Mr. Olisa Agbakoba
Fiery
human rights lawyer, Mr. Olisa Agbakoba SAN, has made a clarification
on the role Kingibe played following the annulment of June 12
presidential election.
One of the prominent human rights activists who led the struggle
for the actualisation of the June 12 presidential mandate, Mr. Olisa
Agbakoba, who is also a former President of the Nigerian Bar
Association, speaks on the events that characterised the election and
its annulment, in this interview with GBENRO ADEOYE and TUNDE AJAJA
What are the things you still remember about that election said to have been won by late Chief MKO Abiola?
It was a very peaceful day. Don’t forget that at that time, nobody
had any inclination of what was to come. All of us thought that the
process would be free, fair and concluded. Prof. Humphrey Nwosu
(Chairman of the then National Electoral Commission) really organised
the election in a way that had never been done and we were expectant of
the results. We were waiting for the results to be collated by each of
the returning officers and the declaration to be made by Prof. Nwosu,
but suddenly there was commotion and there was no collation. Then, there
was a period when people were wondering what was happening until Gen.
Ibrahim Babangida (the then Head of State) made a broadcast saying,
‘Yes, the election was free and fair but there were very compelling
reasons why the military will not be able to support the result and I
hereby annul the election’. That led to the reactions by the
international community and civil society movements, such as ours. We
started to protest. There were lots of movements that went on the
streets, protesting and saying ‘On June 12 we stand.’ And then, the
crackdown started. Then M.K.O. Abiola made the famous declaration and
then they looked for him. In the meantime, various movements had been
having lots of discussion with Abiola at his residence. We were planning
strategies and looking for the best way to validate June 12. There were
very big protests which Beko and I led at Eko Bridge and we could have
lost our lives but for the late Admiral Mike Akhigbe, who was on the
bridge because our boys had blocked Gen. Sani Abacha at the airport. We
said he could not come in into Lagos. At that time, although Abuja was
the official capital, Lagos was still where they resided to do their
work and business. Abacha killed about 120 of our members that day,
driving through the human barricade we had formed. He broke the
barricade and went into Dodan Barracks.
Did you say 120 persons were killed?
Yes, 120. I saw them. We were shocked; they were brutally brought
down by his security men. Our boys had built a big human barricade.
Initially, when they came in, all of them were at the airport wondering
what to do. When Abacha came, he stayed for a while (there) and suddenly
made the decision to move. I’m not sure whether Abacha gave that
directive directly but I’m clear that that was the number of people that
went down that day. Meanwhile, we were on the other side of the
demonstration. The tail end of the demonstration was at the airport but
we were already on Eko Bridge, and down Apongbon, that descent, tanks
came out. I remember one of us jumping off the bridge straight down and
as soon as he hit the ground, there was blood everywhere. He was dead.
So, there was a stalemate. We couldn’t move forward because of the tanks
and we refused to go back. So, Akhigbe came. He was a member of the
Armed Forces Ruling Council. He told his commanding officer to go back
and that he would handle it. He then told us not to worry. He said we
should trust him and that he would have the whole thing sorted out. We
said alright and dispersed. But unfortunately, Akhigbe didn’t do
anything. We also had meetings with Oladipo Diya at 4, MacDonald Road,
Ikoyi, Lagos. He deceived us and assured that he would handle it. To
quote him, he said, ‘Trust me, I’m in charge’. He made us to calm down.
We trusted his so-called ‘trust me I’m in charge’ statement, whereas he
was not in charge. From then on, Abacha began to squeeze Diya’s power.
We now realised that Diya was not in a position to do anything so we
resumed our demonstrations and the response was detentions, mass
killings and threats. It was at this point that Anthony Enahoro, Alani
Akinrinade, Bola Tinubu and Prof. Wole Soyinka had to leave. When those
people left, some of us and people in the media industry like Bayo
Onanuga of The NEWS, kept it going. But the more we did, the more they
put Abiola in various detention camps. Then he was offered freedom to
say we will let you go, but you will agree to surrender your mandate.
