Memo to Sambo Dasuki on Alex Badeh by YAShuaib News

Memo to Sambo Dasuki

Memo to Sambo Dasuki on Alex Badeh by
YAShuaib

Dear Colonel Sambo Dasuki (rtd.),

As you spend your third year in illegal detention since December
2015, I am using this memo to intimate you about the brutal
assassination of former Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Alex
Badeh by gunmen along the Keffi-Abuja Highway. He was expected to
open his defence next month January 16, 2019 in the trial of
alleged criminal breach of trust.

You will recall your chance meeting with Badeh at the Federal
High Court when you appeared to testify in Olisah Metuh’s case
before Justice Okon Abang. You may also recall my exchange with the
late Badeh, when I challenged him for not talking to the press
about his achievements while in office. He retorted about how a
section of the media had quoted him out of context and
misrepresented the content of his valedictory speech, pertaining to
his stewardship as Chief of Air Staff and Chief of Defence Staff,
in 2015.

You may further vividly recall his statement on using the
opportunity of his defence in court to provide facts, figures and
material evidence on the military acquisitions, sophisticated
training of troops and the success of counter-insurgency
operations, as carried out during the tenure of former President
Goodluck Jonathan.

We sympathized with him when he bitterly lamented that his
family was being humiliated and persecuted, while his assets had
been confiscated, bank accounts frozen, pilot flying license
blacklisted, pension blocked, and how he was being criminalized
through the deliberate malicious campaign of the current
government, despite his meritorious service to the nation.

Unfortunately, many Nigerians are not aware that, Badeh, a son
of a peasant farmer, was commissioned a pilot in 1979 and had flown
many Head of States, including former UN scribe, Kofi Annan,
Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, after comprehensive
checks on his competence and integrity by intelligence service
agents.

As Chief of Air Staff, Badeh initiated the programme on
Optimising Local Engineering (OLE) to focus on developing
indigenous Unarmed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and other weapon systems
for his fatherland. And, his initiatives had resulted in the first
locally produced drone in Nigeria under AMEBO project, known as
GULMA, which allowed the Air Force to survey and carry out attacks
against criminal elements and terrorists remotely, without putting
the lives of pilots at risk. He also initiated and completed the
NAF hangar in Yola Airport and other infrastructure, while paying
keen attention to improving staff welfare. In fact, he ensured all
personnel who had kids in the Air Force primary and secondary
schools got free tuitions.

As the CDS, Badeh completed the Armed Forces DNA Laboratory and
constructed the Defence Headquarters (DHQ) extension complex fitted
with a sophisticated joint operations room. He also established the
Armed Forces Radio Broadcasting Station and Defence Space Agency
(now known as the Defence Space Administration (DSA), apart from
commissioning several gun boats in the Niger Delta region.

On counter-insurgency campaigns, he was one of the arrow-heads
in the formation and adequate funding of the Multi-National Joint
Task Force (MNJTF) through the Office of the National Security
Adviser (ONSA), when our neighbours were reluctant in fighting the
scourge of Boko Haram. He was also instrumental in strategies of
saving the lives of our pilots and preventing the crash of fighter
aircrafts in the North-East, due to inexperienced pilots engaged in
guerrilla warfare.

In fact, in collaboration with your office as NSA, Badeh devised
the strategies of deploying the services of highly skilled and
experienced foreign technical advisers who some refer to as
‘professional mercenaries’ to help with air operations, while
Nigerian troops complete the ground operations in eliminating Boko
Haram terrorists.

Before the handover to President Muhammadu Buhari in May 2015,
there was incontrovertible evidence of several towns that had been
liberated from Boko Haram terrorists, including Abadam, Askira,
Baga, Bama, Bara, Buni Yadi, Damboa, Dikwa, Gamboru-Ngala, Goniri,
Gujba, Gulag, Gulani, and Gwoza. Also, Hong, Kala Balge, Konduga,
Kukawa, Marte, Madagali, Michika, Monguno, Mubi, Vimtim, among
others.

The late CDS BAdeh was billed to open his defence on January 16,
2019 before Justice Abang, but the unfortunate swiftness of
untimely death could not make this a reality. We are aware that he
intended to use the occasion to list the concrete achievements of
the previous administration in military acquisitions, the training
of staffs, and how some top classified operations were undertaken
in the national and security interests.

I am very sure the late Alex Badeh would have used the
opportunity of his defence to expose the hypocrisy of the AVM Jon
Ode-led Presidential Arms Panel, whose members were involved in the
illegal extortion of officers under probe. It was the Department of
State Security Services (DSS) that painstakingly and courageously
raided the residence of a member of the same probe panel, where
illegal firearms, exotic automobiles, foreign and local currencies
were recovered.

Before the Jon-ode probe panel was abruptly disbanded by the
government, it only succeeded in shamelessly exposing the Nigerian
Air Force (NAF) to public ridicule by portraying former Air Force
chiefs (Umar Dikko, Badeh, Amosu etc) as being the most corrupt on
the basis of frivolous and baseless allegations. In fact, AVM
Alkali Mamu, who was prematurely retired on the basis of similar
baseless indictments by the panel, has been vindicated by a court,
with his innocence affirmed. The composition of that probe panel
only served the narrow, mean and self-serving agenda of vested
interests, which sought to rubbish the integrity of military and
intelligence services by their assignment.

Not minding the fact that some appointments were not merited,
President Buhari can be applauded for some of his foresight on
sensitive assignments that require adequate intelligence
gathering.. For instance, the appointment of Army Chief Gen. Tukuru
Buratai, the National Security Adviser, Mohammed Monguno and
anti-corruption boss, Ibrahim Magu, all from Borno State, can be
considered as desirable in engaging the required intelligence
people, in a State that is war-stricken by acts of terrorism. Even,
though the terrorists are still operating in that axis despite
these deliberate appointments, some searchlight should be beamed on
the recent setback whereby several troops were ambushed and
eliminated in that region.

I should not end this memo without appreciating the opportunity
you gave me after I was prematurely retired from public service
over my article against nepotism, when Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was
Finance Minister. As the National Security Adviser, you appointed
me to render services to this country as a crisis communication
consultant to security agencies. Undoubtedly, the professional
interventions have fetched our organisation, PRNigeria continental
and global PR awards and recognition on crisis management despite
lack of patronages from the current system. I will forever remain
grateful for that opportunity.

Meanwhile, it may interest you to note that a short while back,
an industrial court ordered my reinstatement into the service and
the payment of my remuneration for the last five years while I was
on malicious retirement. Surprisingly, I also recently discovered
that the Information Minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who I had
initially thought was against my reinstatement, was actually the
one who instructed the Ministry on several occasions since last
year to obey the order of the court on my reinstatement.

I pray the larger administration of President Muhammadu Buhari
would emulate Mr. Lai Mohammed in instructing your release from
detention, since at least six courts of competent jurisdiction have
given the orders, even though the judges have not been courageous
enough to enforce their judgments.

If President Buhari could not consider your relationship with
him before you joined the Jonathan administration, he should
consider the situation you met on the ground when you were
appointed NSA in June 2012 and what it had become by the time you
left the office in July 2015 when terrorists could not disrupt the
national election.

I also wish you Happy Birthday, the third in illegal detention.
And a Happy New Year in advance.

Yushau A. Shuaib
Author, An Encounter with the Spymaster
www.YAShuaib.com
[email protected]^[1]