Feature Zimbabwe


According to unimpeachable sources in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, between 2001 and 2003, the British were duped of a whopping US$15m in a scam involving five retired “Nigerian” generals who offered to organise a coup against President Robert Mugabe on behalf of the British government. The British, under Tony Blair, bought it hook, line and sinker, and in the end got their hands burnt in a 419 scam! Memory Godobori reports.


Zimbabwe How the British lost $15m in a bogus coup


erals left the British government $15m poorer when it did not materialise at the appointed time in 2002. According to the reports, the coup project started in 2001 in South Africa, where a meeting involv- ing British and American intelligence of- ficials and some members of Zimbabwe’s then opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was convened for a briefing by the five Nigerians on how a coup against President Robert Mugabe could be organised. Te five “generals” claimed credit for


R


bringing General Ibrahim Babangida to power in Nigeria. Tey also claimed they knew most of the senior officers in the Zim- babwe Defence Forces (ZDF) since they trained many of them during Zimbabwe’s war of liberation. To strengthen their case, the Nigerians


gave a clear account of the various Zimba- bwe National Army units and the names of officers occupying senior positions in those units. Tus, the Nigerians laid out their strat-


egy for the proposed coup against President Mugabe. Tey said $12m would be initially


16 | October 2011 | New African


EPORTS CITING IMPECCABLE sources in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, say a “mili- tary coup” project involving five alleged “Nigerian” gen-


required to pay off the command element at both senior and lower levels of the Zimba- bwean army. Te most senior officers would be paid a minimum of $100,000 each. As the British were in a hurry to stop


Zimbabwe’s land reform programme (which had seen British-descended white Zimba- bweans lose their land and farms), shortly after the meeting in South Africa they re- leased the $12m to the Nigerians who de- ployed themselves in the various provincial capitals of Zimbabwe, allegedly for ease of communication with army units through- out the country. Te Nigerians, however, advised against


any unsolicited contact between themselves and MDC officials inside Zimbabwe. Te date for the coup would be the day


Zimbabwe’s 2002 presidential results were announced. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and his close aides would be booked into a central Harare hotel, the Meikles, a strategic point from which to drive to State House, just under two kilo- metres away. Te hotel was considered the safest place


for Tsvangirai and his family during the coup process. Even if Tsvangirai did not win the presidential election, there would still be the coup to take him to State House. Tsvangirai did not win the 2002 elec- tion, but according to sources, what got the


British worried was not his defeat, but that the promised coup did not happen. In the event, Tsvangirai is said to have waited impatiently in Meikles Hotel in downtown Harare for the cue to move to State House, but it never came. In a sudden twist, the “Nigerian gener-


als” explained that, to “operationalise” the coup plan, a “trigger” was now necessary. For the record, just before the election, the “Nigerian generals” had demanded an additional $3m to pay off the balance of military personnel that they claimed still needed to be paid. Te British obligingly sent the money, thus raising their coup commitment to $15m. And then, they spent the next few days twiddling their fingers, waiting in vain for a development. But things still took too long to happen.


Te “trigger”, according to the Nigerian generals, was to be found in a “Final Push”, a planned MDC march on State House slated for the first week of June 2003.


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