In this second part of the interview with Kenny martins, he reveals how late General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and General Buhari resolved their differences arising from the 1985 coup. More interesting, however, he talks about General Buhari’s leadership abilities which he believes would solve many knotty problems in the country – the Apapa/Oshodi tanker drivers’ menace, for instance.
Kenny-Martins
Because as someone recently said, when there is too much smoke, it means there must be fire somewhere, an interview with Kenny martins would never be complete without the Police Equipment Foundation, PEF, story. For the first time, he reveals the details of a controversy that brought embarrassment to Nigeria and how it was discovered to be nothing more than scheme in high places to hijack the Foundation. For a man who had severally turned down ministerial appointments, Martins could be an engaging personality, even though you suspect he may be attempting to grandstand. To this he quipped: “Me! Some of my friends here know me and some even poked fun at me in 2011 when I voted for Buhari, that I was just wasting my vote because they were sure he would not win. I voted for him again in this election because he is someone I know personally and I can vouch for his honour and integrity. Everybody around me knew where I stood. I’m saying this now so that Nigerians can appreciate that they have a good leader”
Excerpts:
How the five PDP governors decamped to APC
It was on my insistence and Bukola was able to persuade the governors to attend the meeting in the Villa. There was an appointment to meet the President by 5pm. Amaechi led the team. I remember that meeting with President Jonathan and, immediately after that meeting, just as it is with most things around Jonathan, the next meeting scheduled for another day never held – they said ‘let the enemies go away’. And I said to myself, that this PDP is the only party that would be sending people away; and that the more you do that the house will become empty. That was the beginning of APC.
I used to tell them about the consequence of their actions.
Let me finish; in fact, there would be those who would think you are doing this now because Buhari has won; and that this is your own way of jumping into the bandwagon?
Me! Some of my friends here know me and some even poked fun at me in 2011 when I voted for Buhari, that I was just wasting my vote because they were sure he would not win. I voted for him again in this election because he is someone I know personally and I can vouch for his honour and integrity. Everybody around me knew where I stood. I’m saying this now so that Nigerians can appreciate that they have a good leader. We have failed repeatedly and we cannot afford to fail again, so, whatever type of sacrifice this man wants them to make, they should be ready to make it.
We cannot discount the concession made by Jonathan. This is the first time a loser would willingly concede at the presidential level.
Let me salute President Jonathan. I told those closest to President Jonathan and I made it clear to them that whether Jonathan wins or loses, he would still have been a winner – if he had won, he would be ruling Nigeria for 10years; if he had lost as it has now happened and he concedes as he has done, he would also be making history. This election is significant in many ways that some people are appreciating it.
Look, some people accuse Ibrahim Babangida of not being able to handle the 1993 transition but the truth, really is that it was the Sani Abacha group that held the man down and made it practically impossible for him to hand over. And I also admonished the late Chief MKO Abiola in London that he (MKO), Obasanjo and Shehu Yar’Adua would be lucky to survive Abacha when he fell for Abacha’s game by bringing the general to take over from the ING. Under Tafawa Balewa, we could not handle it. Under Shehu Shagari, we couldn’t handle it. Well, Abdulsalami came and did his magic but for God’s intervention, Obasanjo’s Third Term was something else. It’s always been like that. Obasanjo handed over from one government to another government. But Jonathan has handed over from a ruling party to an opposition; Jonathan’s government had all within its powers to force a stalemate; forget the consequences – he could have opted for that.
So when you raise the issue of why didn’t I speak before now, what do you think would have happened if I’d publicly told Jonathan to hand over after losing; or that Buhari was a very wonderful man? Or you don’t think they could even say they want to kill the man if he’s that good. I work underground.
When things are done underground it can be more effective.
Two things: How did you meet General Buhari?; then this talk about heroism and democracy.
After he was released from detention, I was involved in instigating a sort of party for him at Obasanjo’s farm. You asked if I’ve seen some people cry yes, I have seen leaders close to tears.
There was this day I woke up and at the four corners of my room I saw four heads, This was after we had bungled June 12 and Abacha had taken over – that too is part of the book I’m writing. I saw Obasanjo with a sword, General Yar’Adua with a sword, General Abacha and General Diya and they were fighting and there was blood everywhere. It was like a vision. The only person I could call was Justice Mamman Nasir, the Galadinma of Malumfaci, a nationalist. He was then the deputy chairman of the National Confab.
