional patrol vehicle in his command. But the tyres have not been supplied even up to this moment. If he had not acted the way he did, patrol activities would have been totally grounded there. I do not think that is what you want.

“I suggest therefore that the ZCO should just write him a letter cautioning him. Let him know that he must obtain proper authorisation from the ZCO before embarking on such ventures again. This remains my candid advice.” I concluded. Barrister Uche also supported my position.

“Okay, I will think over your suggestion.” He responded in a nonchalant manner.

“If that will be all, may I carry on, sir?” I requested.

“Yes you may. But, just hold on a little while.” He said to me, in a somewhat lowered voice.

 

“Kai Chike! After everything, you are still impenetrable. Please tell me. What is the secret of your power?” He gasped in obvious desperation, a capricious smile fluttering at the corners of his lips.

“I have never conceived evil in my heart against you. Only benevolent thoughts do I send out to all.” I said to him in a calm voice. My face held out a disarming soft smile as I bore through the core of his being with a gaze.

As I was about leaving, I noticed Barrister Uche looking at me. Our eyes met. And we beamed a knowing smile at each other.