Col. Tony Nyiam Photo: The Sun Publishing

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It is now obvious that the last has not been heard on the verbal missiles being exchanged between Major Abubakar Mohammed, ex-Chief Security Officer (CSO) to former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida and Col. Tony Nyiam, the most senior officer in the April 22, 1990 coup, which tried to topple the Babangida government.

Since Major Mohammed fired the first shot into Col. Nyiam’s court, hell has enjoyed fury and commotion. Mohammed had said, among many things, that the Gideon Orkar coup was doomed to fail, as, according to him, the chief planners used inexperienced soldiers. He alleged that Nyiam killed Babangida’s Aide de Camp (NDC), Lt Col. U.K. Bello.

In his first reply, Nyiam said he doubted the identity of Mohammed and wondered where he (Mohammed) was when the coup was being executed, if indeed he was the CSO to Babangida. The retired Colonel said that he did not and could not have killed his friend, UK Bello, adding that the late ADC to Babangida was killed in crossfire when his boss asked him to go and check the execution of the coup.

Responding, Major Mohammed said that Col. Nyiam was telling lies in his account of the coup in order to cover up the killing of his friend and colleague. He also zoomed in on the person of Nyiam, his alleged dismissal from the Army, the state pardon granted him and several other issues.
Expectedly, Nyiam has repositioned himself and fired back, saying that Major Mohammed’s interviews were not just falsehood but classical puppetry show. He cites six “verifiable lies” in Mohammed’s second interview, such as the grant of pardon, the name Nyiam and the issue of inexperienced soldiers for the coup.
Nyiam, however, dropped a bomb in his characteristic manner. He said that Gen. Babangida used U.K. Bello as cover for his own escape.

The interview, which sounds like a lecture from Nyiam, is quite a mouthful and qualified for what may be termed as fire-for-fire.

Major Abubakar Mohammed said you were telling lies in your account of the April 22, 1990 coup to cover up the killing of your friend and colleague, Lt. Col. U.K. Bello. How do you react to that?
I have about five verifiable accounts to give to show that Major Mohammed is in fact a liar himself. Historical events, shrouded in the mists of time, are often open to the misinterpretations of individuals in the present. Actions of time past are glossed over, distorted, and revised.

The bones of the departed are disinterred to score cheap political points; a sophist’s mirror is held to yesterday, which shows things not as they were, but as some people would like them to have been. It is obvious, from the second round of falsehoods put out by Major Abubakar Mohammed, that his interviews are becoming a truly classical puppetry show. In the drama, Major Mohammed seems to have been jazzed to become a puppet. Major Mohammed is a victim of hypnotism, being controlled by a puppeteer. Major Mohammed had better watch out, for they may turn him into a ‘kolo-mental’ after using him. This is what such evil puppeteers do to their victims so that they won’t be in their right senses to later realize or confess the abuses they have been subjected to.

Major Mohammed has been tuned into a zombie through whom his master can begin to absolve himself of his responsibilities or irresponsibility. What is being done through Major Abubakar Mohammed is another exercise in the recurring attempt at laundering the image of the self-chosen one. This is to enable the self-chosen one to start preparing to succeed President Umaru Yar’Adua. What we are seeing being enacted is the body and voice of Mohammed but the thoughts of his master. This clearing of the decks, in preparation for grabbing power will not work. The puppeteer’s surrogates are so arrogant about their ambition that they are already scheming, even with a president still on seat. This is part of what we are being ‘instructed’, through another proxy, that even if it means going through unconstitutional means, they will take over power.

Why are they publicly declaring how they will grab power unconstitutionally, when we have a president in office? What are they trying to tell us?
The crude tactics to use and dump Major Mohammed are in keeping with what they have always done. It is a typical case of trying to distract attention from the puppeteer’s real power-grabbing objective. It is also a way of feeling the public pulse. If it fails, as it is bound to, Major Mohammed becomes another disposable. Their tactics are usually predictable: diversion of attention, buying of stooges, leaking information about the government they want to succeed, misrepresenting themselves and their relevance to the intelligence services of the major powers, among other tactics.