Justice Nasir confirmed to me that some Islamic clerics from Mali or somewhere were around some days earlier and they said the same thing that these men were going to be engaged in a bitter war that could break this country. He suggested we call a meeting of past heads of state and their deputies and work out a transition programme for the Abacha administration and that programme would be worked into the conclusions of the Confab report. He also said Obasanjo would sell the programme internationally and Yar’Adua, as the biggest politician in Nigeria, would sell the idea locally and there would be peace in the country.
He then directed me to convene the meeting and, with his help, that was how I got to meet General Buhari for the first time. I met Yar’Adua first; he and Buhari lived on the same street in Kaduna. But they were not on talking terms. I gave him the message from Justice Nasir. He agreed. A wonderful man, very nationalistic!
When I met Buhari, he refused to be part of the meeting because of the role he alleged Yar’Adua played in the coup that ousted his regime. He took time to explain to me that the boys arranged their coup, decided with Yar’Adua’s knowledge to make him head of state, and when they felt they did not like what he was doing – which by the way he believed he was doing the right thing – they ought to have called him quietly and he would have relinquished power; not to embarrass him the way they did, sent him to detention, messed up his family. So Buhari said with Yar’Adua, he would not be part of any such meeting.
I went back to Yar’Adua and told him what I’d heard.
Believe me, General Yar’Adua was almost moved to tears. He admitted that he was wrong and said he would make amends. I reported back to Justice Nasir.
There and then a meeting was scheduled for the palace of the late Emir of Kano, with some first class emirs in attendance and that was where they brokered the peace between Yar’Adua and Buhari. That was when I knew that here was a man of peace. He didn’t want the past to haunt him.
How true is the claim that it was a former First Lady, Mrs Maryam Abacha, who brought president- elect, General Muhammadu Buhari, into politics?
Incidentally, this again, forms part of the book I am writing, ‘The Nigerian project, My Testimony’. One critical area is the issue of General Buhari’s involvement in politics. It is something that has to be considered from many fronts and diverse angles. I do not believe that Madam Abacha brought General Buhari into politics.
Buhari chaired the first pan-Yoruba, pan-South and pan-Nigerian meeting; the meeting held in Arewa House, traditional residence of the Sardauna of Sokoto. It was a historical meeting which is what has given us the democratic latitude we have today which allowed General Buhari to emerge on the platform of APC. That is why I said he was a beneficiary of something he was involved in at the beginning. Nobody knows how God works. It is beyond man’s understanding. You can start a process, but you may not know how it will end. So, I went to Baba Adesanya, by this time, there were
already issues in AD. Bola Ige was already threatening to pull out of AD. Baba Adesanya and Afenifere were almost out in the cold. So, I told him why the party was going to break was because they made it a regional party. If you had stayed at the national level, you won’t have this problem
you are having because it would have become a bigger party by reason of others that would have come in and you would have diffusion of tendencies’. I told him this is what I will do. ‘I am going to meet Chief Awoniyi’. By this time, Chief Awoniyi had been thrown out of the PDP. I went to his residence. I told him Paul Unongo and others will come to meet him. I went with Professor Nwabueze to the leader of Ohanaeze, Dr Joe Irukwu, we all met at different times and they all took a decision that there was a need to widen the political space in the country.
We should not be restricted to PDP which now became what it is now. We should not all be in AD. We all needed a platform where there would be no issues. Senator Dafinone, Albert Horsefall, many leaders from the South- South, we all met at different times at the residence of Chief Abraham Adesanya. Then we all agreed on a date where the Niger-Delta, as represented by Dafinone, the Yoruba, as represented by Adesanya, Dr. Ghali, Opadokun who played a
prominent role in this move, would meet at Chief Abraham Adesanya’s residence.
We now fixed a meeting for Arewa House, Kaduna. A night to the meeting, Dr Ghali, on his own initiative, said he was going to call General Buhari to chair the meeting. So, we went to the man and challenged him on the realities on ground, we believed he was the man the country and world could listen to. General Buhari was the chairman of the meeting the following day where leaders of this country met. I don’t want to go into details of what efforts government did to make sure the meeting did not hold including blocking the road from Abuja leading to the venue of the meeting. But the meeting held.
At the end of the day, there was a communiqué demanding more political parties because we have the constitutional right and no restriction should be placed on anybody. This was the beginning of the formation of those parties because after that meeting by the peoples of this country, we then had to come a step lower to the peoples leaders and then go to the politicians. I went to Alhaji Balarabe Musa in Kaduna, Chief Gani Fawehinmi in Lagos.
