Chief (Dr) Sunday Adekunle Majekodunmi, the current Aare Ona Kakanfo of Egba-land and the Otun Ba’asegun of Egba-land has spoken on sacred subjects that border on life, medicine, politics and nationhood as he celebrates his 90th birthday tomorrow, Monday, March 18.
Majekodunmi, who is a former Chief Medical Officer to the General Officer Commanding (GOC), TY Danjuma, bares it all, leaving no topic too controversial as he weighs in on the current state of the nation and his hopes for life after death.
Talking about the Nigerian Army; the good and the bad, he said, “What I will say about the Nigerian Army is that not all the people that were killed were guilty of mutiny or coup plotting, some of them were just unfortunate to be there at the wrong time. I remember the case of a young officer. He was a night duty officer who went to submit a report but he was unfortunate to be in the room where the coup plotters were just coming from. They saw him and said he was among them.
“Nonetheless, the army is a nice place, you just have to be content with your life. Don’t get involved with stealing. There was one Major Yaya, who was a Kano boy under my command at the Military Hospital. He was a lousy officer, who didn’t watch what he said. He was in a Nigerian plane from Ghana with other officers and he was naive enough to say he dreamt that there was a coup and Ibrahim Babangida (IBB), who was always afraid of his own shadow, got wind of it from his boys. So, when they came to arrest Yaya, I said, the only weapon he had was the one he signed for at the hospital armory where we kept ammunition, so, he couldn’t have been planning a coup. Why would he? He was in the Pharmacy Department. I wanted to go and pleaded on his behalf, but one of the officers asked me to be careful and that I should not take part, because they had made up their mind on what to do with Yaya.
“But I still wrote something nice, because I knew he was naive. However, they didn’t kill him, they just retired him. So, what I’m saying is that somebody should be careful about what he says and where he says it at any given time,” he said.
On the information that he retired from the Nigeria Army because of the inhuman nature of Abacha, he stated that, “That was what capped it all. Despite how tough Obasanjo was, he did not joke with anything that had to do with welfare, same as TY Danjuma, Abacha was the only different one among them. I was not asking for personal money but money to treat his people. He insisted that if I did not move to Lagos to get the vaccine, he would put me on house arrest. I had to rush to Lagos to get the drugs and have it sent to his barracks.”
On the leadership roles of Obasanjo and Abacha in Nigeria, he explained that “Obasanjo was a fine officer. It was Abacha that sent Obasanjo to Yola Prison, but it served him right because he was the one that promoted him citing balancing being an Hausa man. All his report after training has always been that he was not grade-able.
“Abacha shouldn’t even have gotten beyond the rank of a Major. He was trained on lots of things abroad, but this officer was said not to be grade-able. Abacha and IBB did not like opposition, but I like Obasanjo for always saying what’s on his mind. He criticises appropriately.
“Meanwhile, Obasanjo comes from a very poor family. He never liked us the Yoruba people that were in the army. You cannot say this is what Obasanjo did for us because he sorts of antagonised us.
“There was this police officer who was a DPO at Lafenwa that had an affair with Obasanjo’s mother. But at that time, the Igbos didn’t intermarry with Yoruba. He was posted out. After she had the child, his adopted father now adopted him (Obasanjo). Obasanjo’s biological father was an Igbo man from Onitsha and from a royal family for that matter. If you see the picture of Obasanjo and the ex DPO of Lafenwa, you will see that they look alike.
“When they ask him, he doesn’t talk about it. You see some Igbo people like a former governor had once referred to Obasanjo as his cousin because he’s from there. Obasanjo left Yoruba people to Igbo land to go and campaign for Peter Obi at Onitsha.
“If you look at Obasanjo’s past, you see that he has been very fair, more than fair, to the Igbos. He went to campaign for the Igbo party presidential candidates at Onitsha.
“He has so many things that we know that he doesn’t like to be reminded of. When he was joining the Army, it was the DPO that gave him the backing and a good recommendation. That’s how he left when he passed his GC in Form 5 and he got into the army.”
According to him, “Abacha was the greatest problem Nigeria ever had. Remember I said earlier that it was Obasanjo that promoted him to Lieutenant Colonel because they said he was not grade-able.
“Abacha was also a good coup planner. You will see him on the television accusing the civilian government of neglecting medical care, yet he didn’t do better when he was there. He was a very wicked officer. He has a team of killer squad headed by Al-Mustafa. Whatever Al-Mustafa is saying, he’s just telling lies. Many people left the country through the escape route via Cotonou.
Abacha and IBB were not tolerant, and I think Abacha was probably the most dangerous of them all. So since the day he said that he was going to lock me up because I asked for welfare vote money to buy a vaccine for the cholera that was raging in Mokola Barracks and he refused, I knew I could not work with him. So when I knew he was going to become the chief of army, I said, no, I can’t work with him,” he reiterated.
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