Capt Sagir Koli, until a few weeks ago, was known to a few in the military intelligence circle, his family, colleagues at the 32 Artillery Brigade in Akure, the Ondo State capital, schoolmates and friends. But all that changed when he revealed a secret recording of the involvement of the military high command in ensuring victory for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Ekiti State governorship election.
The recording was done on June 20, a day to the election. He was drafted again to be part of the efforts to allegedly rig the Osun State governorship election last August. Then he made up his mind to let the cat out of the bag. His superior suspected he had something up his sleeves and started threatening him. It got to a head when he was tipped off about the plan to arrest him. He fled. In this exclusive interview with The Nation from his hideout, Koli, a graduate of Sociology from the Bayero University, Kano who voluntarily joined the military in 2005, laid bare the truth about how civilian authorities turned the military into a partisan institution.
Prior to the meeting between your boss, Brig-Gen. Aliyu Momoh, Musiliu Obanikoro, Ayodele Fayose, Jelili Adesiyan and others at the Spotless Hotel, Ado-Ekiti on June 20 last year, what were the things you saw that made you decide to record the proceedings secretly?
It depends on the manifestation of our operations there. When we got to Ekiti State, as military personnel, we were supposed to be apolitical, non-partisan and neutral. We were sent there purposely to provide an enabling environment for election to be conducted peacefully. That was our primary responsibility there. We were to ensure the security of the voters, observers, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials and any other person or organisation that was there to ensure a free and fair election. We were to provide security for them. But when we got to Ekiti, I discovered that we were taking sides with a political party. I tried to bring this to the knowledge of the command and the commander in particular. But I found out that he ( the commander ) was working based on plans. Two days to the election, I told my commander (Brig-Gen Momoh) that: “Sir the way we are going is negating our primary role here.” He categorically said: “By now you would have seen my direction. And all I want you guys to do is to follow my direction. I am working on directives.” From there I knew that we had compromised. I was the intelligence officer responsible for writing the situation report, which we call sitrep. Two days to the election, we changed from 12-hourly report to three-hourly situation report. We called it three-hourly sitrep. I was at the centre of where the election was being conducted in Ado-Ekiti. We had field commanders in all the 16 local government areas. If there was anything, they would call us at the Forward Operational Base (FOB) and we would tell them the next thing to do.
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