THE PRESIDENT NIGERIA NEVER HAD (2)
Jul 27th, 2008 by admin
No one ever expected Chief Moshood Abiola to spend one night in prison not to talk of four years. What had started like a poor joke was already turning into a terrible dream, and we all seemed helpless. At the height of our acute frustration, one of my good friends, Ike Okonta, a most distinguished scholar and author, had declared one afternoon that from the look of things, General Sani Abacha was going to live forever. All efforts to get rid of that neurotic government had proved abortive. The situation was so calamitous, such that even Major General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, one of the most influential military officers of all times had obviously been injected with poison in prison. His former boss and ex-Head of State, General Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo had been tied down in prison like a Sallah ram waiting to be skinned or roasted. The once voluble man was totally drained of life, and many people were beginning to belive that God had forgotten Nigeria with no hope in sight.
Abiola’s case was particularly pathetic. Why would one of the wealthiest men of his time, a man who had touched lives of fellow men and women worldwide, and worked so hard to win a presidential election fair and square, end up in prison? Even his close aide in Abuja, Olu Akerele, who had tried every trick in the book of stunts, to reach out to Abiola in detention, and to cater for his daily needs, was hauled into detention one terrible day as he was going about his daily routine. Abiola’s doctor was also banned from visiting his patient. The few members of Abiola’s family who were allowed initially to visit him were suddenly shut out. It was obvious that everything possible was being done to weaken Abiola’s spirit.
It was in the middle of this hocus-pocus that I woke up one morning in London. The date was June 8 1998, four clear days to yet another ritual of the June 12 celebrations. Nothing suggested that the day was going to spring a monumental surprise on Nigerians. I started the day working the phones as usual. Every piece of information was crucial. We exchanged every grain of rumour with our friends and family. The first of such tales came from a senior of mine in the university, Chief Femi Alafe-Aluko, who called to tell me that he was getting some serious signals from Abuja and the news was a hot potato. He said there were suggestions that our maximum ruler had dropped dead. I did not waste any second in telling my dear brother to perish such wishful thinking. I told him he was lucky that he had expressed such heresy in London, some safe distance from Abuja, otherwise, he would have been beheaded, in the tradition of the old Roman Empire.
Meanwhile, one of Nigeria’s best known media personalities turned successful politician, Chief Olusegun Osoba, had found his way to London. His home in Swiss Cottage was a walking distance to my apartment in Hampstead Heath. I visited him regularly and we took walks uphill and downhill as frequently as possible, and sampled a few restaurants in the neighborhood. A day hardly passed without us exchanging some Satanic information.
This was the case when Chief Osoba rang me on June 8. As soon as I picked the phone, the media guru detonated his grenade: “Dele, have you heard…?” In a jiffy, my mind had flashed back to the earlier impossible news from Chief Alafe-Aluko. I promptly begged Chief Osoba not to join those who don’t know what they are saying in spreading the rumour of Abacha’s death. Chief Osoba, in his characteristic sternness, told me flatly, “Dele, don’t be silly, do you expect me to be carrying unsubstantiated rumours?” I concurred.
He was right, and within minutes, I received a strident call from the London studio of CNN. The lady on the line was as cool as cucumber, when she dropped the bombshell. “An authoritative source in Abuja just confirmed to us that General Abacha was indeed dead, and he is to be buried later today.” May be the story was true after-all, I thought within me, though I still had my doubts. I was in that state of delirium when the voice on the phone jolted me into reality again. “We need you at our studio to talk about what the death of General Abacha portends for the struggle for democracy in Nigeria. We’ll be sending a black cab to your address…” My wife just kept staring into the ceiling while the whole drama lasted. She said she didn’t know how to respond to such a development. As true believers, we were trained never to gloat over the demise of anyone, even if the person was our sworn enemy.
I sprang into animated action, and got myself into a flamboyant Yoruba traditional agbada, and went to CNN. The buzz on my phone had become bizarre. The interview at CNN was brief as they were hooking up to people within Nigeria itself. It seemed most Nigerians took the news with serious caution. It was within Abacha’s capabilities to cook up the death story in order to catch the fools who would jubilate. By evening, it was beyond doubt that Abacha was certainly dead. We started day-dreaming, that with Abacha out of the way Chief Abiola was now in a better position to reclaim his stolen mandate. A new Head of State was named hurriedly, and he was no other than Lt. General Abdusalami Abubakar, who looked as meek as a monk from Tibet. What was he going to do about the intractable June 12 debacle? Power has a way of changing most people into the ugliest monster. Was this gentleman going to make the difference?