I met these political leaders to invite them to Abuja. The people had spoken. Let us put substance to the pronouncement and that was how the first meeting was held courtesy of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties, CNPP, and we demanded for more political parties. But, government said no, so, we ended up in court. That was how government allowed us. But we had to start another fight on the need to register more parties. We went to Abuja before the INEC had to now register 13 more parties. Today, those parties are what you called ACN, DPP, CPC and things like that and General Buhari has become the president on the platform of one of those parties which he chaired where the peoples of Nigeria pronounced the formation of
more parties.
When was this?
That was 2000/2001. So when Mrs, Abacha said she brought General Buhari to politics, maybe she didn’t have the benefit of these developments to know what happened.
You work in Vanguard, right! That problem you people appear helpless about in Apapa should not be a problem for Buhari. When he was PTF Chairman, he called me one day and said he was going to do something about the flooding problem on that road. This was a man in Abuja. Before now, the problem of that road, from the Coconut area towards Mile 2, was flooding. He mentioned the names of the area and I was wondering how he knew the place with such accuracy. He said he would – and he actually did it – do a big drainage that would evacuate the water from that Coconut axis straight down to the canal at Mile 2. It was a PTF project. The drainage was done that time and it solved the flooding problem.
Today, it is the tankers. I believe as President and Commander-in-Chief, Buhari can find a solution to the madness on that road.
The Police Equipment Foundation, PEF, became a very messy affair. At some point you were declared a wanted man and it was even said that your were running from pillar to post, seeking refuge?
I never ran anywhere and I never sought refuge. Let me tell you, some newspaper publishers on whose head were libel cases have since come here to plead that I withdraw the case against them because they just rushed to publish and they libeled me. Your paper is lucky. I would have sued you, too, friendship aside.
But honestly, the Police Foundation is a total chapter on its own. The concept is simple. Some of us approached President Obasanjo at that time to say we wanted to raise N100b for the police. He said, ‘Kenny you can bring me the paper, but your magic cannot work because nobody will give police that kind of money’. And we said it was going to be a private sector-driven initiative. So, he said ‘let us see how it goes’. I met Alex Bozimo, the then Police Affairs Minister. I told him about it, he was surprised about it. He also asked how we were going to get it and I told him it was going to be private sector driven. But he said it will not be nice if he as a minister wanted to raise N100b and it was not taken to the Federal Executive Council so that others could buy into it. So, he drafted a memo and presented it to FEC where it was shot down. But the FEC said if it was a matter for the private sector, we could raise the N100b for the police. I looked at how police funds itself without government
budget in other countries of the world. Even in New-York, the U.S, government involvement in the funding of the police is negligible. We went to Ukraine and other countries. We first raised N750m, that is N10m each from each local government area. We bought 5,000 vehicles. We were entitled to 10% of whatever we raised because that was how we could run the programme.
This was approved by the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Police Affairs signed the mandate before we took off.
We were in the U.S., Ukraine, China, Poland we were everywhere and we were getting all kinds assistance from governments, presidents. They even wanted to site the rocket launch pad to shoot satellite into space, so we had the commercial angle to fund the police worked out. China was going to give us a car assembly plant for pick-up vans for the police. Then we raised 500million dollars from China, $1billion from Exim Bank in the United States. The bank gave us the first $100m approval. I went to the meeting with Madam Cecelia Ibru, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur among others. When we finished the meeting at that level, and they approved the money for us, we came back. That was the beginning of the problem. While I was away, this statement was said to have
been made by President Yar’Adua who had taken over, at the level of the National Security Council, ‘The foundation is doing all of these, see the vast equipment they have bought for the police, they shared so many to other government agencies. From their records, they are buying the vehicles half of the price of the invoice on my table here, so why not give them the licence to supply all the security equipment to all the agencies so that we can have efficiency in the system thereby saving enough money?’
That was what led to the problem concerning the foundation.
What, you mean late President Yar’Adua discovered that the purchases being made by the federal government was double the price you were buying some of the equipment and…?
(Cuts in) Yes. He was alarmed. He saw corruption in government and got angry.