Against the foregoing background and to put things in context, let me now point out the verifiable lies in Major Mohammed’s attempt to malign my good name. Let us again be clear. Major Mohammed is a puppet, one who talks and struts purely at the behest of the unseen hand pulling his strings.

What is the first verifiable lie?
Major Mohammed’s account of the events of 22 April 1990 is clearly that of someone who was not present when the things he claims to have occurred took place. Hence he churns out many verifiable lies. First, he lied that the grant of pardon I got from the Head of State and Commander-in-Chief was given when President Olusegun Obasanjo was in power.

As obvious from the Federal Government gazetted document, it was General Abdulsalami Abubakar who granted me the pardon. Clearly, Major Mohammed lied that I misrepresented General Abdulsalami Abubakar. As can be seen in the gazette, which is officially documented, my pardon, my name appears in the group with Prince Col. Sambo Dasuki and others. Herein lies the cold body of Major Mohammed’s first series of concoctions.

What of the second lie?
In his continuing effort to misrepresent events and personalities, Major Mohammed produced another lie that Nyiam is not the name with which I graduated from the great Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA). He falsely claims that I was known as ‘Anthony Nyan’. What he does not even attempt to illustrate is how I mysteriously morphed into Nyiam without anyone in the Army and the Ministry of Defence finding out. And what could have been the motive for the name change?

It seems to me that Major Mohammed’s handlers are inadvertently trying to ridicule him. I was born into a family with a long history and our family name for well ever 500 years has been Nyiam. My secondary school mates in the Nigerian Military School (NMS), Zaria can testify to the fact. My records with the Nigerian Army, the Ministry of Defence and the security agencies testify to this fact. Hence the presidential commendation I got from the only Nigerian Military President, General Gbadamosi Ibrahim Babangida and the Head of State, General Abubakar bore my name as Nyiam and not ‘Nyan.’ Clearly, this verifiable fact is another illustration that Major Abubakar Mohammed and his handlers are discredited witnesses.

Third verifiable lie?
Trapped in his inconsistencies, as all fabricators are bound to be, Major Mohammed first states that I was of the 9th Regular Course of the NDA. Elsewhere he asserts, without batting an eyelid, that I was on the 12th Regular Course of the NDA. The least he can do for himself and his paymasters is to chose one lie and stick to it.

Fourth verifiable lie?
Later in his most recent interview, Major Mohammed makes the claim that my graduation number from the Defence Academy was NDA411. This is an elementary matter: the number which he cites is my NDA entry number. As every worthy officer of the army, air force or navy knows, upon graduation from NDA, you are assigned a service number, not an NDA number. Major Mohammed’s language shows him up as unbecoming of a Regular Combatant Officer. What Regular Combatant Cadet Officer course was Mohammed in? No wonder he admits that he was a military police officer for 18 years and 22 days. It does seem Major Mohammed did not mature in the military profession above the level of a korofo, the type of zombies who destroyed the original Afro-Shrine and Fela’s original family home.

Fifth lie?
See the cowardly fashion in which he tries to retract the lie I pointed out in his first interview, when he tried to give the impression that Major Orkar was at Dodan Barracks/FRCN sector and that Major Orkar was Col. UK. Bello’s mate. See how he tried to partially shift blame for the lie to the reporter who interviewed him. Why didn’t he retract it if it was a mistake before I pointed out the lie or misrepresentation? This puppet needs a check-up, for he defends misrepresentation of facts. Does he realize that what you say reflects how you think, which is itself a key determinant of how you act.

Six verifiable lie?
Haba! Major Mohammed, how long could it have taken to drive from the 1004 block of flats just over the Ikoyi-Victoria link bridge, at past midnight? Surely, not more than 15 minutes; in fact, in less than that time, when there is virtually no traffic. Major Mohammed lied about that reporting in time for duty, which the exigencies then called for. Maybe if he was there on time, Col. U.K. Bello’s mortal life could have been saved.

