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16 — Vanguard, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2022<br />
Bagauda Kaltho was not a<br />
terrorist<br />
Mahdi Shehu, one of the<br />
supporters of the<br />
bloodthirsty Abacha military<br />
regime, runs around today in the<br />
outfit of a ‘human rights activist’.<br />
I don’t have any problem with<br />
that; anybody can call himself<br />
anything he wants. He trashes the<br />
Buhari presidency when he has the<br />
opportunity. As a Nigerian citizen,<br />
he has a right to his opinion and<br />
in any case, I do not hold the Buhari<br />
administration in high esteem.<br />
Besides, when the Abacha regime<br />
was sending innocent Nigerians to<br />
early graves, forcing some into<br />
exile, looting our commonwealth<br />
and employing terror, including<br />
bomb blasts against Nigerians,<br />
Shehu and Buhari stood by that<br />
nightmarish regime.<br />
In the last fortnight, Shehu has<br />
gone on air to defend terrorist<br />
negotiator, Tukur Mamu, who<br />
the Department of State<br />
Security accuses of being a<br />
“logistics supplier, aiding and<br />
abetting acts of terrorism” and<br />
heavily benefiting from the<br />
proceeds of ransom payments. It<br />
is not my duty to prove or<br />
disprove such allegations. What<br />
is, however, clear is that Shehu<br />
and Mamu are part of a gang in<br />
alliance with Sheikh Ahmad<br />
Gumi, the ex-Army Captain who<br />
campaigns that terrorists are<br />
“are peaceful people” engaged in<br />
an “ethnic war”, and should<br />
therefore be granted amnesty.<br />
However, in campaigning for<br />
Mamu, Shehu tried to present<br />
the patriotic journalist,<br />
Bagauda Kaltho as a terrorist<br />
who, he claimed, planted a bomb<br />
in the bookshop of the Durbar<br />
Hotel, Kaduna and was killed in<br />
the process.<br />
Shehu claimed that he had<br />
been contacted by an American<br />
diplomat, Russell Hanks, to<br />
plant the bomb. He claimed that<br />
on his way out of Hanks<br />
Hamdala Hotel room, he met<br />
Bagauda and two hours later,<br />
there was the bomb blast. Shehu<br />
narrated what he claimed<br />
happened next: “Lawal Jafaru<br />
Isa (then Military Governor of<br />
Kaduna State) can confirm this<br />
– I drove straight to the<br />
Government House to see the<br />
governor. For what reason?<br />
Urgent security reason. I was<br />
ushered into Lawal Jafaru Isa’s<br />
office, and I told him what<br />
happened. The following day, I<br />
was brought to Abuja. I was able<br />
to see Abacha in his residence,<br />
and I narrated the story to him.”<br />
Before I point out the fallacies<br />
in Shehu’s narration, let me first<br />
state that I had known Bagauda<br />
as a young activist, and over the<br />
years when we practised<br />
journalism together. He was a<br />
humanist who would not engage<br />
in the mindless bombing of a<br />
public place. Secondly, he was an<br />
anti-imperialist youth who was<br />
Bringing back Benin bronzes<br />
BY AYODELE OKUNFOLAMI<br />
Nigerians received the news that<br />
Horniman Museum in London<br />
would be returning over 70 artefacts that<br />
had been looted from the ancient Benin<br />
Kingdom at the twilight of the 19th century.<br />
The expected return follows years of<br />
ongoing negotiations between Nigeria’s<br />
Federal Government represented by the<br />
Ministry of Information and Culture and<br />
the governments of Britain, Germany and<br />
a few other former colonialists that must<br />
have been involved in looting of symbols<br />
of our early civilisations. Personally, I am<br />
not too excited about it.<br />
First, there are concerns about the<br />
notorious maintenance culture in Nigeria.<br />
If and when these artefacts are given back,<br />
how decently would they be kept? Is there<br />
provision for the oils and perfumes that<br />
should be regularly applied on them for<br />
them to maintain their beauty and<br />
durability? What about the museums that<br />
would house them? Are they well airconditioned?<br />
Do the citizens appreciate<br />
