The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Mko Abiola

  • ‘How did Abiola die?’

    ‘How did Abiola die?’

    Former Aviation Minister Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode writes on the controversy surrounding the death of the winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, Chief Moshood Abiola, shortly after an American delegation met with him in detention.

    Ambassador Susan Rice was, until recently, the American Ambassador to the United Nations. Her long-standing aspiration of becoming the Secretary of State for her country was dashed when the Republicans in the Senate started sharpening their knives in anticipation of her formal nomination for that position by President Barack Obama.

    Sensing that her nomination would not scale through the Senate and that she would not be confirmed as the Secretary of State, due to the role she played in the alleged cover up of the Benghazi affair in which the American Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other American citizens were murdered by a group of Islamist terrorists, her nomination was withdrawn.

    Instead of Secretary of State, President Obama has now nominated her for the position of National Security Advisor, which is a job that does not require Senate approval or confirmation. I wish Susan Rice well in her new assignment. But I am constrained to ask the following questions. What did she put in the tea that she served to Chief MKO Abiola on July 8, 1998 just before he died? She was one of the last people that saw him alive, she served him some tea, he coughed violently and one hour later, he dropped dead. What was in the tea? Was it Abuja ‘’green tea’’, Darjeeling, Earl Grey, Liptons or some other more exotic brand?

    Can someone please ask Susan Rice what her role was in the death of MKO Abiola? Who sent her to do the job and who was she working for? At that time, she was Assistant Secretary of State for America in President Bill Clinton’s government. Was she acting on his direct instructions or simply on the instructions of her boss and controller in Langley?

    Chief MKO Abiola was the winner of Nigeria’s freest and fairest elections. That election took place on June 12, 1993. The following day, it was annuled by General Ibrahim Babangida. Shortly after that, as a consequence of the sheer outrage that was generated by the annulement, Babangida was compelled to ‘’step aside’’ and hand over power to Chief Ernest Shonekan. In what was clearly a strategic manouver, he left General Sani Abacha (his own Chief of Army Staff) behind to be the Minister of Defence for the incoming administration.

    A few months later, Abacha toppled the Interim National Government of Chief Ernest Shonekan, which he had served and seized power for himself. Abiola was arrested and detained. He was never granted his freedom again. Four years later, Abacha himself was murdered by forces that are yet to be identified and General Abdulsalami Abubakar took power. Exactly 30 days after Abacha was killed, those same forces that killed him murdered Abiola as well in an attempt to ‘’balance the equation’’.

    These are the facts and sequence of events. One thing is self-evident and cannot be denied, no matter which side of the divide one may have been on in the June 12 saga- certain questions must be answered. And some of those questions are as follows. Who killed MKO Abiola? Who killed Sani Abacha? What role, if any, did officials of the Abubakar administration play in the murder of both Abacha and Abiola? What role did the CIA play and exactly what transpired in the room when Assistant Secretary of State Susan Rice (as she then was), Ambassador Thomas Pickering and two other faceless and nameless officials from the American Embassy met with Abiola on the very day that he was meant to have been released. Sadly, instead of being released on that day, he dropped dead in what can only be described as mysterious and questionable circumstances.

    This is all the more so because Abiola’s security officer and the man that was charged with looking after him and protecting him throughout the time that he was incarcerated (an honest, upstanding and courageous police officer by the name of ASP Zadok) told the Oputa panel in 2002 that Abiola was ‘’hale and hearty’’ and in ‘’very high spirits,’’ just before going into the meeting with the Americans. He went further by telling the panel that as he was about to enter Aguda House (the premises where the meeting was scheduled to be held) with Abiola when he was asked to leave his principal, to step out of the premises and to go and pick up another car from somewhere else by one of General Abdul-salami’s security officers. He promptly obeyed the order, but half an hour later when he came back he found Abiola in a terrible condition, coughing violently, writhing all over the floor in pain and breathing his last breath. Thirty minutes later he gave up the ghost.