Abiola said it was either he was released unconditionally and allowed to
take his place as President or nothing, so the rest is history.
Eventually, Abacha died and there was a turnaround and Gen. Abdulsalami
Abubakar came. He commenced the process of transition to democracy and
Olusegun Obasanjo came and became the President.
Was it Abacha’s convoy that ran into those 120 persons or Babangida’s?
It was Abacha’s. Babangida stepped aside in August 1993 and Ernest
Shonekan came in. The transition removed everybody in the Babangida’s
government except Abacha – a very clever guy. He was the only person
that continued to be Secretary of Defence. He was Chief of Army Staff
under Shonekan.
Do you think Shonekan should have dismissed him?
Shonekan had no power; he was just a figure head. He had no power of any kind and there was nothing he could have done.
The election held on June 12 but the annulment was
announced on June 24. What was happening within that period? Did you
sense that something was fishy?
It was clear. When the results were not released in Abuja, we began
to suspect that something was wrong. When you conduct an election, the
next thing is to announce the result, but Prof. Nwosu was prevented from
announcing the results. Even the collation by state returning officers
was disallowed. Then, Arthur Nzeribe came; he set up the Association for
Better Nigeria and he went to court in Abuja as a claimant and he got
this overnight injunction which then officially annulled the election.
The Attorney General of the Federation at the time was Clement Akpamgbo,
who stage-managed the process. It was because we had politically
challenged the annulment, Babangida realised that he needed a judicial
annulment, so they contrived the annulment by using Nzeribe to do it
before the late Justice Bassey Ikpeme. The counter was that we lodged a
case in the Lagos High Court, asking it to validate June 12 election,
declare that its result must be released and declare Abiola as the
President. We won the case, so there were two decisions. Of course, the
Federal Government ignored the decision of the Lagos High Court and
relied on the decision of Justice Ikpeme, which nullified the election.
So, these were all the factors, including our struggle to validate June
12 election. That led Babangida to say ‘look, I must say something on
this’, and then he made his broadcast, annulling and nullifying the
election. We intensified the struggle and just kept going in different
ways but Abacha was determined to crush our movement. Not only was
Abacha determined to crush the movement, he now also noted that it was
no longer fashionable to be a military president.
How do you mean?
He generated a transition to civil rule legislation, created five
political parties and contrived to set a world record by being the first
president to be the presidential candidate of all the five political
parties. So, we continued to scream and shout. He saw that it wasn’t
enough to be presidential candidate, he wanted Nigerians to appeal on
his behalf. That was how the infamous Daniel Kanu’s YEAA – Youths
Earnestly Ask for Abacha – came. They mounted microphones and were
shouting in Abuja that ‘oga, you are the only one that can rescue
Nigeria’. We then organised a five million-man march. The march was the
height of the crisis. I led the march and I almost lost my left eye. And
then all of us – the so-called ring leaders were arrested and sent to
various prisons. Beko Ransome-Kuti detained and imprisoned. I was sent
to Enugu Prison, Gani Fawehinmi was sent somewhere else. In fact, the
leaders of the movement, including Femi Falana and students’ union
leaders like Segun Maiyegun (a former President of the University of
Lagos Students’ Union), Omoyele Sowore and Wale Okunniyi; they were all
my boys. They were the key players I used for the struggle. Sowore was
the President of the Unilag’s Students’ Union at the time and Okunniyi
was the President of the Lagos State University Students’ Union. So they
just picked all of the leader; they knew them. You know, without a
leadership structure, everything would be in disarray and that was
exactly what happened. The good thing was that Abacha died on June 8,
1998.
Some people believe that Abiola’s declaration that he was
the President was what led to his death. Did protesters at the time
agree with Abiola to declare himself as president?
