The wife of missing journalist, Bagauda Kaltho, Mrs Martha Kaltho, has called for investigation into her husband’s disappearance during the regime of the late General Sani Abacha.
Mrs Kaltho, in an exclusive interview with LEADERSHIP, said activist Shehu Mahdi and ex-US envoy to Nigeria, Russell Hanks, should be held accountable for the whereabouts of her husband who has not been seen since 1996.
Her call came after Shehu Mahdi, in an interview with Arise News, insinuated that Hanks may have recruited Bagauda Kaltho to plant the bomb which exploded at Dubar Hotel in Kaduna in 1995.
Mahdi had said that Mr Hanks had offered him N1 million to plant a bomb at Durbar Hotel in Kaduna to unsettle the Abacha regime, which he had turned down outright, but that as he was leaving the Hamdala Hotel room where he had met with Hanks, Bagauda Kaltho was going in to meet the US envoy, then four or five hours later, a bomb went off in the Durbar Hotel, raising the possibility that the missing journalist may have taken Mr Hank’s offer.
When he was contacted, Mr Hank admitted he was at the places mentioned, but that he would not make any comment until the US embassy spoke on the issue.
Mrs Kaltho has, however, dismissed Mahdi’s claim and called on the federal government to reopen investigation into her husband’s disappearance which happened between 1996-1997 during the military regime of Gen Abacha.
“I don’t agree that my husband was the one that planted any bomb because this is just a misinformation to give him a black (bad) name.
“And so, the government should come in and investigate seriously so that the story can be laid to rest. Let us know exactly what happened. Those involved, the American officer, if he is alive, let him come and testify; he should be invited to come and say what he exactly knows,” she said.
Narrating her ordeals, she said, “You know, during the Abacha regime, there were threats to journalists. He was one of those that they declared wanted dead or alive. So, since that time he had been in hiding; at times he comes home briefly, he’ll stay and then go back. Then we were all alert that any moment he could be caught; even I at times, when we sensed that the environment was not conducive, at times I would leave the place and go away for some time with my children and when I felt it was over or a little bit calm, then I would come back.
“That is how we were: there was no peace; there was threat all over, so at times when he came home, when we were out, we’d come home and hear that some people came to look for us, but we did not know they were. So that continued from that time.
“When he came home for Christmas around 1996, he spent Christmas with us, then he left (he usually left in January). I was waiting for him to come home because he usually did not stay long there in Kaduna; when he stayed one or two months, he would come back, so this time it just prolonged, I never saw him again. So, I became worried; I asked his friends, nobody could tell me his whereabouts, so I decided to communicate with The News magazine (now defunct) where he was working and then we all joined efforts looking for him. He could not be traced.
According to her, when her husband could not be found, it became obvious to her that something serious had happened to him.
“So, I went to Lagos. That was how The News magazine made efforts to know what happened but we were not able to know what happened. I still came back, that is how I was living. At times when I felt like going to check for him again, I’d still go.
“Later, State Security Service people from Alagbon came to my village. They carried me; we went, I thought I was going to see him. So, even there was a time I wrote to the Abacha regime about my missing husband but there was no response. So, when the State Security Service people came, I was now relieved that now they will give me attention and then help me to locate my husband, but still we went to Alagbon; there was nothing that came up. So, at the end of it all, there was a panel set, the Oputa panel; we went to the Oputa Panel, the issue was inconclusive, so we came back and just stayed.”
Mrs Kaltho said since that time nobody has told her anything conclusive about what happened to her husband.
“So from then this is how we have been staying but Major Al Mustapha was saying there was a time they were traveling (he was the ADC of Abacha), and they brought out the picture (of Bagauda) and they were discussing the picture throughout the journey, so we don’t know what they were discussing.
“Now recently, I saw this write-up of Mahdi’s interview where he was telling the whole world that it was my husband that the American officer gave the bomb to plant, and I say ‘how can a journalist be the one to plant a bomb? Why must it be and what is of interest in that hotel that a journalist should plant a bomb? For what reason? And who brought the bomb and how did it get into his hands? If he is the one that planted the bomb.
“I’m totally confused; I don’t want to believe that my husband in his way of life: he was a loving man; he could noteven kill an ant just like that; he was a man of the pen; the pen is not a bomb, so how can he now become somebody planting a bomb?’ So, I think Mahdi knows better than what he is saying. Because if then papers were writing, trying to know what happened, and Mahdi has been there in this country, he knew there was something like that, and he never said anything as if he just woke up from dream today and he is saying something like that, then he should know more.”
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