Diri’s narrow perspective

Hardball

It is said that some things are better left unsaid. Bayelsa State Governor Douye Diri disregarded this wisdom in his remarks during a thanksgiving service to mark the state’s 25th anniversary and the country’s 61st independence anniversary at the King of Glory Chapel, Government House, Yenagoa.

The state was created out of Rivers State by the Gen. Sani Abacha military regime on October 1, 1996.  Nigeria became an independent country on October 1, 1960. So October 1st is significant to the state and the country.

A statement by the governor’s media aide, Daniel Alabrah, quoted him as saying some things that perhaps should have been left unsaid. Diri said:  “Let me use this medium to thank one man. He may not be popular in Nigeria but to me and all of us Bayelsans, we see him as a great man, a hero. The man who by the stroke of the pen signed the creation of Bayelsa State. I am talking about the late General Sani Abacha.”

Diri is entitled to his perspective, but it is a narrow perspective indeed. It is understandable that the governor feels grateful to the man who created the state he governs. He may not have become a democratically elected governor if the state had not been created.

But he overlooked the evils of the Abacha regime, which cannot be redeemed by the creation of the state. Gen. Abacha was a military dictator whose authoritarian regime was responsible for the deaths of many pro-democracy fighters. Notably, Abacha, who ruled from 1993 to 1998, prevented the inauguration of Chief M.K.O. Abiola who won the country’s historic 1993 presidential election annulled by his predecessor, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida. Abiola was detained for four years by the Abacha regime, and eventually died in detention in July 1998, a month after the dictator’s death.

Abiola is today regarded as a symbol of democracy. It is noteworthy that Diri is a beneficiary of the pro-democracy struggle by Abiola and many activists. It is ironic and a dishonour to the fighters that fought for the restoration of democracy that Diri described the anti-democratic oppressor as “a great man, a hero.”

Abacha’s evil was compounded by his kleptomania. He is believed to have stolen money to the tune of over $2 billion from the treasury. The story of his mammoth loot stashed away in banks across the globe continues 23 years after his death. He was described as “one of the most notorious kleptocrats in memory, who embezzled billions from the people of Nigeria while millions lived in poverty.”  That is Diri’s hero.