Yes, we worked very closely with Abiola. We agreed that he would go
abroad and garner support, which he did. He had a world tour, garnered
the support of the international community and returned to Nigeria to
make the declaration. He knew that he already had the support of the
civil society organisations, he then made his declaration. But clearly
in making that declaration, he knew that it could pose a risk to his
life. Why wouldn’t he know? Unless of course in doing this one would
agree to a compromise. So we agreed that he should not compromise and
that June 12 must be validated. When Abubakar came in, his government
approached us and we said that if you would not have Abiola take his
place as the President, then we wanted a Government of National Unity to
be headed by Abiola. So all the relevant political actors would then
decide a framework for Nigeria’s political future. That was the first
demand. The second demand we made was that there had to be sovereign
national conference so we could agree on the constitution of Nigeria;
this is an issue that is still plaguing us. The international community
then told us that what they would do was to create a framework for the
participation of human rights community in government. We declined
because our two conditions had not been met. Even when President Thabo
Mbeki (of South Africa) came to appeal to us, we said no, which today, I
think was an error on our part. So the government ignored us and that
was why the Action for Democracy was created. The political group of
pro-democracy movement agreed to participate in the political transition
programme put forward by the government. The human rights component of
the pro-democracy movement did not accept it. That was how Obasanjo came
to office.
Does it mean that the agreement was for Abiola to declare outside the country?
I was in the meeting. There was that thinking but we felt that it
didn’t make sense. Doyin Abiola was in favour of it being done outside,
but it didn’t make sense. We in the human rights community felt that it
would look cowardly if having been elected president in Nigeria; you
went and declared it in New York, United States of America. So, we
supported the move that he should make the declaration in Nigeria. Yes,
there was that challenge of where the declaration should be made. I’m
not privy to how Abiola finally decided to do it but I know that there
was that heavy controversy. I think he took the right decision by making
the declaration in Nigeria.
You think it was a right decision?
Of course! How can you be declaring to be the President of Nigeria in a foreign land? That would have been seen as cowardly.
Some people feel that making the declaration outside Nigeria would
have guaranteed his safety and won him the support of the international
community.
But at the end of the day, in order to be called the Nigerian
president, you must confront the obstacle, which was the military. You
want to go somewhere and say you are the Nigerian president but the
military is controlling the presidency. At a point in time, there must
be that confrontation. So, the confrontation took place but
unfortunately, we were unable to overcome the force of the military. We
were imprisoned, beaten up and our passports were seized and so it was
easy to break our bond. It is much like when Nelson Mandela was
arrested. He knew that he would be arrested and made to face trial and
that the likely consequences of the trial would be a long jail term. Of
course, he knew all these. So, we knew too. I remember when I was on
hunger strike at the State Security Service office. One of the officers
said ‘old boy, just eat your food o, don’t come and die here. You can
prove that you are on hunger strike, but just eat your food because it
is early for you to die’. I said okay, I asked him, ‘For how long do you
think that we are likely to be here?’ He said, ‘Are you not the ones
that went to fight Abacha? You are the ones now. So therefore, the
answer would be indefinitely.’ Somebody called me recently to say you
know you were very lucky because if Abacha had not died and had
continued his design to be president for life, like some African
presidents, you would have died in Enugu prison. But did I know the
risks I was facing? Of course I knew the risks. I knew the challenge
that I was facing but I decided on my own free will. Nobody forced me to
do what I did. Or did you force me? (laughs).
For how long were you on hunger strike?
Two weeks.
You didn’t eat at all?
I ate now, but initially I didn’t. I ate pepper soup, and I ate
very well. He said you can eat and say you are on hunger strike. Who
would know? And that was exactly what I did.
Was there any time you had a close shave with death?
I have high blood pressure and having that condition in prison is
difficult to control, so I was very ill. I confronted death. Luckily,
for me, after a while, it calmed down but initially it was very serious
and clearly I was headed to my death.
Did you think you would die?
