Chief M. K.O. Abiola declared himself President on June 12, 1994 based on the June 12, 1993 presidential election which he won fair and square.
He was arrested by the military junta of General Sani Abacha and charged with treasonable felony at the Federal High Court. Chief Abiola was subjected to horrendous psychological and mental torture while he was held incommunicado in a military custody for 4 years. Despite Chief Abiola’s serious health challenges, the maximum dictator refused to provide him with medical care.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu who visited Nigeria at the instance of President Nelson Mandela and met with the imprisoned Chief Abiola confirmed his parlous meical state on April 27, 1998. The revered priest said that Abiola’s health and living condition were deteriorating rapidly and called for his release immediately to attend to his failing health. The military regime disregarded the call.
After the controversial death of Abacha on June 8, 1998, he was succeeded by his Chief of Defense Staff, General Abdusalami Abubakar as Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria. The new military junta ordered the immediate release of all political prisoners from prison custody including General Obasanjo (rtd) and other convicted coup-plotters. Abubakar, however, refused to release the detained Abiola on the ground that he would not renounce his claim to the presidency. Nigerians were shocked when the American delegation announced that Abiola died during a brief meeting with him on July 7, 1998.
The Chukwudifu Oputa Panel instituted by the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration to probe the egregious human rights abuse which defined military rule in Nigeria investigated the death of Chief Abiola. Abubakar declined to explain his role in the whole saga as requested by the Oputa Panel because he did not want to be cross examined by lawyers. About 28 years later, in his autobiography, “Call of Duty,” the former military ruler dismissed claims that Abiola was poisoned, insisting that an autopsy conducted by foreign pathologists had attributed his death to natural causes.
In dismissing the allegation that Chief Abiola was poisoned, Abubakar did not respond to the evidence presented to the Oputa Panel that there are poisons that cannot be detected by autopsy. Abubakar, in washing off his hands like Pontius Pilate, said: “As far back as 1994 when he was arrested by the Abacha Administration for declaring himself President, it was public knowledge that Abiola was managing certain medical conditions which could seriously affect the quality of life of any human being.
Abubakar also cited the transcript of Thomas Pickering’s press conference and the report of Susan Rice in her memoir, “Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For.” She denied that Abiola had been poisoned but conceded that he had been neglected medically. She said she noticed that “Abiola’s ankles were swollen and that about five minutes into their conversation, Abiola started to cough, at first mildly and intermittently, and then wrackingly with consistency.”
Abubakar also cited a radiological report by Colonel (Dr) O. Awofeso, then Chief Consultant Radiologist at the Nigerian Army Defense Hospital, Sokoto, on September 28, 1994, which found that Abiola’s heart was enlarged with “right ventricular preponderance” consistent with hypertensive cardiac disease. Abubakar therefore argued that, “it was common knowledge that Abiola was managing certain medical conditions which could adversely affect the quality of life of any human being.
Despite knowing that Chief Abiola’s health was endangered during his 4-year dehumanizing incarceration by the maximum ruler, Abacha, General Abubakar deliberately refused to accede to the request to allow him to attend to his health. Abiola’s personal physician, Dr. Ore Falomo, was also equally refused when he requested to come and see him. In addition, Abubakar subjected Abiola to undeserved mental torture to make him dump his claim to the presidency as if that was not enough.
After futile meetings between Abiola and the service Chiefs on the mandate, Abubakar opted to drag in the so-called international community to help resolve the political logjam. The then Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr. Kofi Annan, and the Secretary General of the Commonwealth of Nations, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, were flown in to persuade Abiola to renounce his mandate. In their separate meetings with Chief Abiola, they asked him to exchange the June 12 mandate for his release from custody.
Both diplomats, while rejecting the offer of conditional release, intimated in their press statements that he had agreed to give up the mandate. In a letter dated July 6 1998 addressed to Chief Gani Fawehinmi SAN, Abiola denied both diplomats’ claim. “True, both Annan and Anyaoku (apparently working together, although I saw them separately), wanted me to sign a statement that I will not, once again, demand my mandate, once released… he said, Both diplomats talked of arranging my UNCONDITIONAL release. “Any release obtained on that basis would be the worst form of ‘capitulation’ with the demand for such a statement which would make me ‘a deserter’
“I reviewed the history of June 12, I told them that right at the beginning, Obasanjo in July 1994 came to me with 26 traditional rulers to seek a similar statement. He was given a stern telling off in the presence of the retinue of traditional fathers, after I had explained that the issue is one of God versus a few ‘powerful elements’. “The voice of the people is the voice of God, ‘Vox Populi Vox Dei’ a popular maxim long before Jesus Christ arrived.”