Abubakar’s cherubic looks and disposition, promptly reassured the citizenry that all hope was not lost. As a matter of fact, his spin doctors gave the impression that Abdusalami Abubakar and Chief Moshood Abiola were beginning to eat breakfast together and it was only a question of time before Abiola was released. Pressure had also mounted on the military junta to release Abiola. The Commonwealth had sent its secretary general, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, while the United Nations sent its secretary general as well, Mr Kofi Annan, both experienced and accomplished diplomats. They met with both the Federal Government of Nigeria and Chief Abiola in particular. Their visits gave us hope, though from both accounts, Chief Abiola had remained adamant about reclaiming his mandate. This stubbornness was to be expected of a man who had fully adjusted to the excruciating conditions of prison in about four years.
As reassuring as the visits appeared, there were also ominous signs. I raised my first major concern in the early hours of Sunday July 5, 1998, as I left the home of Nduka Obaigbena near the Grosvenor’s House at Park Lane, London in the company of my friend, Tokunbo Afikuyomi. We had trekked to Marble Arch, where we bought the first edition of the Sunday Times of London, and then boarded a black cab to our homes in Hampstead Heath and South Gate respectively. I read and noted, the sad recollection of the Sunday Times reporter who had accompanied Kofi Annan to Nigeria. What worried me was the report that Annan met with Abiola in such squalid conditions, such that his mean and Godless incarcerators allowed him to watch television but without the sound. It was obvious they were playing stupid mind games with a man who ought to have completed his first term in office as our Commander-in-Chief.
I found it difficult to go to bed that early morning. I just knew Abiola had to be rescued fast, and at all costs. Wura Abiola called me a few hours later. I think she was on her way to Cambridge to give a talk, and wanted to know the latest information I had picked up from sources in Nigeria. I briefed her about the Sunday Times of London and her response was a kind of painful chuckle. She expressed regrets that all efforts to get her dad released had failed. “Does it mean we cannot help Daddy out of this ordeal,” she asked tearfully. She promised to get back to me.
I became very agitated. That evening I received what pastors would have called a divine message. My spirit told me Abiola was going to die in prison. I didn’t know how to share this with anyone. I decided to call my friend, Mrs Funke Moore at the Lagos State Television in Alausa, Lagos. She had been my dependable and secret link to my business operations in Nigeria. My staff received my telephone calls in her house, usually at night. I called to tell her my premonition of Abiola’s death. She promptly dismissed me as a prophet of doom. Mrs Moore said something that still rings a bell till this day: “If they kill Abiola, it will be the end of Nigeria. Dele, please go and sleep because it can not happen.” But as for me and my house, I knew all things were possible in Nigeria, and that Nigerians were incapable of fighting any struggle to its logical conclusion. My worst fears would soon be confirmed.
On July 7, 1998, I was woken from bed by a popular blind man, Mr Yinka Ibidunni, a Nigerian broadcaster on Spectrum Radio in London. We used to exchange views on Nigerian politics. He was very passionate about Nigeria and was working towards returning home to contest for a seat in the Nigerian Senate. As soon as I picked his call early that morning, he was almost screaming at me. “Mr Momodu, you are still sleeping when they are about to kill your father, Abiola.” The time must have been after 7 a.m. “Who wants to kill my father,” I asked, drowsily. “Didn’t you listen to the BBC World News just now? They have just interviewed the Americans, Thomas Pickering and Susan Rice.” Mr Ibidunni went on to narrate the drama of the interview, how they asked Pickering what he was doing in Nigeria, when two great African diplomats, Annan and Anyaoku, had failed to persuade Abiola to relinquish his mandate. The response, according to Mr Ibidunni was that if Abiola remains stubborn, he would have become a danger to Nigeria.
My conversation with Ibidunni took place about nine clear hours before Abiola suddenly died in the very presence of his benevolent visitors. I immediately called Wura Abiola and raised a desperate alarm. I told her clearly that time was running out dangerously. We agreed to issue a statement, pleading with Gani Fawehinmi and company to appreciate the grave danger Abiola was in and to plead with Abiola himself to accept any condition, just to get out alive. We worked the phones furiously and faxed all manner of press releases. Wura had sent drafts to me to be worked on with her. The final proof rolled out of my fax line around 4.03 p.m. Unknown to us, at that very moment, Abiola’s soul was already on its journey to his Creator. And there we were foolish enough to have thought we could change the destiny of man.
Abiola was said to have suddenly developed some health problems during his meeting with the Americans and had requested for tea. We don’t know who prepared it and what it contained that aggravated his heart condition. All we read later was that Abiola was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. A press conference was hurriedly packaged by his visitors, who declared matter-of-factly that “ABIOLA DIED OF APPARENT HEART ATTACK.” Finish…The rest, they say, is history.