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REFOCUSING THE OPUTA COMMISSION [1] ‘JUNE 12’

By

Professor Omo Omoruyi

Research Fellow,

African Studies Center

Boston University

CEO Advancing Democracy in Africa (ADA)

President ’s decision to set up a Commission headed by a retired Supreme Court Justice, (Justice Chukwudifu Akume Oputa) to look into past human rights violations in at the inception of his government still remains one of the democracy dividends. The end of the Commission’s effort is not only to lead to reconciliation among the Nigerian peoples but in large measure to unearth the truth about past injustices. It is common sense that there cannot be reconciliation among peoples without truth. It is this search for truth that posed problems in societies where this kind of commission had been set up in the past. Nigerian government must face this problem hence the series of essays that I shall be writing on ‘Refocusing the Oputa Commission’. The first shall be on ‘the June 12’.

It is an open secret that President Olusegun Obasanjo’s action did not have the blessing of the outgoing military regime of General . General Abubakar and his Deputy Admiral even ridiculed the thought of something like that happening before the military junta shall have left office. They must have been shocked that it did happen, immediately General Abubakar and his junta left office, thanks to President Obasanjo. General Obasanjo’s action was one of the policies he initiated to cope with the past.

I commend the President for appealing to his predecessors in office and other political generals in the past not minding the roles they played in his emergence to go before the Commission and clear their names. By your appearance before the Commission, you showed an example. There is no reason why a former Head of State would or should want to be compelled or being given amnesty in order to appear before a Truth Commission whose sole purpose is to ensure that truth is told and opportunity for reconciliation with fellow Nigerians is provided.

The on-going drama among political generals and the revelations by some of them of the sordid past at the and Abuja sittings of the Oputa Commission raise two issues. One has to do with the ‘issues in the annulment’ of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election and the second has to do with the ‘nature of the armed forces’. I shall now address these two issues as part 1 and part 2.

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ISSUES IN THE ANNULMENT’

The catalog of human rights violations detailed during the Lagos sitting of the Oputa Commission in the past in the tradition of the Truth and Reconciliation Tribunals unduly focused on the coup plot said to have been masterminded by the former Chief of General Staff, Lt. General . The second issue, which is unduly dominating the time of the Commission, is the death of the winner of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election, Chief MKO Abiola. The sitting at Abuja is again on the wrongdoing of General Abudulsalami Abubakar when he was the Head of State.

I say unduly not because they are not important and critical to the crisis of democratization. I say unduly because these three issues were not seen as the consequences of the singular act of June 23, 1993. That act, which took place in the early hours of June 23, 1993 was the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election by the military headed by General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida acting with over 1001 actors as he put it recently. Coincidentally, another act of June 23, this time a year later was by General on June 23, 1994 acting with another clique, which included some Yoruba officers in Lagos, when Chief MKO Abiola the winner of that election was arrested in the early hours of June 23, 1994. Of course we knew he was then detained until he died in detention.

On why General Abacha had to go for Chief Abiola at precisely the same time a year later after the annulment one should not be dismissed as coincidental. It was a design as General Abacha was acting on some advice from the marabouts. Yomi Tokoya alluded to the influence of marabouts. The Commission should not treat this lightly. General Abacha’s regime was one governed by many marabouts from the Islamic world. Nothing happened by chance under the administration of General Abacha. Maybe this is what my friends call Allah’s wish. It is not; it is the work of devils.

It should therefore be obvious by now that without the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election, we would not have had the rule of General Sani Abacha. Nigeria would not have had Al- Mustapha and other political Generals. Nigeria would not have had what the BBC called the ‘weeping Generals’ of the kind of Oladipo Diya and Abdul Kareem Adisa. Nigeria would have been spared of the hatchet men such as Ishaya Bamaiye and Ibrahim Sabo and others who ever discussed the idea of killing the winner of a free and fair election, Chief MKO Abiola after the death General Abacha and actually killed him. These were not all.