Note that the aborted efforts of Annan and Anyaoku to persuade Chief Abiola to give up his mandate led to the invitation of the Americans by Abubakar. Having regard to the facts and circumstances of the suspicious death of Abiola, Abubakar could not justify while allowing the American delegation to breach the prison regulations of both Nigeria and the United States during the visit.
Visitors to prisons in the United States are absolutely forbidden to bring any food or beverages, including tea, into the prisons under the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and state equivalents. The rule is intended to prevent the smuggling of contraband, narcotics and poisons into prisons. All meals and drinks in a correctional facility are therefore provided by the institution only or purchased thru the secure prison commissary.
Visitors in Nigeria are permitted to carry outside food or water to inmates or detainees in police stations, correctional centers and other detention facilities. But visitors are absolutely required to taste the food or water in the presence of the officers on duty before serving it to the prisoners or detainees. Visitors should taste the food or water to make sure that it has not been poisoned or adulterated to harm the prison inmates or detainees in the custody of the government.
Visitors to prisoners in the United States are strictly forbidden from bringing, serving, or passing anything outside of food or beverages—like tea, for example. But the Abubakar military junta allowed American visitors to bring a tea flask to the detention facility when they visited the detention facility of Abiola, who was visited on July 7, 1998. Totally in violation of the rules of the Nigerian correctional center, a member of the delegation, Susan Rice, who served the tea, did not taste it before giving it to the detainee.
ACP Zadok who had guarded Chief Abiola from 1996-1998 testified before the Chukwudifu Oputa Panel. In his testimony, the police officer said that in strict compliance with prison regulations, he tasted the food, water or tea prepared for Abiola before passing same to the detainee. But on the fateful day Zadok said he was removed from his duty post by Major A. S. Aliyu, Chief Security Officer to the head of the military junta.
Aliyu had forsaken his own primary duty of protecting the head of state to attend to the American delegation. Major Aliyu in his oral testimony before the Oputa Panel, confirmed that Susan Rice did not taste the tea before serving it to Abiola. Zadok agreed. This was the first and only time that a foreign visitor had been allowed to serve tea to a detainee in the government’s custody.
Major Aliyu turned round to say that the tea in question was prepared by a villa staff, but he could not name the staff during his highly misleading testimony. By the end of his proceedings, it was crystal clear that Aliyu had set out to cover up the actual cause of Abiola’s death. So, he could not tell why Zadok was ejected from the Akinola Aguda house and why he assumed charge of Chief Abiola’s security when the American delegation visited him.
In his memoir, “Interventions (A Life in War and Peace)”, the late Kofi Annan disclosed that he had told Abubakar, “Abiola had to be released if he was to gain international goodwill and mine. At this Abubakar hesitated a little. He said he was prepared to free Abiola immediately but only if he did not try to re-claim the presidency.”
Mr. Kofi Annan equally said that although the foreign pathologists had established that “it was the result of heart condition, and there was no foul play- other than the fact, I thot that Abiola had been denied adequate medical care throughout his incarceration. Either way, he was just another victim of the systematic violations of a whole host of human rights which are inevitable under personalized and oppressive regimes.”
Before then, the Oputa Panel had, after a critical review of the evidence presented before it, stated thus, “In the case of Chief Moshood Abiola, we are of the view that the government of the day knows much more than it has admitted. We believe that the denial of Chief Moshood Abiola’s mandate was a breach of the rights of Nigerians to choose their leaders freely. We consider this a serious infringement.”
The Oputa Panel therefore found that “Chief Moshood Abiola’s death was due to his incarceration and the denial of access to adequate medical attention. The evidence of the Chief Security Officer to the then Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, was replete with contradictions. “From the evidence before us, Chief Abiola died under suspicious circumstances. The Commission therefore recommends that a thorough investigation be carried out to throw light to and inform the Nigerian people on what killed Chief Moshood Abiola.
The Federal Government should without further delay, reopen investigation into the suspicious death of Abiola, given the denial of Abubakar and the members of the American delegation of any involvement in the matter. As the Oputa Panel opined, the fresh investigation will “throw light to and inform the Nigerian people on what killed Chief Moshood Abiola” in the custody of the Abubakar military junta.
