Hey, what has happened to the panel which President Muhammadu Buhari set up in 2016 to uncover those who assassinated Chief Aminasoari Kala (A.K) Dikibo?
Chief Dikibo succeeded the late Chief Harry Marshal as Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) Deputy National Chairman (South-South). And he succeeded him too as a victim of an unknown assassin(s).
His assassination happened in a most interesting time. Here we go, trying to recreate it.
Towards the end of year 2002, a bitterly fought PDP presidential primaries was just starting though only a few Nigerians knew it. And it was masterly plotted. The adroitly planned attack was two-pronged. While Atiku was on one side, fighting to be retained as Vice President, the late Dr. Alex Ekwueme, the Second Republic Vice-President to late President Shehu Shagari was campaigning too, to deny former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the chance to contest for a second term. Ekwueme had hidden his desire to contest for the presidency until just before his December 2002 world press conference where he made the announcement. The presidential ambition was so well hidden that not many believed when I wrote exclusively on 1st October 2002 (as Daily Independent went really daily and stopped being a weekly) that Ekwueme would challenge Obasanjo for the Presidency. Thus when Ekwueme jumped into contention, it was just less than 10 days to the January 6th, 2003 PDP presidential primaries.
When the fact stared Obasanjo in the face, that a majority of the governors were keeping the support of their delegates from him, the primaries were less than 48 hours away. Obasanjo had planned to dump Vice President Atiku Abubakar as his deputy. Seeing he was on the verge of losing his fight to even be re-nominated as PDP presidential candidate for the April 2003 elections, he returned to Atiku. It was a political masterstroke. Ekwueme had kept the position of Vice President open for Atiku, and if he refused, he would ask the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ghali Umar Na’Abba to team up with him to save Nigeria.
Fifteen then state Governors, including Delta’s Chief James Ibori, Abia’s Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, Adamawa’s Boni Haruna, and Edo’s Lucky Igbenedion, were in the forefront of the governors who wanted President Obasanjo dumped. The masterly campaign had been pursued most discretely and strategically; so strategically that Obasanjo had no chance of fighting back.
Thus, on the Thursday preceding the Sunday of the PDP’s National Convention and primaries, the Adamawa State Governor, Haruna, was at the Delta Liaison office for lunch.
“Would the primaries be smooth sailing for Obasanjo or would there be a fight?” I asked him. His cutlery remained midway between his mouth and the plate of food, as an up-beat Haruna answered that “a real fight is on”. As I was leaving the Lodge, Niger state’s Governor Kure was driving in. Ibori had become a rallying point, a point man really like a lead soldier in a military campaign; a standard bearer even. Yes, Ibori, more than any other governor had become an issue in Nigerian politics as at that time. He was the Governors’ Governor.
Then, suddenly, the PDP settled the matter amicably. The battle was over. With Atiku back on the ticket with Obasanjo, it looked plausible that not only would Atiku be a natural successor to Obasanjo in 2007.
Often, that is the story that has been told about that 2003 PDP presidential primaries, but one great man has often been left out in that intriguing story; A. K. Dikibo!
Until he moved, the situation had remained fluid. And when he moved. He decided the matter. As Obasanjo went around that Friday evening, visiting the top delegates, there was a great man by his side; Dikibo. But before Dikibo joined Obasanjo’s corner, he had told him point blank: “President Obasanjo, I will work for you this time. But this is the last time I will support you. Next time, I will support Atiku”. It was not Akitu that won over most of the Governors to Obasanjo’s side; Dikibo did. But then, Dikibo was also on Atiku’s side!
Hey, why would Dikibo have told Obasanjo that next time he would not work for Obasanjo but for Atiku? After all, Obasanjo was contesting for his second and final term as a President as the constitution did not envisage a third term. That implied that the Third Term was on and Dikibo knew about it and did not dance around it. He opposed it.