    Another question that needs to be answered is the one that the veteran journalist and respected columnist Mr. Gbolabo Ogunsanwo has dubbed as ‘’the question of the missing one hour’’. Permit me to explain. According to the testimony that was given to the Oputa Panel by Major Hamza Al- Mustapha, who was General Abacha’s Chief Security Officer, from the first day that Abiola was arrested right up until the day that he was murdered he (Al-Mustapha) was in charge of his (Abiola’s) security. Each time Abiola was moved from one safe house to another he had to sign for it. Each time Abiola ate his food or drank anything, his men tasted and drank it before-hand. He went as far as to say that each time Abiola went to the toilet he was made aware of it and that nothing happened around Abiola or to him without his direct permission and the involvement of his most loyal men. After Abacha was murdered and Abdulsalami Abubakar became Head of State, Al Mustapha was still in charge of Abiola’s security and he still maintained direct responsibility for his life, his well-being and his welfare right up until the minute that he was murdered.

    When Al-Mustapha appeared before the Oputa Panel, he exposed the fact, that in the entire period of four years that he and his team watched over Abiola, it was only in the one hour that he was killed that they had no knowledge or control of what was happening to or around him. According to him, Abiola was removed from the guest house that he had been staying without his (Al Mustapha’s) signature or knowledge and without anyone seeking his permission. Simply, put, he was kept in the dark about the whole thing. Secret orders were given to keep him out of the loop, to take Abiola to a destination, which he knew nothing about and to ensure that none of the usual trusted food tasters and minders were with him. The only person that accompanied Abiola from the old guard of those that had watched over him for the previous four years was ASP Zadok and when they arrived at Aguda House (the venue of the meeting), he was conveniently sent on a meaningless errand by General Abdulsalami Abubakar’s Chief Security Officer and told to leave. Hence, for the first time in four years, Abiola was left completely on his own and he was surrounded by a coterie of strange faces who had no genuine affection or empathy for him. He was with them for one hour and during that hour, not one of those that had watched over him, that had secured his safety and that he had grown familiar with him over the entire four year period of his incarceration was with him. It was during that ‘’missing hour’’, when he was all alone and very vulnerable, that he was poisoned.

    Sadly, by the time Zadok, who was undoubtedly loyal to him, returned to the scene, Abiola was already dying. The question. Is who gave the order for Abiola to be brought to that meeting? Why did they keep Al Mustapha in the dark about it? Why was Zadok sent to bring another vehicle that was obviously not needed? That one hour, and what transpired during it’s course, holds the key to everything. It appears that Abiola was lured into a trap by a group of smiling strangers who did not wish him well and who had sinister plans for him. It was like leading a lamb to the slaughter.

    Given these circumstances I have no doubt that this was a case of premeditated murder but the question is whose call was it and why did it have to happen? What was the motive? Was it done just to ‘’balance the equation’’ as some said at the time or was it done in an attempt to pave the way for an Obasanjo Presidency one year later? Could General Olusegun Obasanjo have been released from jail and elected President, if Abiola had lived and if he had insisted on claiming his mandate? The Nigerian people have a right to know the truth and it is about time that those that have wielded power in this country for the last few decades told them. The powers that be must appreciate the fact that they cannot sweep things under the carpet forever and that one day, no matter how long it takes, they will be held accountable by God and the Nigerian people for the morbid, secret and oftentimes homicidal choices and decisions that they made.

    Yet, the truth is that the military operates like a cult and we may never get an honest answer from any of them about what really happened. This is because there are very few Col. Abubakar Dangiwa Umar’s in the Nigerian military. Very few of them are prepared to break ranks with the leadership and break the ‘’omerta’’ code of silence like Abubakar Umar did over the June 12 election. Very few of them are prepared to call a spade a spade, speak the truth, expose the lie and damn the consequences. Most of them continue to spin the yarn and tell the dirty lie that Abacha and Abiola’s deaths were both from natural causes and that it was just a coincidence that one dropped dead on July 8 1998, just four days before the fifth anniversary of June 12, and the other droped dead exactly one month later on July 8 1998. As they say, ‘’the secrets are embedded in the sequence of events and the dates’’ and, in this case, the sequence of events and the dates really do tell an interesting and revealing story.

    Yet, no matter how hard they try to cover her up and silence her, truth is stubborn and she cannot be drowned. She is like a pack of straws that are held together and pinned down by an all-powerful hand at the bottom of a river. As long as she is held at the bottom of that river, she cannot be seen or heard. Yet one day, in the fullness of time, that all-powerful hand that seeks to supress her forever will get tired and let go and at that point Lady Truth will happily float to the top of the water where she will be seen and heard by all. It is in the same way that one day, in the fullness of time, the pernicious and perfidious verdict of “death by natural causes” or “act of God” that the powers that be have claimed are the causes of Abiola and Abacha’s deaths respectively will be exposed for what they are.