I was in hospital in London when a friend called me to say that some people had met and had decided they were going to nail the foundation and that we were going to be investigated. I said, ‘If they want to close the place, let them try, if they want to investigate us, we are clean. If they want to fight us, we will give them a fight’. So, I came back and went to the I.G.P then, Mike Okiro, and said there was nothing inside the foundation to investigate. Then one Keyamo wrote a petition that we embezzled N300b when we merely raised N7.7b. Meanwhile, we wanted to raise N100b. There was no money like $300b – even if you add $1b we had raised from Exim Bank in the U.S. When we got to Exim Bank, they said, ‘Mr. Martins, your presentation is so wonderful that we have never in the history of this bank granted loans to arms-bearing organisation but based on what you have said on Nigeria and the need that we see, we are going to make an exemption’.
Not only did they grant and to be released to us the $100m on the spot, they said we should go and put our banking papers in order, and exactly two months later, it has never happened in the history of Nigeria and it is yet to be repeated, the president of the Exim Bank told the American Embassy that they wanted to come to Nigeria to visit the foundation, and they were coming with the seven biggest corporations to back the foundation and to cause some kind of economic revolution in Nigeria to favour our polity and the economy. They came. We hosted them with all those seven banks backing us. It was a historical move. That was why when Keyamo went to court, the judge threw away the case. And when the case was thrown out, the American Exim Bank Group sued the Federal Government for disrupting the deal and wasting their time to come here.
They sued the FG for $300m. We had to intervene so that the Federal Government would not have to pay for damages from our foreign reserves in New York. After the case was thrown out, Exim Bank now wrote us that they were reinstating the $100m and the $1b, everybody wrote that they were sticking to their pledges.
That was the end of the PEF?
Only God can save Nigeria. I was with Alhaji Jimeta Gambo recently where he treated me and four friends to a wonderful lunch in Abuja. Throughout the more than an hour interaction, he mentioned the need to restore the foundation four times and explained his regret for being misled by those in power then concerning the foundation. Okiro, by himself, may not have done what he did. We, inadvertently, attracted somebody to our foundation. All the members of Board of Trustees were my friends. Bamanga Tukur, I have known all my life. When I went to invite General Wushishi to be on the board of the foundation, I told him that we needed a national semblance structure that was globally acceptable. He then said he sold same idea to General Abacha while he was alive to help the police. Unfortunately before he could do anything on the proposal, Abacha died. Agabi, SAN, a former attorney general, was a member.
One of those I consider as my mentor is Justice Mamman Nasir. I was with Sultan of Sokoto then, Maccido, a wonderful man. For example, when General Obasanjo was in prison, there were only five people in Nigeria who could talk to General Abacha about MKO Abiola. They were Buhari, Mamman Nasir, Ooni of Ife who gave me 10,000 dollars to charter Kabo plane to take all the Obas to General Abacha to argue the case of the man that was detained. There was General Jemibewon. There was the Sultan. These were the five people I know. I am talking about what concerns me. So, that was how
close I was to Sultan Maccido. I want to talk while some of those people are still alive. People have asked me why writing a book now and I said it is better to write it now instead of 20 years time when there is nobody around. Let us write now so that those alive can corroborate it and it will be a lesson for all of us.
The MKO Abiola angle you just brought in now…?
(Cuts in) Let me explain! Chief Alex Akinyele was then the Minister of Reconciliation or something like that, appointed by Abacha. Abacha told Mamman Nasir to ‘tell Kenny to fetch Alex Akinyele’. This will be his first assignment as Minister of Reconciliation. I went to his house in Magodo and said General Abacha said `this and this and that you should lead the team to visit Abiola and come to Abuja next Monday, your office will be ready so that you can start your work’. He said `but I cannot find Kola, I can’t find Ore (Dr, Ore Falomo)’. I got them, took the two of them to Alex Akinyele. That was how we all went the following week and saw Abiola in prison for the first time in almost one year. And the man conceded to coming out on bail. But there was a proviso that he must, I think the late G.O.K Ajayi was said to have told him he should change it because it will complicate the case in such a way that he could not get bail. Abiola totally disagreed. That led to Abiola not leaving that place, and just as I told Justice Nasir that Abiola may die in prison, that was how he died in prison. Although some say when that bail was granted, some people in Ibadan, I don’t want to mention names, arranged the bail, it was arranged by Sultan Maccido and Justice Mamman Nasir and myself with the support of the Saudi ambassador.
That plane crash in which the Sultan died…?