No, I don’t brace myself. Whatever comes has come. For instance,
concerning the five million-man march at Yaba, Abacha had asked Mohammed
Buba Marwa, who was Governor of Lagos, what was happening in Lagos. He
had asked, ‘What is all this noise they are making?’ He told Marwa to go
and take charge. So Marwa came to Lagos on March 27, 1998. He came out
of the plane and told journalists that he had drawn a line in the sand
and he dared the civil rights people to cross it the following day. We
had distributed hand bills to announce that there would be massive
national protests. So I replied him and said we would cross the line, we
would be there at 2pm in Yaba and would cross the line. We crossed the
line at exactly 2pm. Tsav Abubakar was the commissioner of police, Lagos
State and there were about 50 armoured tanks with soldiers and police
firing tear gas. Of course, with that type of condition, we were easily
overwhelmed. Do you remember Peugeot 504 station wagon? Ten of us were
put in the boot of a 504 station wagon. But one kind police officer came
and said no, this is wickedness, so he opened the boot. Had we stayed
there for another five to 10 minutes, some of us would have choked and
died. There were many of such experiences but those were the two I
remember.
We have heard various versions of the story but in your view, why was that election annulled? What was the military afraid of?
Do you know what power does? It intoxicates. The simple reason is
that the military didn’t want to leave power because they were enjoying
the pecks of the office and the money involved; it was too sweet. That
is all. You can see what is happening in North Korea. But of course, if
Nigerians had been silent, Babangida would have remained in power
perpetually. If you look at some African countries, some of their
leaders have been there for 40 to 50 years. It is only when people rise
against it that you can stop tyranny. Babangida was interested in
looking for a way to stay in power but he was also forced to deal with
the human rights and pro-democracy communities. If you look at the
transition train, he would create like 16 parties and in another few
months, he would ban all of them. The power was too sweet. That was why
they kept finding ways to keep shifting the transition to civil
democratic rule until they started to confuse themselves. The place
became completely riotous and the civil and human rights community had
also created a lot of tension and by August 26, 1993, Babangida was
forced to step aside. He banned the late Olusola Saraki; it got to a
point where he got confused quite frankly. But eventually, there was
enough pressure from inside and outside to push him out and if you watch
his broadcast, you would realise that he was not ready to leave. That
was why he used the words- stepping aside. It is like stepping aside for
the time being, to give it to Abacha and allow things to cool down
before coming back. So his plan with Abacha was to pretend to give to
Shonekan and then Abacha would seize power again and pretend to return
it to Abiola. Here is where we differed from Abiola; we told him it was a
trap because there was no way Abacha would give him power. He didn’t
listen to us; rather, he listened to greedy politicians – people like
Ebenezer Babatope and co. They packed the cabinet for Abacha because
Abacha had told Abiola to bring him some cabinet ministers, so, many of
the ministers were nominated by Abiola. I don’t understand why he didn’t
see this as a trap.
How was it a trap?
Because Abacha didn’t intend to relinquish power. Abacha had been
eying power since the 1980s but he allowed himself to be the fool, so
people thought he was a dull man. But he was a very intelligent man.
What he did was to hang in as a mole from one government to the other;
he kept moving and Babangida thought he was loyal and he allowed him to
become the head of state. And that was it; once he became the head of
state, he crushed everything. But the plan was to return power to
Babangida. That was why Babangida stepped aside; he had planned to
reclaim it from Abacha. They had planned it, but Abacha played him
because when he became the head of state, he retired all of Babangida’s
boys. He reshuffled the military too and strengthened his own hands.
What will you say about Abiola’s running mate, Alhaji
Babagana Kingibe, who was said to have abandoned the mandate even when
Abiola was still alive?
