I left Nigerian Army with an empty Bank Account- Retired Army General laments
Retired General Ishola Williams, a former Chief of Army Staff, has expressed a preference for being from a different country rather than Nigeria.
In a recent interview with Trust TV’s Reminiscences, General Williams, who joined the military in 1964 and ascended to roles such as Commandant of Army Signals, Commander of Training and Doctrine (TRADOC), and Chief of Defence Training and Planning before retiring in July 1993, shared his thoughts on the matter.
Williams revealed that he would have preferred to be born in Namibia, citing its smaller size and organizational efficiency as appealing attributes. Reflecting on his military career, he noted that he left the army with no plans and an empty bank account, despite needing funds for his non-governmental organisation.
He said: “I think I left on November 20 or so, 1993 and had to decide what I was going to do with myself. I left without any plan or preparation, even with an empty bank account.
“Some people tried to help me. Somebody gave me a car but there was too much wahala with it, so I had to dump it and started taking public transport.
“People offered me an office where I could sit and work for some time, while some people were trying to encourage me to be in business. One of them was trying to encourage me to be a cement distributor but I had to deposit a huge amount of money. But I had a single naira bank account, so how could I deposit a huge amount of money? There were many others like that.
“Painfully, a few people in the North were ready to encourage me to engage in contracts, but my own people in the South asked where I was when my colleagues were making money. I already had it at the back of my mind that I was going to run a non-governmental organisation, but I needed money to do it. So, I told myself that if I could get a contract I could use what I got to run the organisation. I was not interested in business for the sake of making profit. That’s how I started running this organisation.
“We were doing projects, but to get people to account for the money and deliver up to the standard expected of them, even as professors, was challenging; only very few complied. Some died without accounting for the money, up to the point that I was taken to court.”
He recalled how members of the NGO he worked with insisted that “Next time I will come as a Namibian, not a Nigerian!”
He said he would prefer Namibia to Nigeria if he were to come back to life because “It is a small country, with a small population, but it is organised.”
