Abdulsalami's memoir exposes Abacha's inner circle plot against him and three generals

General Abdulsalami Abubakar has dropped a bombshell in his new autobiography Call of Duty, revealing that a powerful clique of military officers around the late Head of State Sani Abacha repeatedly marked him and three other senior generals for retirement and political isolation. He named those targeted as Lt-Gen. Jeremiah Useni, Lt-Gen. Garba Duba, Maj-Gen. Mohammed Haladu and himself. This is the kind of insider account that makes you realise how much of our history was decided not in official meetings but in backroom conversations among men who answered to no one.

Abubakar wrote that he personally advised Abacha to dismantle this kitchen cabinet, describing how the group shaped government decisions outside formal channels. He said the clique even wanted former military president Ibrahim Babangida arrested, and when Abacha asked what offence Babangida had committed, they replied that charges could always be found after his arrest. That line alone tells you everything about how power operated in those days — they were not interested in justice, they were interested in eliminating threats.

What strikes me most is the irony Abubakar himself pointed out: all those hawks who wanted him and the others retired ended up being retired by Abacha before them because they became a pain in his neck. So the very men who tried to destroy others were destroyed by their own ambition. Nearly three decades later, this memoir forces us to ask: how much of our current political dysfunction is still rooted in that culture of shadow cabinets and extra-constitutional decision-making?