(Again, cuts in) When his plane crashed as relayed to me by his son, I called President Obasanjo to tell him the plane was yet to be located and I said there were two helicopters in Kano that just arrived but didn’t have licences yet as they came to demonstrate their capabilities in the country. I told Obasanjo that if he could give a waiver, the choppers could join in the search because that was their
specialty, search and rescue. That was how they went searching. The helicopters were for the PEF. Look, on the PEF thing, when Yar’Adua became fed up with the problems, he said government officials should leave the police foundation alone. ‘These people are doing good job and invited some of you to come there and yet you are creating problems for them, he said’. Before we formed the foundation, we had already raised billions of naira, we already had the Ukraine helicopters I mentioned earlier, on ground. We wanted to do a demonstration on how the helicopters could go to the scene of problems with vehicles inside, from Eagle Square. Again, we were not paying them, we were to rent them and after seeing what they could do after a year, we may then buy them. We didn’t know that if you must fly the three arms zone area, you needed to take permission. So we went to the NSA to grant us permission, so when they started their katakata, the guys took their helicopters and left. Then suddenly, somebody said I stole the helicopters. Can I put the helicopters inside my compound? How could they be stolen? This wahala led to an assassination attempt on my life. And that was how President Jonathan, then vice president, helped me out. He was also a patron of the foundation. He came in and saved my life.
How?
When I got wind of my assassination attempt, I ran to the V.P. An insider in the plot told me that he was a Christian and that his conscience would not allow him, so he came out to tell me that there was a plot. He said the assassination plot was being negotiated in Awka and Benin. I published this as advert in newspapers. The assassins in Benin said no matter how much police protection I had, they will still get me. The assassins contacted in Benin was said to be asking for N5m. The one in Awka was asking for N12m. So, the Benin was cheaper. So, I went to the V.P that this was what I heard. God bless his soul. He sent for the D-G, SSS and said: ‘This is what Kenny Martins said. Go and investigate and make sure he is protected’.
The then D-G of the NDLEA was my witness and partner in resolving the issue. To protect his life, the man that gave out the information had to be relocated to Badagry. I don’t want to say the circumstances under which that man died, because they won’t allow him to rest. When it happened that neither the police nor the SSS was ready to arrest the assassins, I took my case to the media to ask, Who Wanted Kenny Martins Dead? That was how my life was saved. They wanted to kill me because of the Police Equipment Foundation.
So, when people say why not revive it, my answer has always been that when you make the big money, they will come after you again. Is it worth your life? I am not afraid though but is it worth the wahala? But as Bamanga would always say, he went to prison without committing any crime.
So, is the foundation still on?
Yes the foundation is on. You cannot kill it. It is a registered company.
All the funds you are talking about, were they pledges or physical cash?
Physical cash waiting to be moved! The fight really was why do you want to buy vehicles for the police? Why do you want to build houses for the police?.
They thought the money was there. Those involved in all the fight against us thought the physical cash was there and ready.
Look, I brought the Chinese Exim Bank, the Exim Bank of the U.S, the Ukraine, Poland, we brought all our papers with the seven banks that were backing the project, the construction company to build 100,000 houses in five years, to Okiro’s house. And he said we should meet in his office by 1pm the following day so that he could call the C.P in-charge. By 1pm we were there, he called the C.P who took over the 100,000 forms to be filled. But some people somewhere assumed that because they had the forms they had the money. While we were with Okiro, somebody was at the Magistrate Court saying I was a foreigner and I was taking Federal Government’s $1b and I was running away, and that he should be given warrant of arrest. As I was in the plane after leaving Okiro by 2pm coming to Lagos, they called me from the Villa to say the President was being told that I was running away with FG’s money and that he has ordered your arrest.
Even President Yar’Adua, later when he got the benefit of the full story became alarmed that which type of country is this. Somebody wants to help the system and it is the same people within the system who are trying to kill the initiative.
The following week when I went to meet the judge, he couldn’t believe it. He asked me, ‘you mean you are not a foreigner? But they came here and said you were a foreigner and that you were running away with Nigeria’s money that was why I granted the warrant’.
Nuhu Ribadu had thrashed the case because there was nothing in it. But it was to be revived by another regime. But there is hope for this country. In fact, the whole saga was an attempt to get at Obasanjo. Two young men in EFCC came to court after they had resigned because they were to be used to build a case against us and they knew there was nothing to be built.
By the time they came to give evidence as IPO in court, they had resigned from the EFCC and stated the truth after swearing by God. There is still hope for Nigeria in such young men.
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