School resumes this weekend friends welcome to #HistoryClass101

Umaru Dikko, died a few days ago aged 78. He was the poster child for corruption under the presidency of Shehu Shagari.

Dikko ran to London in the days after the coup that removed the Shagari administration from office in 1983 and got asylum.

On today's #HistoryClass, we will talk about the attempt by the Buhari regime to bring him back to Nigeria for trial. "The Dikko-Affair"

Nigeria, in the early 1980s was a land of spectacular government corruption, something that President Shagari ignored.

The amount pilfered between 1979 and 1983 is estimated to be at least $16 billions ($480 billion adjusted for inflation).

Attempts at audits died on arrival because of at least 8 fires at Accounts & Records departments just before scheduled audits.

When confronted with all of these stories, President Shagari pleaded with his ministers especially his son-in-law, Umaru Dikko.

However, Dikko, and other ministers, ignored the President. So Shagari decided to take the matter to God. God didn't listen.

Who was this Dikko that was so powerful that the President was too afraid to call him, his son-in-law, to order?

In 1966, at age 30, Hassan Katsina considered Dikko influential enough to ask him to unite the north after January 15, 1966.

His power was further amplified after the July 29, 1966 coup, as he was one of those who kept Nigeria together in that coup.

Then in 1979, he was made Shagari's campaign manager for the successful presidential campaign of the National Party of Nigeria.

His reward after Shagari got to power (in addition to Shagari's daughter) was to get Minister of Transport, very powerful then.

As an aside, during the 1979 elections Dikko contested for a seat in the Senate, and lost. Just note, he never won an election.

There were stories about Dikko's wealth as Minister. He once tried to pay an American contractor $500k cash in his house.

What is certain, is that in Shagari's govt, he was the be all and end all, the man who had oga's ear, who could do and undo.

Nigeria's economy began to collapse in 1981, and by 1982 was in free-fall with a lot of food shortages and some starvation.

In 1981, to stave off starvation, the importation of rice became a national affair, Dikko was made the chairman of a committee.

Well, the rice never got to the people, and there were accusations of committee members hoarding rice to drive up the prices.

One of the reasons that Dikko advanced for the failure of his committee was that Ghanaians had sabotaged it, so, Ghana-must-go.

In 1983, a certain MKO Abiola tried to contest for the NPN's presidential ticket, and Dikko forced him out of the party.

Following that, Dikko, in what is acknowledged to be Nigeria's worst election ever, got Shagari returned for a second term.

Finally, in 1983, the Shagari government was kicked out of office by the army in a coup which brought Buhari to power.

On his second day in power, Buhari gave a list of former government officials accused of a variety of crimes mostly corruption.

Umaru Dikko topped that list. He was accused of embezzling several million dollars in oil profits from the national treasury.

Unfortunately for the govt, Dikko had vanished without a trace. Nigeria recruited the services of Israel's Mossad to find him.

After as series of inquiries, the Mossad working with Nigerian intelligence decided that the most likely place was London.

In January 1984, a team of Nigerian agents, posing as exiles rented an apartment in London. Their brief, to hunt Dikko down.

About the same time, an Israeli team also rented a house in London posing as anti-apartheid activists, but with the same brief.

Finally, on 30 June 1984, six months later, he was located, living in luxury in the upmarket area of London known as Bayswater.

Immediately, Lagos and Tel Aviv were informed, and his, err, extradition was ordered. He was placed under 24-7 surveillance.

On July 4, 1984 a Nigerian Airways Boeing 707 cargo plane flew in with no cargo from Lagos and landed at Stansted airport.

The Brits were told that the plane had come in to collect diplomatic baggage from the Nigerian High Commission in London.

However, there were several Nigerian security operatives on the plane, and their presence was noted by British intelligence.

The next day, July 5, 1984, the Nigerian team leader, Major Mohammed Yusufu, drove a rented van to Dikko's house in Bayswater.

Inside the van with Major Yusufu were an Israeli doctor, Levi Shapiro, and Alex Barak and Felix Abithol, both Mossad agents.

That same day, Dikko had scheduled an interview with a Ghanaian journalist, Elizabeth Ohene, of the Talking Drum magazine.

As he stepped out of his house to make his date, Barak and Abithol grabbed him, Shapiro drugged him. It was done in seconds.

#HistoryClass101

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Saudi Arabia, Iran etc no get intelligence services, why did jihadist Buhari contracted Israeli Mossad

Bros how fha na
Abeg u no go complete am abi u open another thread?