Dikibo was a mover. He was a lion. He was independent-minded. His very soul was bewitched by fair play. Hon Nduese Essien, a former member of House of Representatives (1999-2007) and former Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development under former President Goodluck Jonathan’s government, told me in his house one evening that were it not because of Dikibo, most South-South Members of the House of Representatives would not have returned. The strong man of those days wanted them to be kept away from the National Assembly. He mourned greatly when Dikibo was killed.
The late A.K. Dikibo, the then PDP Deputy Chairman, South-South, also stood solidly behind Ibori when some forces wanted to ruin his plans to re-contest to return to the Government House, Asaba, as Governor for a second term. One Thursday, according to what Dikibo related to Mr. Chuks Akunna, then a THISDAY newspaper Political Correspondent, Obasanjo called him into the Presidential Villa, Abuja and told him to go search for a new candidate to replace Ibori. When Dikibo asked why, the only answer he received was that Mr. President gave him a page of a newspaper containing an advertisement where Obasanjo was accused of sponsoring the ex-convict attacks against Ibori. Finish!
As Mr. Femi Oshuntokun, who was in charge of Obasanjo’s campaign organization then looked on, Dikibo pointed out to Obasanjo that the advert was unsigned. So, he asked: “what if Ibori’s opponent’s placed the advertisement just so that you would react the way you are doing now”? Immediately, according to the second hand information, Obasanjo relented and handed over the page of the newspaper to Oshuntokun, telling him that what Dikibo said made sense. Within three days later, Ibori denounced the advertisement and dissociated himself from it. When I mentioned the incident years later, Mr. Sunny Areh, a Press Officer to Ibori in Asaba told me that he placed that second advert. That was the quintessential Dikibo. If he had your back, you were well protected. He and the then PDP National Chairman, Chief Audu Ogbeh saw through the ex-convict allegation against Ibori as a crude forgery, and refused Aso Rock’s pressure to use that to end Ibori’s political ascendancy.
That PDP national Convention was held on 6/1/ 2003. On 6/2/2004, Dikibo was dead. Ibori had convened a South-South political summit in Asaba, in furtherance of South-South interests, especially that a South- South son or daughter should be President. Perhaps he was actually pushing for the Vice President position for the South-South as the presidency had been zoned to the North in line with the understanding within the PDP. So, he at least wanted to unite the South-South for that course. But would that course not be against the Third Term, which was being mulled underground by then? For some reasons, some highly placed politicians in Abuja opposed that summit. And it is on record that some of their South -South lackeys by then, supported Abuja. Not only that, that, a particular Governor had asked all invitees from his state to keep away from Ibori and his Asaba summit.
Yes, a state Governor had requested Dikibo to stay away from that meeting. But the South-South champion, Dikibo, disdaining that stay away call, was well on his way to the summit when some people ensured he was unable to disobey that Governor’s orders. He had flown into Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, hopped into a car to make it to Asaba by road. The assassins killed more than Dikibo that day; they killed the last real push of the peoples of the Niger Delta region to peacefully speak with one voice in seeking for increased monies that accrue to the area as a percentage of the federation’s royalty.
A day or two after Dikibo was assassinated, Obasanjo announced in Lagos that Dikibo was felled by armed robbers. That may have been the case…but the man was shot execution style; the bullet entered from beneath the right hand side of his jaw, escaped from his head and hit the roof of his car. It is curious how armed robbers could have so shot a man who refused to stop for them on the highway. They should have shot straight and hit his face.
In a letter from Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, now a Senator, to Obasanjo, Kalu recalled: “I am further worried because the late A.K. Dikibo complained to Governor DSP Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa State and myself at the Port Harcourt Airport three days before his brutal assassination that some powerful persons in the Presidency and a governor from one of the South- South states of the country were planning to kill him. Though he looked ruffled and agitated, we never knew his death was imminent”. Kalu wrote to inform him that some people were also after his own life.
No wonder Ogbeh, when he was PDP National Chairman wrote that a nest of killers existed in the polity. He addressed his letter to President Obasanjo!