A rapid-response-squad officer, not to talk of the Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the C-in-C, would have been there in 10 minutes at the very latest. Major Mohammed admitted that I may not have recognized him as he was in babanriga. That may indeed, be part of the problem; the babanriga may have sucked military professionalism out of him.

From the so-called CSO’s response account, it took him hours to rush to defend his principal. Major Mohammed cowardly dodged his duty, leaving Col. U.K Bello alone. The clue to the fact that Major Mohammed ran away from his duty is that he did not go back to Dodan Barracks hours after we struck. The evidence is this: the gate Mohammed said he saw taken down was only taken off well over two hours after the operation to exercise a citizen’s arrest of a criminal, the military dictator, had begun. By the Major’s own admission, you can see his incompetence and unreliability.

The foregoing compels me to respond to Major Mohammed’s claim about being the CSO. That office, and the duties it entails, did not exist before April 22, 1990. I still have my doubts about the veracity of this claim. The question to Major Mohammed is this: whose errand boy are you? Let your master and his proxies come out themselves. Let them come out of their masquerades. They cannot continue to hide in the closet behind your backside. It is your master that I will respond to if he has the courage to come out. Money, power and fame are not all. Defence of values, especially ones, especially the defence of the poor, the talakawas is more rewarding.

There is no point in having a dialogue with one who is putting on a borrowed thinking cap. I know your masters more than you know them: they will use you and dump you. Let me just give you one more chance to get money from your master by making this reply.

Are you saying that UK Bello was used as sacrificial lamb?
Someone, somewhere, including Major Abubakar Mohammed, is trying to absolve themselves of their responsibility, which may have prevented Col. U.K Bellow’s death.
First, as I will be illustrating, it is not the duty of an aide-de-camp (ADC) to get involved in the perimeter defence of the State House and worse still, far away from the State House grounds in the FRCN, as Col. U.K Bello was compelled to do during the counter attack.

If the CSO had done his duty, the ADC would not have been misled into the already joined battle without proper briefing. More than that, such counter-attack should have been in the first place coordinated and led by the standby contingent Presidential Guard company (in our case, at that time the standby Company of the Brigade of Guards) to be reinforced in the second phase (concentric circle of defence) by the standby Guards Battalion and ‘teeth arms’ support sub-units. It is the duty of these units to do what Col. U.K Bello was forced to undertake. From the professional point of view of those charged with the protection of the mortal life of the president and governors (those known in the USA as State Security), it is not the duty of an ADC to be running helter-skelter, some distance away from the very important personality (VIP) he is supposed to be protecting, as Col U.K. Bello was compelled to do that fatal night.

The same mistake was made by another course mate of mine, Major Mustapha Haruna Jokolo, then ADC to Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. For the avoidance of doubts, it is not the ADC function to be coordinating, let alone leading any team out for the defence of the key points around the State House. So, what or who was responsible for the ADC to Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida coming out himself to do other people’s duty? Gen. Babangida should not have exposed his ADC to such unnecessary danger. He should, in the first place, neither have resisted arrest nor, more importantly used Col. U.K. Bello as distraction, or cover, for his own escape. Gen. Ibrahim Babangida and his so-called Chief Security Officer should accept responsibility for Col. U.K. Bello’s death.

There is no point trying to frame me up and put it on my head. The intelligence agencies report, as to who, why or the circumstances Col. U.K. Bello was shot is there. It is certainly well known in all the reports that I did not kill Col. U.K. Bello. Let no one, in their desire for political appointment, try to put their commission or omission that was responsible for Col. U.K. Bello’s death on my head. I say this in view of the timing of the recent reported news of Major (Prof) Saliba Mukoro’s begging of General Ibrahim Babangida. This begs the question: Is there any connection between the news of Mukoro begging Babangida and Major Abubakar Mohammed’s attempt to falsely accuse me of Col. U.K. Bello’s death?