To this extent the Oputa Commission is asking the wrong question by focusing on who killed Chief Abiola etc. A focus on this type of approach is likely to get the wrong answer and consequently the wrong prescription. The work of the Commission should have commenced with

The ‘issues in the annulment’, which are still with Nigeria and real;

The actors in the annulment, who are still all over the place calling the shots in Abuja under many guises; and finally

The aftermath of the annulment: such as the denial of human dignity to the Nigerian people, the detention unto death of Chief Abiola, the killing of his wife, and the exile of many Nigerians.

It would appear that the Commission is commencing its work with the denial of human dignity to the Nigerian people as an independent event, exclusive of the annulment, which gave rise to the denial of human dignity. This cannot be done without looking at the genesis. This is why sadly enough that none of these political generals in their testimony before the Oputa Commission ever confessed as to their roles in

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The sordid affair called the annulment; and

The collusion with the annullists in the sustenance of the annulment after the exit of IBB.

We are talking of the period spanning the regimes of Generals Abacha and Abubakar.

WHAT ABOUT THE YORUBA POLITICAL GENERALS?

Is it not amazing that none of the Yoruba political generals ever told the Commission how sorry they were in the part they played in the events leading to the annulment and its sustenance. Maybe now that General Robert Adeyinka Adebayo had spoken, they would realize that they made some mistakes by unduly focusing on themselves during their appearances.

None of them ever reacted to what Nigerians knew as to their complicity in the heinous crimes against the Nigerian people under General Abacha.

I had an opportunity to read the interview granted by General Tunji Olurin in This Day of November 1998. I was struck by the role General Diya played in wiping out the Yoruba officers from the army. I was surprised that Diya never addressed this issue in his plea before the Commission. The Yoruba leaders should demand from General Diya why he had to humiliate the Yoruba military officers, political class, including the leaders of NADECO, who believed in June 12 and the traditional rulers all in the name of loyalty to General Abacha.

These Yoruba political generals seem to be more concerned about their reputations, which they lost woefully when they unpatriotically joined General Abacha to deny Nigerian peoples their human dignity. They lost and abandoned their reputation and status as Generals in a professional army when they were kneeling down before a Hausa/Fulani major.

These Yoruba political generals should read the recent opinion of General Shola Williams that these ‘weeping generals’ were guilty. I share this view. They reduced themselves to the level of Mustapha. Quoting General Williams:

They considered their loyalty to Abacha as superior to their primary commitment to the nation; They paraded their ill-gotten wealth;they showed themselves as products of the corrupt system;they called into question what it takes to make the grade of a General in the ; they were no role model for the up and coming military officers placed under their charge. See Tempo of January 4, 2001.

These Yoruba political generals should read what is said about them in the international media. Where is their reputation? In fact, the BBC was equally apt in calling attention to the quality of Nigerian political Generals. According to the BBC, the spectacle of the two ‘weeping generals’ was a scathing commentary

‘on the caliber of some of the military officers who ruled Nigeria for 29 years’. See BBC Home Page World Service Education. (December 18, 2000)

I hope President Obasanjo would take these remarks seriously when he is thinking of what to do to restructure the Nigerian army. There is no policy on this yet. The second part of this paper will further dwell on this.

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It should have occurred to these political Generals that they were victims of the situation they created when they connived at the effects of the annulment and the aftermath of the annulment. Did they know the effect of the annulment and its aftermath on the people of the southwestern Nigeria and on the winner of the election and his family?

I wonder if Diya knew that Abacha would not have dared to take on the Yoruba elite including the winner of the June 12 and the former Head of State but for the support, which he gave to him from the beginning. One wonders why Diya and his Yoruba generals did not see their problems as arising from the annulment, which they connived at, after the annulment through their complicity with General Abacha. Generals Diya, Olarenwaju, Adisa and others too numerous to name here have a case to answer with the in particular and with the Nigerian people in general. They assured General Abacha as members of the Lagos Clique after the annulment that they would be able to originate an alternative Yoruba leadership to June 12. Were these Diya’s created ‘alternative Yoruba leaders’ to June 12 not evident during the period of General Abacha as Ministers and Chairmen of Corporations? They were all over the place, parading themselves as Yoruba leaders in search of a solution to June 12 when they did not know the real issues in the annulment. Unfortunately for Diya, these ‘alternative Yoruba leaders’ became campaigners for Abacha’s self- succession and abandoned their patron, Diya. These are the ‘progressives’ in the account of Chief Ebenezer Babatope in his book, The Abacha Regime and the June 12 Crisis in Chapter 8.

