*Put a lie on claim on TV show that The News correspondent was a terrorist
Contrary to claims by Mr Mahdi Shehu, a self-acclaimed rights activist, late pro-democracy journalist, Mr Bagauda Kaltho was not a terrorist and certainly not behind the Kaduna bomb blast, according to human rights activist, Mr Owei Lakemfa.
Mr Shehu Mahdi had in a recent interview on Arise TV called the late Bagauda Kaltho a terrorist.
In defence of arrested terrorist negotiator, Tukur Mamu, Mr Shehu presented the patriotic journalist, Bagauda Kaltho as a terrorist who, he claimed, planted a bomb in the bookshop of the Durbar Hotel, Kaduna and was killed in the process.
But in well articulated reactions, Mr Owei Lakemfa, supported by Mr Femi Falana and Femi Aborishade, dismissed Mr Shehu’s claims, noting that Mr Bagauda Kaltho was not a terrorist.
They said the late journalist and pro-democracy activist was a patriotic Nigerian who was not known to associate with questionable characters, hence he could not have been linked to any terrorist group or individuals.
Dismissing Mr Shehu’s lies, Mr Owei noted, in a recent article that “I had known Bagauda as a young activist, and over the years when we practised journalism together. He was a humanist who would not engage in the mindless bombing of a public place.
“Secondly, he was an anti-imperialist youth who was anti-American; so he could not have carried out a terrorist assignment for an American agent. Thirdly, Bagauda believed not in terrorism, but in revolution.”
Shehu had claimed in the interview that he was contacted by an American diplomat, Russell Hanks, to plant the bomb but he declined and on his way out of Hank’s Hamdala Hotel room, he met Bagauda and two hours later, there was the bomb blast.
Shehu went further to narrate what he claimed happened next, that he drove straight to see the Military Administrator of Kaduna State, Lawal Jafaru Isa, at government House and was ushered into his office, and he told him what happened.
He added that the following day, he was taken to Abuja and he saw Abacha at his residence where he narrated the story to him.
Owei said in his article that the claim that Bagauda went to the American diplomat at Hamdala Hotel is wrong because Mr Bagauda was in hiding at the time and couldn’t have gone to see the diplomat in a such a public place.
Examining Shehu’s story, Mr Owei said “Shehu claimed that he met Hanks on December 21, 1995 and two hours later, Durbar Hotel was bombed. In reality, the bomb blast at the hotel was January 18, 1996, that is: 28 days later.”
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“Shehu’s claim is that the bomb blast occurred two hours after he left Hanks and Bagauda, so the bomber was the latter. Not logical. It was possible for a third or even a fourth person to have visited Hanks apart from him and Bagauda.
“In other words, if someone had seen him, Hanks and Bagauda two hours before the blast, it would not be logical to conclude that he had taken part in the bombing”, he added.
On the claim that Mr Bagauda had been identified as the mastermind of the bomb blast, Owei said “if this were true, the same government would not have spent the next two years trying to identify the bomber.”
To show that Shehu lied about Bagauda, Owei noted that “as at April 1998, the Abacha regime was still trying to unravel the identity of the bomber.”
He said “the regime’s Head of Anti-Terrorist Task Force, Zakari Biu, at a press conference on Tuesday August 18, 1998 told the press that in trying to identify the bomber, investigators on April 18, 1998 secured a statement from Mr Babafemi Ojudu, Managing Editor of The News Magazine, employers of Bagauda, on the whereabouts of the journalist.”
Owei added that “Ojudu’s interrogation was 27 months after the blast, yet Shehu claims to have informed the government of the bomber’s identity just over two hours after the blast.”
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“Biu said it was from Ojudu investigators got the address of Bagauda’s family in Billiri, Gombe State. It was from Mrs Martha Kaltho that investigators got her husband’s photograph which Biu claimed was used to match the face of the burnt corpse. So, Mahdi Shehu lied when he claimed that the regime knew the identity of the bomber, at least 28 months before,” he added.
Owei further stated that Shehu’s claim that he reported the alleged involvement of Hanks and Kaltho in the bombing was recently dismissed by Isa, saying he couldn’t recall such an incident.
Owei also noted that “whatever be the case, the attempt to portray Bagauda Kaltho, the fierce pro-democracy journalist and Pan-Africanist as a terrorist, will fail.”
He recalled the contributions and sacrifices of Kaltho and other uncompromising fighters like Beko Ransome-Kuti, Alao Aka-Bashorun, Alfred Ilenre, Chima Ubani, Gani Fawehinmi, Anthony Enahoro, Dan Suleiman and Ndubusi Kanu to the civilian rule in Nigeria today.