    Those that continue to spin that lie and continue to conspire to hide the truth will pay a heavy price for their murderous deceit either in this world or in the next. The most filthy and despicable creature under God’s sun is the unrepentant and compulsive liar and he or she that bears false witness, that sheds innocent blood and that seeks to kill, jail, maim, defame and destroy the innocent in the name of the state. Their evil knows no bounds and they will surely burn in hell. Those that continue to perpetuate the lie, to hide the truth and to spin the tale that there was nothing untoward or mischevous about the death of Chief MKO Abiola, whose only crime was to win a free and fair election and refuse to renounce it, shall fare no better.

    The fact of the matter is that, until these questions are answered and justice is done, Nigeria will not know lasting peace and cannot possibly achieve her fulll potentials. It is a spiritual thing. Abiola gave his life that we may have a better tomorrow, yet we refuse to acknowledge it or to bring his killers to justice. We are repaying his good with evil and the consequences of that are set out in the Word of God. Whatever anyone may have thought of him as a person, the fact remains that, had it not been for Abiola’s sheer resilience, courage, steadfastness, sacrifice and gallant refusal to bow before the Nigerian military and give up his 1993 presidential mandate, we would not have democracy in Nigeria today. He was faithful to his cause to the very last. In return for that the least we could do is to ask the relevant questions, demand the appropiate answers and expose the bitter truth. We owe MKO Abiola, his wife Kudirat (who was also murdered), and all the other June 12 and NADECO footsoldiers and martyrs that much.

  • Mko Abiola’s forgotten reparations crusade

    Mko Abiola’s forgotten reparations crusade

    Towards the end of 2012, an explosive new book by Africa’s first literature Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, titled: ‘Harmattan Haze on an African Spring’ was quietly released to the reading public. I guess this must have been about the same time that Professor Chinua Achebe’s highly controversial and contentious book, ‘There was A Country: A personal history of Biafra” also emerged on the country’s literary firmament. The focus of Achebe’s book is Nigeria and the civil war that rocked the country to its very foundations between 1969 and 1971. On its part, Soyinka’s latest literary offering takes an incisive look at the African condition exploring how her tragic and bitter past has shaped the present but may also contain those elements necessary for the redemption of a much abused continent.

    ‘Harmattan Haze on an African Spring’ is a characteristically ‘Soyinkaesque’ tour de force traversing diverse spheres of human knowledge including history, geography, political economy, literary and visual arts, philosophy and psychology among several others. Without exculpating Africans from responsibility for the present condition of the continent – its backwardness, ceaseless conflicts and deepening underdevelopment – Soyinka insists that a confrontation with the continent’s history and a refusal to sweep its lessons under the carpet is foundational to understanding Africa and charting a viable path to her socio-economic, moral and political rejuvenation.

    I am not very much concerned in this piece with Soyinka’s rather controversial advocacy of a return to pristine pre-colonial African spirituality as part of the necessary processes for the salvation of the continent. Like Achebe, Soyinka extols the tolerance, accommodation and liberal spirit of African traditional religions comparing this to the perceived totalising authoritarianism and hegemonic aspirations of Islam and Christianity on the continent. Traditional African spirituality, he believes, has a lot to teach contemporary Africa on the virtues of religious tolerance but also stemming the destructive tide of sectarian extremism in diverse parts of the continent. For me, the most moving parts of Soyinka’s rendering of our history are those in which he dwells at length on the slave trade and its’ terribly dehumanizing implications for the black race.

    Soyinka’s vivid imagery confirms Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s press statement on 28th June, 1961, that “From the beginning of recorded history, the black man has been the conspicuous butt of all manner of inhuman treatment. In the palaces of the Arabian potentates – both in the Middle East and in North Africa – he was degraded and enslaved. When the so-called ‘Dark Continent of Africa’ was discovered, the European marauders hunted him down like a common beast, captured him, and sold him into slavery in the Americas and West Indies.” Awolowo goes on to detail the negative consequences of colonialism and neo-colonialism for the African continent.