How they did this and failed can be found in my latest book on June 12. It is sad that Diya played host to many annullists in the army with the determination to trick the pro-democrats and mislead many of the original defenders of June 12 into a false sense of hope. It should be noted that he and his new team of renegade military officers with an ax to grind with General Abacha gave the hope to the pro-democracy groups in Lagos that they would de-annul the original act of June 23, 1993. Of course this was a complete lie. Are they not ashamed that they did not come to terms with their role in the post annulment government of Abacha?

Most seriously, up till now they did not openly come to terms with their role in the framing of General Obasanjo. What role did Diya play in the framing of a revered institution in the Nigerian army and in the international community?

Specifically one could ask some pertinent questions of these weeping generals about relationships.

1. Did the Yoruba Political Generals know that the death of Chief MKO Abiola was a bye- product of the annulment?

2. Did they know why General Babangida told Chief Abiola that death could result if he stuck to his mandate?

3. Did they know why General Babangida told Chief Abiola in his family meeting with Chief Abiola’s on July 4, 1993 that death was awaiting him in the hands of the annullists if he stuck to his mandate?

4. Did they know that what was reported as being planned (the balancing of equation) by the political generals after the death of General Abacha was necessarily consequential to the issues in the annulment?

5. Did they know that what IBB said before and after the annulment was not different from the original intention of General Abacha in keeping him in detention with out adequate medical attention?

6. Did they know that what IBB told Chief Abiola about death, if he stuck to his mandate was no different from what was reported as facing Chief Abiola in the hands of such

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political generals as , if Chief Abiola were to be sworn in as the , Commander in Chief?

7. Did they know that what the political generals as reported by Mustapha, Bamaiye and Sabo under General Abubakar was no different from what IBB had personally conveyed to Chief Abiola as facing him in the hands of the political generals?

POLITICAL GENERALS AND SERVICE CHIEFS UNDER GENERAL ABUBAKAR SHOULD GO FORWARD

We should raise some further pertinent questions of the successor of Abacha about the last days of the revered Chief as guest of General Abubakar.

1. Why were the political generals including the Service Chiefs sent by General Abubakar to Chief Abiola in detention?

2. Why did General Abubakar not release Chief Abiola immediately he became the successor of General Abacha?

3. Why did General Abubukar not meet with Chief Abiola directly and sort out the ‘issues in the annulment’ as the basis of the way forward?

4. Why did General Abubakar not see Chief Abiola as part of the solution to the crisis after the death of General Abacha?

5. What would General Abubakar say today as a matter of hindsight?

6. Was General Abubakar’s behavior and inaction not in consonance with and in furtherance of the plan to kill Chief Abiola, if he stuck to his mandate, which commenced under General Babangida and continued under Abacha?

It is a matter of public knowledge that General Abubakar and the Service Chiefs were opposed to any thought of having Chief Abiola as part of the solution to the political impasse as long as the ‘ghost’ of Abacha was very much around Abuja during the thirty- day state mourning period. Was it coincidental that Chief Abiola died at the end of this period? It was not; it was the work of a marabout or maybe Allah, as our Islamic brothers and friends would want Nigerians would want Nigerians to believe.

It was also a matter of public knowledge that General Abubakar and his Service Chiefs were opposed to the idea of investigating the past human rights violations. They counseled their installed successor, President Obasanjo against it in their handing over notes. We now know why they were opposed to the setting up of a panel to investigate the past human rights violations. Thank you President Obasanjo for daring them; Nigerians should support you for taking this step to cope with the past.

GENERALS BABANGIDA AND ABUBAKAR SHOULD GO BEFORE THE COMMISSION.

