10th September, 2023
Former Military Governor of Rivers State, who was the Commandant of the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), Kaduna between 1979 and 1982 and General Officer Commander (GOC) of 82 Division, Enugu, General Zamani Lekwot (Retd), has recounted his bitter experience during his trial for the unrest in Zangon Kataf LGA of Southern Kaduna where he was born in July 1944.
He said he was roped into the 1992 Zangon Kataf crisis by some people for whatever reasons best known to them, adding that he had no hand in the crisis whatsoever.
“The Zangon Kataf issue was just blackmail. Do you see a whole general going to the village to kill villagers? No, it doesn’t make sense. Even the tissue of the lies they dished out were not convincing. How can a general go and start killing people? I am not mad,” Gen. Lekwot said in an interview with Daily Trust.
He maintained that he was not even told what he did and how he was involved in the crisis during his trial.
“The military tradition demands that when a soldier commits an offence and he has to be put in the guardroom, you must tell him what he has done wrong so that he can prepare his defence within 24 hours. Nobody asked me anything,” he said.
He lamented that the then Military President Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB) whose promotion to lieutenant colonel in 1972 he recommended did not deem it fit to find out from him whether he knew anything about it before putting him to trial.
“Babangida was president, instead of sending for me or sending somebody, he didn’t do it, he is the only one who can answer this question. I have never offended him, there was nothing between us.
“During the Oputa Panel, even the Hausa people in Zangon Kataf, my lawyer asked them whether they had an issue with me, they said no. My own village is 14km away from Zangon Kataf town,” the General informed.
Gen. Lekwot explained the real cause of the crisis and how he was roped in and unfairly detained and convicted.
According to him: “What caused the problem was a market relocation. A day was fixed for the market to be opened, people started a riot and some people were killed. I was just framed up by some people.
“How did it happen? The late Col Madaki also came from Zangon Kataf, but he was Baju, I am Ityap. When I was posted to Maiduguri as Commander of 33 Brigade in 1973, he was already there. He was my brigade major, we worked together, we did things together. We used to sit down and talk; what can we do to help our people?
“So, really, there was nothing connected with me about a market riot. I had no shop there, I don’t live in the town, they don’t know me. People who did it wanted to hide the truth either to blackmail me or to implicate me for reasons only they knew.
“So, when we came out of detention, there was this bone of contention, some old people, after the riot, many Hausa people ran away.
“Some people said we lived with these people, many of them are offspring of Kataf women, we still give them our daughters in marriage, they have lived there for a long time.
“But for one reason or the other, some found it difficult to relate, they still carried that air of arrogance, but our people are simple-minded, we don’t care. So, to have attributed what happened to me was unfortunate.”
He gave an account of his conviction which he regarded as a charade: “There were two trials, the first one they framed up lies. I was never in Zangon Kataf town; the federal director of public prosecution came, looked at the issue, evidence was given, there was no case, so he took time off to go to Sudan to do some work. So, Justice Pius Okadigbo discharged us, but he didn’t acquit us.
“As we stepped down the witness box, he directed the police to arrest us again. We were taken to the Kaduna prison and new charges were framed against us.
“When the case started, our lawyer was the late Chief Ajayi (SAN). So, when the Babangida government saw that there was no case, Degree No 55 of 1973 was enacted, directing the tribunal to send all their proceedings to Abuja, barring us from appealing.
“Then the hostility of Justice Okadigbo, who appeared to be a hired agent, because he violated legal proceedings in court. He was supposed to be a high court judge. So, Chief Ajayi took him on. In the end, when Ajayi saw this degree, he knew that Babangida and his team had made up their mind to do us in, against the law, so our legal team withdrew.
“I was the first accused, I begged Okadigbo to grant us two days to hire another team, he said no, that we should defend ourselves. It was later I learnt that when an accused is standing trial for his or her life, that accused is entitled to a defence of his choice; where he cannot afford it, then the Legal Aid Council (LAC) can be appealed to. Okadigbo didn’t do any of these.
“The following day, the Tribune Newspaper carried our headline, “Zangon Kataf trials: Judgement without defense”. So, we were condemned without fair hearing.”
He was sentenced to death along with five others by Justice Okadigbo but the sentence was commuted to 5-year jail term. He was released in 1994 by the late Military Head of State, General Sani Abacha, whom Gen. Lekwot described as his good friend.