such arts, or some people just want to use<br />
their political offices to tick some<br />
achievement boxes?<br />
The National Commission for Museums<br />
and Monuments, NCMM, Lagos revealed<br />
it receives less than 50,000 visitors annually<br />
with a little above 80% of them students<br />
and just two per cent foreigners. What this<br />
indicates is that, but for school excursions,<br />
a museum located at the heart of Lagos<br />
hosts less than 10,000 adult Nigerians<br />
yearly. One can only imagine how much<br />
less would be touring exhibition sites farther<br />
away from airports with much fewer<br />
populations and hotels. With that in mind,<br />
of what economic value would these<br />
artefacts bring to the nation when the<br />
inhabitants do not visit galleries? Would it<br />
not be better it remained in the London<br />
Museum that welcomes almost a million<br />
viewers yearly?<br />
We cannot separate tourism from<br />
aviation. The many troubles of the aviation<br />
industry where only the Lagos-Abuja route<br />
is viable will not help tourism at all. A<br />
nation where there are more private planes<br />
than commercial planes will only be known<br />
more for terrorism than tourism.<br />
For those Benin Bronzes and the other<br />
artefacts to attract the needed views,<br />
Nigeria needs to rework its overall<br />
infrastructure. It makes no economic<br />
justification for anybody to leave mainland<br />
Lagos to spend unpredictable hours amidst<br />
highway robbery just because he wants to<br />
visit some ancient sites in Badagry. Or due<br />
to an absence of high-speed rail, one spends<br />
over six hours from Calabar airport<br />
because he wants to visit Obudu cattle<br />
ranch. Or fear being kidnapped along<br />
between Abuja and Kaduna just because<br />
one wants to go and see Gobarau Minaret<br />
in Katsina. The cost of visiting a tourist<br />
site in Nigeria is no different from putting<br />
on generator to charge your phone. Until<br />
we make the cost of visiting our tourist<br />
attractions cheaper, more accessible, and<br />
safer, Benin bronzes and other related<br />
artifacts will only be in Nigeria for<br />
sentimental motives.<br />
Let’s even argue that the homecoming<br />
of these artefacts is for us to get in touch<br />
with our history. There has been calls for<br />
history to return to our schools across the<br />
federation. Lagos State Government<br />
followed up the Federal Ministry of<br />
Education directive with its recent memo<br />
for the reintroduction of History as a standalone<br />
subject in primary and junior<br />
secondary schools which was addressed to<br />
schools in the state. Besides the fact that it<br />
was lack of teachers that took History away<br />
from our schools and I am unaware of any<br />
deliberate attempt to recruit teachers for<br />
those subjects, history is not just about what<br />
children in their formative years learn<br />
about their land, it is also about what they<br />
encounter in their everyday lives outside<br />
their classrooms. Take Civic Education, for<br />
instance, which is aimed at the<br />
development and ingraining of national<br />
anti-American; so he could not<br />
have carried out a terrorist<br />
assignment for an American<br />
agent. Thirdly, Bagauda<br />
believed not in terrorism, but in<br />
revolution. Fourthly, about the<br />
time Shehu claimed Bagauda<br />
went to see a politically- exposed<br />
Hanks in a well patronised hotel,<br />
he was in hiding as he was<br />
wanted by the Abacha regime. I<br />
met him in a safe house in Lagos<br />
and he left for Kaduna in order<br />
to relocate to Abuja because he<br />
believed the regime would not<br />
expect him to be in the city.<br />
After stating these facts, let us<br />
examine Shehu’s story. He<br />
claimed that he met Hanks on<br />
December 21,1995 and two hours<br />
later, Durbar Hotel was bombed.<br />
My analysis is<br />
that Mahdi Shehu<br />
and his gang want<br />
to exonerate<br />
Abacha, Al<br />
Mustapha, Zakari<br />
Biu and their<br />
notorious killer<br />
squad from the<br />
murder of<br />