I would have thought that proper military police officers have some understanding of criminology and related psychological profiling studies? So, is he also incompetent as a military police officer?
Let me just cite only two of the many exhibitions of incompetence. A Chief Security Officer to the Head of State was woken up by an old man to wake to his duty when his services were most needed. General Hassan Katsina, who retired long before, even the Major’s seniors entered the Defence Academy, had to be the one to wake up the so-called CSO.

This is evidence of the kind of favouritism Major Abubakar’s controllers introduced into the military and which destroyed military professionalism. This is what we tried to arrest. With all the shooting and shelling that was going on, the CSO needed an old man to wake him up. Haba CSO! What was the so-called CSO doing that he was so fagged out?
I have many questions for the CSO. What was Col. U.K. Bello, an ADC, doing outside the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), some distance away from the location of his principal, whom he was not supposed to be out of sight at that dangerous moment? What C-in-C sends his ADC into an already joined battle and escapes?

The implications of these two questions are possibly as follows: If Col. U.K. Bello has been left in his primary assignment, and consequently duty post, he might still be alive; Has someone cowardly and cleverly used Col. U.K. Bello as a cover diversionary sacrificial lamb to escape; The foregoing reasons, plus the fact that those charged with the first concentric cycle line of defence of the State House failed in their duty, explains the moves by Major Abubakar Muhammed and his puppeteer to absolve themselves of their responsibility.

These are the people to whom Col. U. K. Bello’s family should direct their attention.
Going by Major Abubakar Mohammed’s admission, there is another case of irresponsibility of General Ibrahim Babangida for not taking proper care of those who spent day and night protective duties of the Head of State and members of his household. In Major Mohammed’s words, “they were giving meagre amount of money, between N500 and N1000, to these ordinary soldiers.” What an indictment of General Ibrahim Babangida, a man from a very poor background who became a multi-billionaire, even though his salary all through his military career could not have been up to N50 million.

By Major Mohammed’s own admission, the guards of the illegal head of state were not well motivated. The guards had low fighting morale. So, it was suicidal to compel Col. U. K. Bello to lead troops with such low morale to fight in defence of Babangida. Clearly, this is another evidence of IBB absolving himself of the welfare of his troops. This irresponsibility, among many others of IBB’s commission or omissions, contributed to Col. U.K. Bello’s death. If IBB had not usurped power illegally, the situation of us trying to arrest him would not have arisen. And Col. U.K. Bello would not have been exposed to danger, as he was compelled to by Babangida.

A question for Major Mohammed, as an officer trained in the management of human and material resources, what did he do about the plight of the soldiers he called ‘ordinary’? Driving about in fast cars, and putting on US $50,000 golden wristwatches from their ‘friend’ IBB, did not make them stop and reflect.

But Major Mohammed still insisted that the soldiers used in the execution of “the action” were inexperienced…
If you saw from Major Mohammed’s interview, he was even defending that the coup did not leak. Isn’t it? Now, could soldiers who were inexperienced plan an action and the security did not know, unlike many actions which the CIA and the M15 and the security intelligence are always aware of? This action surprised them. Can such an action be an action planned by inexperienced people? By Major Mohammed’s addition, he did say that the pin of the live battle tank U.K Bello was had been removed. Didn’t he? Now, will such an action be planned by chaps and they could penetrate and get into a Dodan Barracks and disarm the presidential guards? Is that by anybody’s account, the actions of someone who is inexperienced? I think the evidences are quite clear that he is the one who is incompetent.

He talked about your dismissal from the Army and that you are not a Colonel. What do you say to this?
No, I’m a Lieutenant Colonel and if he understands what he military is, when you address a Lt. Col, you call him a Colonel. It is the practice in all Commonwealth countries, where we got tradition from; so I’ve not one day claimed that I’m a full Colonel and on the contrary, if I may tell you, in most cases, I prefer to be addressed simply as Tony Nyiam and no more. I don’t need labels to be what I am.