If they like the person they put in office and if they believe in Nigeria, I strongly urge Generals Babangida and Abubakar to avail themselves of the opportunity offered by the

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Oputa Commission to make history. They should defy all and bare their minds on the constraints on them at the time they were Head of the junta. General Babangida would have to discuss the annulment and General Abubakar would deal with the constraints on him at the time immediately after the death of General Abacha and within the 30-day state mourning period. Nigerians would want to know why General Abubakar did not and could not allow Chief Abiola to go home as soon as you took over from General Abacha. Nigerians would want to know why he should allow Chief Abiola to die in what was originally an Abacha Gulag. Nigerians would want to know why he allowed the original Abacha gulag in the end through an act of omission and indiscretion to become an Abubakar Gulag. Al-Mustapha made this point so forcefully; General Abubakar cannot avoid appearing before the Oputa Commission and publicly confronting his accusers and clear his name. History will not buy his silence on the principle that ‘silence is golden’. Not on this occasion!

As for General Babangida, I wonder how many Nigerians read the excuse given by him in all the highly orchestrated news magazine interviews that no one could hold back anyone from dying if it was the wish of Allah. Well, Brigadier General Ibrahim Sabo, who was told by Ishaya Bamaiye that Chief Abiola should not be allowed to live after the death of their patron, General Abacha also used General Babangida’s expression in order to excuse themselves from the death of Chief Abiola. Our Muslim Nigerians attributed their belief in Allah to wrought mischief on fellow Nigerians and loot the country. President Obasanjo is playing the Muslim game of attributing all acts from the ruler as Allah ordained, even if the act is unjust and corrupt. This is arrant nonsense.

Yes, IBB would uncharitably say that Allah said you could not hold back a dying person. This is common sense. General Babangida should credit Nigerians with some modicum of common sense and the benefit of independent knowledge of what happened to his friend, Chief Abiola. Nigerians don’t want to be preached to by fellow Nigerians less religious as they are. General Babangida should therefore stop preaching to Nigerians what Allah wishes for him and for others. One can understand why the revered religious leaders like the former Sultan of Sokoto invoke the name of Allah in what ever they do. Certainly not from the professional coup plotters, usurpers, and annullists! Nigerians are asking if Allah told the professional coup makers when and how to stage a coup and who to install as the Head of State.

Speaking specifically, Nigerians are asking some pertinent questions about all the death notices IBB and his successors served on Chief MKO Abiola since June 1993. Nigerians are asking IBB and other Islamic leaders if it was the wish of Allah, which finally came to pass on July 7, 1998 at Aguda House with the Chief Securing Officer to the Head of State as the Chief Imam. We could seek answer to the following questions from the former Heads of State.

1. Was Allah actually speaking to them? How and when?

2. Did Allah act through Babangida in denying Chief Abiola his mandate?

3. Did Allah act through Abacha in sending Chief Abiola to detention?

4. Did Allah act through Abubakar and through Al-Mustapha etc., etc. in their acts of commission, omission and indiscretion, leading to the untimely death of Chief Abiola?

5. Did Allah say that the international community led by the US, the Commonwealth and the UN should be mobilized by General Abubakar to finally end the life of the revered Chief?

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6. Did Allah talk to these mortals that Chief Abiola would die at the end of the 30-day state mourning period, which ended on the day Chief Abiola actually die; July 7, 1998?

7. Did Allah say that General Abubakar was to be made to bear the ‘cross’ or ‘crescent’, by his inaction after June 8, 1998, which eventually led to the death of Chief Abiola.

Maybe the foregoing incidents were due to Allah’s injunction. This is a lie. These are some of the issues that should be probed by the Oputa Commission. Nigerians knew that Chief Abiola died in captivity, in Abacha cum Abubakar Gulag. Nigerians knew that Chief Abiola died in the hands of the military. How they did it and when may never be known, But a thorough investigation of the issues in the annulment would tell us why they could not hold dialogue with Chief Abiola at any stage from 1993 to 1998.

Part (2) will be on the ‘Oputa Commission and the Military’.

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