Bagauda whose<br />
corpse they have<br />
refused to release<br />
to his family or<br />
cannot produce<br />
In reality, the bomb blast at the<br />
hotel was January 18, 1996, that<br />
is: 28 days later.<br />
Shehu’s claim is that the bomb<br />
blast occurred two hours after<br />
he left Hanks and Bagauda, so<br />
the bomber was the latter. Not<br />
logical. It was possible for a third<br />
or even a fourth person to have<br />
visited Hanks apart from him<br />
and Bagauda. In other words, if<br />
someone had seen him, Hanks<br />
and Bagauda two hours before the<br />
blast, it would not be logical to<br />
conclude that he had taken part<br />
in the bombing.<br />
Shehu claimed he immediately<br />
sought and secured audience<br />
with Governor Isa and told him<br />
the identity of the bomber. He<br />
claimed that next day, he briefed<br />
General Sani Abacha about the<br />
incident. Going by this, it would<br />
have meant that within hours of<br />
the bombing, the government<br />
knew the identity of the bomber.<br />
If this were true, the same<br />
government would not have spent<br />
the next two years desperately<br />
trying to identify the bomber.<br />
Mr Umaru Suleiman, the acting<br />
Police Commissioner of Kaduna<br />
State testified that<br />
the stomach of the victim was<br />
ripped open, his legs shattered<br />
and face burnt “beyond<br />
recognition”. So, how was the<br />
corpse confirmed to be<br />
Bagauda’s remains?<br />
To show that Shehu lied about<br />
Bagauda: as at April 1998, the<br />
Abacha regime was still trying<br />
to unravel the identity of the<br />
bomber. The regime’s Head of<br />
Anti-Terrorist Task Force,<br />
Zakari Biu, at a press conference<br />
on Tuesday August 18, 1998 told<br />
the press that in trying to<br />
identify the bomber,<br />
investigators on April 18, 1998<br />
secured a statement from Mr<br />
Babafemi Ojudu, Managing<br />
Editor of The News Magazine,<br />
employers of Bagauda, on the<br />
whereabouts of the journalist.<br />
Note that Ojudu’s interrogation<br />
was 27 months after the blast;<br />
yet Shehu claims to have<br />
informed the government of the<br />
bomber’s identity just over two<br />
hours after the blast.<br />
Biu said it was from Ojudu,<br />
investigators got the address of<br />
Bagauda’s family in Billiri,<br />
Gombe State. It was from Mrs<br />
Martha Kaltho that<br />
and social values in children before they<br />
attain adulthood. These youngsters<br />
encounter a contradiction when the school<br />
bus driver who has a job to protect, breaks<br />
traffic rules to get them to school on time.<br />
Similarly, taught history will only be<br />
effective if these museums and galleries of<br />
diverse aspects of our culture and past are<br />
readily accessible and visible. London<br />
alone has more than 170 museums. What<br />
we have today is that even a visit to our<br />
palaces, one gets little or no exhibits of the<br />
history of the traditions, culture or customs<br />
they are supposed to be custodians of. Other<br />
parts of the world, visits to palaces fetches<br />
Since those Benin bronzes<br />
and other relics are of more<br />
economic value abroad in<br />
terms of people that get to<br />
see and appreciate them,<br />
and in terms of security and<br />
maintenance, I would<br />
suggest we left them there;<br />
leaving them abroad does<br />
not mean they are not ours<br />
tens of millions of dollars from visitors that<br />
don’t get to see the royals.<br />
The Whites are so good in keeping their<br />
materials that the British Museum<br />
displays only one per cent of what it has at<br />
a time. Do the maths. It means they can<br />
afford to keep 99% away from visitors. For<br />
a nation like Nigeria that is also, if not<br />
richer in culture to be able to do likewise,<br />
I propose that incentives and grants from<br />
government be made available for<br />
artefactual institutions that showcase and<br />
preserve our culture. This way, art centres<br />
would be a profitable venture for anybody,<br />
private or any tier of government, that<br />