He is a traitor; he is a big time traitor. I warned Abiola. Abiola
didn’t listen to us, that was the problem. If he had listened to us, he
would have been the president. We said this guy, we were not sure about
him o. But Abiola is also at fault because he was so driven to become
president that he lost sight of some very fundamental points. Then, he
made a mistake of not following the advice of the pro-democracy
community, Rather, he was listening to the politicians who wanted to be
ministers. That was all they wanted. So having failed to follow advice,
he very quickly fell into many errors, the first being that he now
kowtowed to Abacha. There was a very nasty picture of him stretching
across the chair to Abacha when Abacha was talking to him. It was
very-very degrading to the point where he was not able to see that the
northern emirs would not support him. He kept saying oh, they are my
friends, I know them very well. And in my presence, he phoned Babangida,
they put him on hold. He was shocked. He didn’t get to speak to
Babangida. It was Kudirat who had a great sense of decency; Abiola was a
bit a too ambitious in wanting to become president. He went to Aso Rock
to meet with Babangida in the course of which Babangida’s wife and
Kudirat started fighting. It led to a fight. Babangida and other people
had to rush out to separate them. My point is that Abiola really failed
to see some of the pitfalls. I had meetings with Kingibe to say ‘don’t
you think that being appointed foreign minister under Abacha’s
government when the mandate was still alive and being pushed for,
betrayed the mandate?’ He tried to justify it by saying it was Abiola
who caused it. He said Abiola was not communicating with him, strategy,
what to do, blah blah blah. So (he) said okay, ‘if Abiola himself has
virtually rubbished the mandate, then why would he be fighting for it?’
Those are the circumstances under which he took the appointment. I said
‘I don’t think anything justifies it, I think you should have stood by
the mandate notwithstanding what Abiola did. But you see, the irony
today is that he is benefitting from something he did not fight for even
for one day. That is the irony of life. He didn’t fight for it for one
day, but well, he is entitled since he was Abiola’s running mate.
If you had your way, would you say he shouldn’t have been given any national honour?
Yes, I would say he should not have been given because he didn’t
believe in June 12 and why would I give somebody who didn’t believe in
June 12 an honour? For me, it is an irony. He is hypocritical.
Some people believe that Abacha was part of the plan to
annul the election all along because there was a time when Babangida
said he was not the only one to blame and that there were others
involved. Who were those other persons?
Yes, the David Mark and company now – the cabal. When you plan a
coup, you must have supporters. So all these supporters, as I told you,
didn’t want civilians to come. And in all honesty, there were those who
absolutely disliked Abiola in the military because they saw him as an
opportunist. Don’t forget that Abiola was friends with a lot of people
in the military hierarchy. That is why Fela Anikulapo Kuti sang
International Thief Thief, referring to Abiola, of course, that he was
sharing money with the military. And that was why the human rights
community did not accept Abiola at all until the elections were
annulled. That was when we swung on his side but before that, we didn’t.
So this cabal persuaded Babangida to announce the annulment, even
though I personally feel, though I’m not sure, that Babangida had a
different view of Abiola because Abiola was his friend. At the end of
the day, you stand by principles. So, I don’t care if Babangida is
saying oh, they forced me, Abacha pushed me to this, no, it is not
acceptable, he made the declaration. When he made the broadcast, it was
clear that he was trying to exonerate himself but as I said, the buck
stopped at his table. He was the leader and was accountable for any
decision taken, so he cannot tell us sorry, the decision was taken by
others and I merely announced it. No, that is not acceptable. He was
primarily responsible for that decision.
There were also insinuations that the United States
government knew about the death of Abiola and Abacha, even though it
remains a rumour till date. Did you hear anything of such at that time
too?
