THE PRESIDENT NIGERIA NEVER HAD
Jul 7th, 2008 by admin
The Nigerian political scene cannot be written without mention of chief Moshood Abiola, who won the the june 12 1993 democratic elections, elections annuled by the military. A year later he was arrested by the military. That he died in mysterious circumstances while in goverment custody is not news but would the Abiola presidency have been good for Nigeria? a question that will never be answered but here is a story that needs to be told. Dele Momudu writes this piece.
I have waited ten years to write this extraordinary, and melodramatic, story. What you are about to read is stranger than fiction. I don’t even know where to begin, because of its cobweb of plots and intrigues. Some of the details are too gory, and highly classified. The dramatis personae are very much around and active. They have had to cling to power in one form or another, in order to protect their dastardly acts. I will try my best to make the tales as sensible as possible, especially, at this time that some of the actors are trying to re-write our history.
There is a mystery around my life which I have never been able to explain. It has to do with the recurring decimal of number seven. Being a great reader of the Buddhist author, Lobsang Rampa, as a young boy, I was taught that certain occurrences are no mere coincidence. I remember how Lobsang Rampa had pointed out the many mysterious similarities between the lives of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. Certain numbers usually play a part in a man’s life. Mine is number seven. Please, hold your breath as I reel out these incredible facts.
I will spare you the amazing detail of how Chief Abiola’s father, Salawu, and his wives, had given birth to a total of 22 children, who all died before Moshood Kashimawo was born, and he survived miraculously.
Therefore, there was always some kind of strangeness to the life of Chief Moshood Abiola. His grass to grace biography remains one of the greatest testimonies to the awesomeness of God. His generosity was legendary. He touched lives all across
For example, he chose a fellow Moslem, Alhaji Baba Gana Kingibe as his running mate, in a country where Christians and Moslems are in perpetual competition, and got away with what seemed unthinkable. Again, it was thought a Yoruba candidate could never beat a Hausa/Fulani candidate in a presidential election in
The main drama started after the main presidential election on
Nduka was right and we were wrong. He saw what we couldn’t see. General Babangida and company saw nothing wrong in killing the best election that ever held in
Against all reasonable expectations, Chief Abiola was forced to go on an unprecedented post-election lobby at home and abroad. He even pulled a James Bond stunt when he ran out of
He was booted out by the maximum ruler, General Sani Abacha. Abacha who had given Chief Abiola the impression that he was going to get rid of the Shonekan government, and, within months, hand over power to the legitimate owner of the mandate. I remember very vividly that the go-between, from Abacha and Abiola, was General Oladipo Diya. Abiola believed the duo, and waited patiently for the promise to be fulfilled, sooner than later, once Abacha succeeded in his coup, on
Abiola held a closed door meeting with his close friends on
I remember Alhaji Tele Olukoya (now of blessed memory) cautioning Abiola not to start another war with Abacha, since he had succeeded in getting rid of Babangida and Shonekan. Agbalajobi (also of blessed memory), on his own part, told Abiola to be patient because he believed Abacha was a pro-democracy soldier who could be relied upon based on his speeches all through the crisis. Chief Abiola then instructed me to find those speeches and bring copies for him the following day. I worked late into the night and got the speeches ready by morning.
When I got to Chief Abiola’s house that day, I was told he was having breakfast at Dr Abiola’s wing of the massive residence. I went to meet him there and he told me to wait for him at his own private wing. He looked unusually worried and agitated. He later joined me upstairs, and immediately took me into his bedroom. As soon as we entered, his telephone rang, and on the line was Alhaji Kola Oseni, a
I was speechless as Abiola gave me more heartrending stories of a grand tragedy in the making. He told me Chief Lateef Jakande, Alhaji Abubakar Rimi, Chief Ebenezer Babatope and other SDP stalwarts, had agreed to work with the Abacha government. The argument of most of the decampees was that it was better to fight from within the government than from without, which sounded plausible in its abject naivety. Either known or unknown to these otherwise great Nigerians, their presence was going to confer legitimacy on that draconian government. In a matter of time, everyone of them was going to regret their error of judgment. The government went completely berserk, jailing, maiming and even killing, as it unleashed terror on both its own and opponents. The scars are still there for everyone to see.
In Chief Abiola’s case, the hunter soon became the hunted. At the height of his acute frustration, he was forced to declare himself president, which was considered a treasonable act, punishable by death. Chief Abiola had to vanish into thin air for about thirteen days. The day he resurfaced, a few of us, including his personal assistant, Fred Enoh and Prince Ademola Adeniji-Adele, and others, coordinated some intricate logistics to get him out of hiding in the home of Senator Wahab Dosunmu, somewhere in Surulere. He addressed a brief world press conference there from where we moved in a long convoy to the Shitta play ground in Surulere and then headed to his home at Moshood Abiola Crescen in Ikeja. As soon as we got on Toyin Street in Ikeja, we noticed a huge presence of battle-ready police officers. Standing on the right side of the open-roof jeep that carried Abiola was a spiritualist who had boasted he was capable of releasing honey-bees to sting whoever came to arrest Abiola. He was the first to panic.
I was on Chief Abiola’s left and had noticed how petrified the so-called spiritualist was. The agbada-wearing man was carrying a horse-tail, and he had been recruited by a prominent member of the family who subscribed to such talismanic fortification. The man had turned to Abiola as soon as he saw the hordes of police officers, asking if they were there to arrest the famous Chief. Abiola had answered yes, and in his usual confidence even reassured the Babalawo not to panic. “I’m their Commander-in-Chief,” Abiola said with uncommon gusto.
We drove into Chief Abiola’s residence and met a massive crowd. Some NADECO elders had advised that we should organise a human shield around Chief Abiola, in typical Iranian fashion. The strategy, in their view, was to cook plenty of food, and guarantee a ceaseless flow of alcohol for the volunteers who would guard Abiola’s residence round the clock. The strategy failed woefully. As soon as our friends finished eating and drank to their hearts’ content, they went home in droves. Nigerians were never trained in the art of suicide warfare and would hardly die for a cause voluntarily. We love good life, the reason we are called the happiest people on earth.
I left for home myself, to freshen up and a change of clothes after a marathon operation spanning 48 hours. Adeniji-Adele and myself were dead tired. His jeep which had earlier conveyed Chief Abiola home even crashed later that night. I returned later to Chief Abiola’s residence and discovered that the police had encircled the whole street, and no one was allowed to go in or out. I put a call through to Chief Abiola in his room. I told him I was at his gate, and he advised that I should just go home to my young wife. He had been the father of the day at our wedding, but politics had virtually made it impossible for us to consummate the union. The last thing he told me was: “I heard they are coming to arrest me at 1 a.m., but I don’t think Sani can try it.” Indeed, Sani did, and I neither saw nor spoke to Chief Abiola again after that conversation.
•To be continued next week.
As a recent student of Nigerian political history, I am fascinated by the eulogisation of Moshood Abiola. They say he was a philanthropist (and then I wonder how he managed to amass such immense wealth in the midst of poverty); they say he was a Democrat (and then I wonder why he was so close to the military); they say he could have done wonders for Nigeria (and then I wonder why someone who had so clearly participated in feeding fat on the trough of corruption could be assumed to deny himself that little bit more when given the opportunity).
Kindly help me to make sense of yet another Nigerian contradictory character. I remember being told that Obasanjo was the answer - being the first military man to hand over voluntarily to civilians - a modern day Cincinnatus, no less!