    Of course, we are aware of Walter Rodney’s seminal work, ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’, which proved incontrovertibly that the very same exploitative forces of slavery and colonialism responsible largely for the underdevelopment of Africa also played pivotal roles in the socio-economic and industrial ascendancy and triumphalism of the West. Yet, there are those who, despite these glaring facts of history, see in the position of scholars like Rodney only an attempt to push onto others the responsibility for Africa’s predicament while denying Africans of any culpability. This was certainly the view of President Barak Obama, when in his speech to Ghana’s parliament on Saturday, July 11, 2009 he said: “It is easy to point fingers, and to pin the blame for these problems on others. Yes, a colonial map that made little sense bred conflict, but the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants.”

    This kind of superficial reading of history will surely benefit from the following insight from one of Africa’s foremost scholars, the late Professor Claude Ake: “The slave trade disorganized and devastated Africa on such scale that she was forever available for domination by virtually everyone. Not surprisingly the Europeans carved up Africa among themselves, colonized her and proceeded to complete the work of disorganization and debasement which had begun with the slave trade. A great deal of emphasis has been placed on the detrimental economic effects of colonization. But this was not necessarily its most damaging effect. In all probability, it contributed less to our problems than the political and cultural policies. Colonialism was premised on the inferiority of the colonised. That premise is the very content of the ‘civilising mission’”. Ruminating on these issues reminded me, once again, of the indelible role of the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola in the history both of Nigeria and Africa. Mention the name Abiola today, and what comes to mind are either his numerous philanthropic activities or his bid for the country’s presidency in the historic but cruelly aborted June 12, 1993, presidential election.

    But Abiola meant much more than these. He was easily the wealthiest black man in his life time. A key mission he adopted later in his life was the vigorous campaign for the payment of reparations to Africa for the depredations of slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism. Abiola selflessly deployed his enormous resources towards the attainment of this end of correcting a historic injustice and monumental crime against humanity. Given a rationale for his crusade in a speech in London in 1992, Abiola declared “Our demand for reparations is based on the tripod of moral, historic and legal arguments. Who knows what path Africa’s social development would have taken if our great centres of civilisation had not been razed in search of human cargo? Who knows how our economies would have developed…?”. In December 1990, Abiola convened and sponsored the first world conference on reparations at the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Lagos, where he formally inaugurated the reparations campaign. The campaign moved to the continental level in June 1991 when the Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity now the African Union as well as the 55th Council of Ministers of the Union passed a resolution recognizing the injustice of slavery in Africa and affirmed the continent’s right to reparations.

    The Eminent Persons Group set up to steer the reparations campaign convened the first Pan-African conference on Reparations in Abuja in April 1993 with participants drawn from Africa, Asia, America and Europe. The conference issued a communiqué reiterating the imperative of paying reparations to Africa for the physical and psychological brutality, socio-cultural dislocation and economic dysfunction caused by slavery, colonialism and imperialism in general; acts of injustice without parallel in human history. All of these efforts were personally funded by Chief MKO Abiola even though the Babangida regime later donated the sum of $500,000 to the cause. It was as the campaign was gaining momentum that Abiola ventured into politics to contest Nigeria’s presidency on the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) – a distraction that led to his eventual tragic fate.

    But why did MKO abandon the reparations crusade? Could he have seen that paying reparations to largely corrupt, decadent and oppressive African states would be like pouring water down a basket? Could he have noticed that most African leaders in their brazen contempt for and mistreatment of their own people are no better than the pre-colonial slave masters and their African collaborators? Could he have noticed that the majority of African leaders have slavishly and voluntarily sold their intellects to western International Financial Institutions like the IMF and World Bank and lack the capacity to pursue autonomous policies that can liberate the socio-economic potentials of an otherwise well endowed continent?

    Indeed, Professor Nworisara Nwolise of the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan, recently noted that if a slave ship were to berth on the ports of African countries today, millions would voluntarily scramble to get aboard and be relieved of the agony of an existence no different from hell on earth. Surely, it cannot get worse than that. True, the case for reparations to Africa for the depredations of slavery and colonialism remains unassailable. If the Jews have been paid billions in reparations for the holocaust that lasted roughly twelve years, how much should Africa be recompensed for dehumanizing slavery and colonialism that lasted over 400 years, deprived the continent of the best of her human resource while also mercilessly exploiting her natural and mineral resources? But right now, African leaders simply lacks the moral integrity to make a case for reparations. Indeed, the way Africa is largely misgoverned today simply validates the case of those who argue that the slave raiders actually did the captured slaves a favour by liberating them from the ‘heart of darkness”. What a great pity.