Haldu Hananiya, former Nigerian Ambassador to the UK, gave an insider insight into the failed attempt by the military regime led by Muhammadu Buhari to kidnap an exiled Nigerian minister from the Second Republic, Umaru Dikkoin London.

Mr. Hananiya, a retired army general, now 80, gave the details in his forthcoming book, “All Eyes On Me”, a copy of which was exclusively obtained by PREMIUM TIMES.

The book is a memoir, reflecting the life and career of Mr. Hananiya. It gives the author’s account of the Civil War in Nigeria, the Cement Armada scandal, the Buhari-Idiagbon regime’s Executive Order 4 and the failed kidnapping attempt of Mr Dikko in London, UK .

The book comes about 38 years after the historic episode of Mr. Dikko’s abortive kidnapping in 1984.

Mr Buhari, then head of state, whose regime has denied any involvement in the kidnapping which sparked a diplomatic row between Nigeria and the UK, is Nigeria’s incumbent president.

Mr Hananiya said the incident was nothing short of a “heartbreaking experience” for him as the Nigerian high commissioner in London.

The former diplomat said he had to lie to British authorities about the “Dikko kidnapping affair” even though he was not involved in the planning.

“I was not put in the picture,” Mr Hananiya said, “but in all my interactions with the UK authorities, I have maintained that the Federal Government of Nigeria had nothing to do with the kidnapping. of Dikko”,

“I learned later that Lt. Gen. Yakubu Danjuma, then a retired officer, and Aliyu Mohammed Gusau, an intelligence officer still serving, and a few others were involved in the planning.”

The former envoy said he was furious at the whole incident and was under considerable pressure from the British establishment. “Despite my apprehensions, Mr. Hananiya said: ‘I had to defend my country.’

The former high commissioner added that throughout the period he was in contact with Lagos, then Nigeria’s capital, and could easily contact Mr Buhari and his then second-in-command, Tunde Idiagbon, “but it had been decided that I should not be informed,”

“When I expressed my anger at not being given confidence on the issue, they said they didn’t want me involved because of the office I was in.”

The Dikko Kidnapping Saga

In London in 1984, an attempt to kidnap and repatriate the exiled former minister, Mr. Dikko, is foiled by a vigilant British customs officer.

A controversial politician, Mr Dikko served as transport minister under Shehu Shagari from 1979 until December 31, 1983, when the government was overthrown by the military and Mr Buhari became head of state.

Mr. Dikko as well as some ministers of the Shagari administration fled into exile when the new military regime began to crack down on officials from the previous administration accused of embezzling public funds during their tenure.

Mr Dikko, who died aged 77 in London in 2014, has always denied corruption allegations made against him by the Buhari regime.

One of the most vocal Shagari administration officials, Mr Dikko, who fled to London after the overthrow of the Shagari regime, remained a top target for the military junta.

The regime pursued him, and in an unofficial covert operation, the Nigerian backed by Israeli agents seized him outside his house in London and loaded him into a transit van. He was driven to Stansted Airport, where he was to be flown as “diplomatic baggage” to Lagos to face charges of allegedly stealing $1 billion.

His captors handcuffed him, drugged him and put him, chained, in a specially designed crate with a doctor at his side holding a tube down his throat to keep him alive.

The plot failed when Charles Marrow, the British customs officer, on suspicion of foul play, asked the police to abort the trip. Buhari’s junta has denied any role in the failed mission, which sparked a major diplomatic row between Nigeria and Britain for two years.

Then-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher protested to Nigeria’s Federal Military Government over the abduction “which is considered an inexcusable, if not inexplicable, abuse of diplomatic status”.

‘Hard situation’

Mr Hananiya, the former Nigerian high commissioner in London, was at the center of the storm during the kidnapping saga.

He quoted an editorial in the Telegraph, a British broadsheet, describing the predicament he found himself in.

Whether positive or negative, any response from the Nigerian High Commissioner to the question of the waiver of the diplomatic immunity of the accused is bad for him.

“If he refused, everyone would assume that the Nigerian government was indeed involved in the plot to kidnap Dikko…and if he agreed and Nigerian diplomats were questioned by the police and then prosecuted and convicted,” the moral of the Major General Buhari’s regime will not be at a premium,” the Telegraph had said.

The diplomat, however, chose to “defend his country”, a decision that made him lose his post as high commissioner.

Frozen diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom

When Mr Dikko’s kidnapping failed, British police quickly stopped a Nigeria Airways plane and arrested four people in connection with the case. In retaliation, the Nigerian government also stopped a British Caledonian commercial plane carrying 220 passengers to Lagos.

The four men – three Israeli nationals and a Nigerian national – have been charged with kidnapping – a common law offense and drug administration with intent to kidnap.

When the trials were finally concluded, Alexander Barak, an Israeli described as the leader of the kidnapping group, was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Two of his compatriots, Lew Arie Shapiro and Felix Abitbol, ​​were sentenced to 10 years each, while Mohammed Yesufu, a Nigerian, was sentenced to 12 years.

The Nigerian and Israeli governments have consistently denied any involvement in the kidnapping.

The British government has also implicated two members of the Nigerian High Commission’s diplomatic staff, Peter Oyedele and Okon Edet, as having engaged in activities “inconsistent with their status”. They asked Messrs. Oyedele and Edet to leave the UK within a week.

Nigeria responded in the same way by requesting that two people from the British High Commission also leave Nigeria within the same period. Nigeria further requested the British High Commissioner to Nigeria to return to London while Mr Hananiya was recalled and reassigned to another post.

The book – All eyes on me

PREMIUM TIME reported earlier part of the book where Mr. Hananiya explained why the Buhari regime at the time hastily enacted the infamous Protection of Public Officials Against False Accusation Law, popularly known as “Decree 4” in 1984.

It was under the strict law that Nduka Irabor and Tunde Thompson – two Guardian journalists – “were tried and jailed for refusing to disclose the source of an article published by the newspaper”.

Mr. Buhari had planned to nominate Mr. Hananiya and seven other senior military officers to serve as ambassadors. But, in their exclusive report, The Guardian reported the regime’s plan to change Mr Hananiya’s name to that of another general, IBM Haruna.

Angered by this exclusive report, Mr Buhari applied the law under Executive Order Four to try and then jail the two journalists.

In the book ‘All eyes on me’, Mr Hananiya confirmed that “there was indeed an attempt to change my name to that of Haruna (another army general) as High Commissioner UK”.

He added that: “The Guardian’s story was indeed accurate and the journalists were not punished for a professional offense but rather for the embarrassment the information leak caused the duo of Buhari and his deputy at the time, the late Major General Tunde Idiagbon.”

In another section of the book, Mr. Hananiya wrote of the “critical role that military engineers played during the Civil War when they opened new roads, dismantled mines and built bridges so that fighting troops could move without hindrance”.

Overall, while “All Eyes On Me” may be the story of one man, Olusegun Adeniyi, who wrote the book’s foreword, noted, “It’s also, many respects, the history of Nigeria and some of the choices that have led us to where we are today.

Adeniyi, former spokesperson for the late President Umar Yar’adua and President of Thisday Newspaper’s editorial board, described Mr Hananiya’s book as “very revealing”.