wants to set up such.<br />
By the way, what happened that these<br />
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investigators got her husband’s<br />
photograph which Biu claimed<br />
was used to match the face of the<br />
burnt corpse. So, Mahdi Shehu<br />
lied when he claimed that the<br />
regime knew the identity of the<br />
bomber, at least 28 months before.<br />
Shehu emphatically claimed<br />
that the then Governor Isa was<br />
his witness as he reported the<br />
alleged involvement of Hanks<br />
and Kaltho in the bombing to<br />
him. But the latter, short of<br />
saying Shehu was lying, said<br />
last week he couldn’t recall<br />
such an incident.<br />
So, why is Shehu concocting<br />
such story against a selfless<br />
patriot who paid the price for<br />
democracy with his life? My<br />
analysis is that Mahdi Shehu<br />
and his gang want to<br />
exonerate Abacha, Al<br />
Mustapha, Zakari Biu and<br />
their notorious killer squad<br />
from the murder of Bagauda<br />
whose corpse they have<br />
refused to release to his family<br />
or cannot produce. On the<br />
other hand, it might be an<br />
attempt to link Bagauda, the<br />
pro-democracy movement<br />
and the anti-military<br />
National Democratic<br />
Coalition, NADECO, to<br />
terrorism. They can then start<br />
a campaign that anybody<br />
linked to NADECO should not<br />
be voted into office. Don’t<br />
forget that one of the 2023<br />
presidential candidates was a<br />
NADECO chieftain who later<br />
named a public office after<br />
Bagauda Kaltho.<br />
Whatever be the case, the<br />
attempt to portray Bagauda<br />
Kaltho, the fierce prodemocracy<br />
journalist and<br />
Pan-Africanist as a terrorist,<br />
will fail. We have civilian rule<br />
in Nigeria today thanks to the<br />
sacrifices of uncompromising<br />
fighters like Beko Ransome-<br />
Kuti, Alao Aka-Bashorun,<br />
Alfred Ilenre, Chima Ubani,<br />
Gani Fawehinmi, Anthony<br />
Enahoro, Dan Suleiman,<br />
Ndubusi Kanu and Bagauda<br />
Kaltho.<br />
artefacts aren’t replicated? Why are they<br />
not made as replicas even as toys for<br />
children or portraits in greeting cards for<br />
grownups? Did the White men steal the<br />
technology and science of making these<br />
items along with them? If indeed, these<br />
articles are ours in spirit and in truth, we<br />
should have been able not only to replace<br />
them but also to improve on them into<br />
more treasured items that would not only<br />
showcase our past but would be<br />
continuous commentary of our evolving<br />
civilisation and a peep into what our future<br />
would look like.<br />
Another reason I am not as excited about<br />
the returning of these artifacts is the way<br />
we have handled previous loots. Till today,<br />
Nigerians are yet to feel the impact of the<br />
recovery of looted funds. Who says these<br />
artifacts won’t be looted again, this time<br />
by Nigerians?<br />
Truth is that Europeans ravaged Africa.<br />
However, I don’t think playing the victim<br />
card asking for the return of these items<br />
evens up things. What we should work on<br />
is to ensure our present culture and<br />
civilisation should either be competitive<br />
or possibly overtake theirs. Although, we<br />
may argue it: Europeans succeeded<br />
because they had a superior civilisation;<br />
and to achieve a competitive civilisation,<br />
we must purposefully, progressively, and<br />
continuously invest in ourselves<br />
intellectually and culturally. In addition,<br />
the goodwill of our civil and traditional<br />
leaders would help citizens and subjects<br />
alike to help propagate and promote our<br />
customs.<br />
Finally, since those Benin bronzes and<br />
other relics are of more economic value<br />
abroad in terms of people that get to see<br />
and appreciate them, and in terms of<br />
security and maintenance, I would suggest<br />
we left them there. Leaving them abroad<br />
does not mean they are not ours.<br />
Continues online: www.vanguardngr.com<br />
*Okunfolami, a cultural activist, wrote from<br />
Festac, Lagos, via: @ayookunfolami