Babatunde Bello-Fadile, a retired colonel in the Nigerian Army, claims former President Muhammadu Buhari threatened to remove him from the military over a 1981 letter.
The first military lawyer stated in his book ‘Nine Lives: The Bello-Fadile Memoirs’ that Buhari was the general officer commanding (GOC) of the army’s infantry division in Ibadan, Oyo state.
The former colonel stated that his first encounter with Buhari occurred after a general court-martial found some officers guilty of an infraction.
The then GOC allegedly ordered that some of the officers should be detained in the guardroom and others confined to an officers’ mess, he said.
He said:
“Those in guardroom then wrote petitions to the chief of army staff, who was then Lt General Mohammed Inuwa Wushishi. All the proceedings of the court-martial were reviewed, with recommendations made by Director of Personnel Services ‘A’ (DPS ‘A’), A Branch for final approval by the COAS.”
“The petition from those in the guardroom, which was sent to COAS, was forwarded to A Branch for review and necessary actions.
“Brigadier Shelling endorsed it to DPS ‘A’, Colonel Ode, who, in turn, initialed it to me for action. By the time I read the petition, I was the only one in the office, with Major Demsa as the most senior officer.
“I did a draft requesting the Division to send the record of proceedings to the AHO immediately and that those officers in the guardroom should be moved to the Officers’ Mess too.”
Bello-Fadile stated in a letter written to Buhari’s division that the officers should not be treated as if they were in “Germany’s gestapo custody” – which incensed him.
The lawyer stated that while he was summoned and waiting to see the army chief, Buhari went in and questioned Wushishi’s aide, “Is this the captain?” “Either I leave the army or he leaves the army.”
Bello-Fadile stated that everything was fixed after informing Wushishi that he had retracted the letter and sorry for using the term “gestapo”.
“That was how I was able to escape my first encounter with brigadier-general Muhammadu Buhari in 1981 unhurt, so to say,” he said.
The lawyer stated that years later, when Buhari was the president of state, he did not want to visit him at Dodan barracks, which was the seat of power at the time, and that he had to leave Lagos for Kaduna to pursue a PhD in international law.
