www.yesneko.com 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 Olusegun Obasanjo’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 Nigeria 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 Abdulsalami Abubakar. General Abubakar and his Deputy Admiral Mike Akhigbe 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 Lagos 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. visit us at www.yesneko.com www.yesneko.com 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 Oladipo Diya. 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 Sani Abacha 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 visit us at www.yesneko.com www.yesneko.com 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 Nigerian Army; 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. visit us at www.yesneko.com www.yesneko.com 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.