I heard the rumour too but it has not been substantiated till this
moment, so it remains a rumour. A delegation came when the international
community tried to make intervention in Nigeria. We had many
delegations – from the United Nations, the United Kingdom and so on. But
the one that was instructive was the US delegation led by Ambassador
Thomas Pickering. He had been a US ambassador to Nigeria and had gone
back to the Foreign Affairs Ministry in the US and there was a rising
Foreign Affairs Adviser at that time called Susan Rice. She later became
US ambassador to the UN under President Barack Obama. They led the
delegation that came and met with Abiola. And what we know is that
Abiola requested to have a cup of tea but the rest is rumour-filled,
that they gave him the tea and that they brought poison and put in the
tea but I cannot say whether it is true. They say the same about Abacha;
that he was given poisoned apple by some Indian girls, but I cannot
also say whether this is true but the story was very strong at that
time.
Some people see Abdusalami Abubakar as a hero for making
the transition possible in a short time but some also do not yet
understand why Abdusalam Abubakar, the then head of state, failed to
release Abiola and then under his watch MKO died under unclear
circumstances. What do you think?
We don’t see him as a hero because under him many things went
wrong, but also, he had the capacity to stay for six to seven years
easily. My point is that whether we like it or not, he had the chance to
stay in power for long, but he decided to have a short one, so we can
say that even though he could have done a number of things which he did
not do, we have to recognise what he did. It is just like we recognise
that President Muhammadu Buhari, who did not support June 12, declared
it as Democracy Day. So, we have to give him credit for doing it.
Since Abubakar was really determined to hand over power to
civilian regime, would you know why he didn’t just hand over to Abiola
who was elected already?
Because he was held back by a cabal and there was no way he
(Abubakar) could have become head of state if he had not signed on to
the collective agreement. And the agreement is often not of the head of
state alone. It runs deep into the military psyche. They knew what they
wanted and didn’t want Abiola. Some, like David Mark, didn’t want him
for reasons that we don’t know but many of them were just interested in
ensuring that they didn’t have somebody who could come and scatter
everything and expose all the things that they had been doing. They
would like somebody that would not go out of control and Abiola did not
fit that profile because he had money.
Could Abiola’s humongous wealth have been one of the things that scared them?
Yes, absolutely, that is it. You got it. He was independent and
they knew that he was a man they couldn’t control. Therefore they didn’t
want him.
One other thing about the June 12 episode was the death of Kudirat Abiola. How did you receive news of her death?
I was in court when I heard that Kudirat had been killed. I was in
disbelief and shock. There were no telephones and no social media, so
there was no way to verify the information. I found my way to get to her
house to find out and then I found that it was true. She was just a
wife unsettled by what the husband was going through and saying things
that a wife would normally say. So, I don’t understand why she was
killed. It was not that she had guns or the capacity to overthrow the
regime. So, I didn’t understand. I can understand putting Abiola in
prison because he wanted to be the president but for Kudirat, I don’t
know what the motive was.
After Buhari’s declaration of June 12 as Democracy Day, do
you align with the thought that the result of that election should be
released?
Having recognised June 12 and given Abiola an award, I don’t think
anything stops them from releasing the results, if the President
believes the atmosphere is good enough for it. If he has already
apologised on the behalf of the government of Nigeria for the way Abiola
was treated, then it should be easy to say to INEC if he thinks the
results should be released. He cannot direct INEC to do that, because
it’s an independent body, but he can encourage it. I also think that
beyond the June 12 declaration, the President should go ahead to unravel
all the mysteries surrounding that episode. Nigerians need to know,
because people lost their loved ones. There is nothing stopping the
Buhari-led government from investigating and exposing all that
transpired, beyond the declaration.
Do you think they would want to do that?
That’s a very good question, but they may not want to do that and I
see no reason why. Buhari may not necessarily have wanted to honour
Abiola, but it is good for our national healing process. Government
should release the recommendations of the Justice Chukwudifu Oputa-led
panel – the reconciliation report – so that we can deal with our
national grievances. There was the Movement for the Actualisation of the
Sovereign State of Biafra issue, killing of Ken Saro-Wiwa, and so on.
All these grievances in Nigeria, they need to be carefully resolved so
that we can carefully bury our national grievances and then move on.
*****
Culled From Punch.
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