It was 25 years ago; Saturday, 10 October, 1998 to be precise. We were all inside the living room of the Yaba, Lagos modest home of Frank Ovie-Kokori. We were waiting for our heroes. In the heat of the June 12, 1993 presidential election validation saga, Kokori was secretary-general of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG) workers and a major weapon deployed by pro-democracy activists to frustrate the vile government of General Sani Abacha. The journey from Ibadan, Oyo State to Lagos that morning had been devoid of its usual serpentine traffic snarl. My editor, Femi Adeoti, freshly out of Sani Abacha’s jailhouse at Agodi Prisons, had gotten wind of a small reception that was afoot in Kokori’s home. A day before then, on 9 October, self-exiled National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) chieftains, driven to scamper into exile by the blood-hounds of General Abacha, had arrived Nigeria from their various hideouts abroad. Air Commodore Dan Suleiman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, Reverend Peter Obadan, Senator Bola Tinubu returned to Nigeria on that day. Four months earlier, Nigeria had been relieved of the cruel, maximum rule of Abacha. He expired without a whimper. The country was, as well, recuperating from the unexpected death of Chief MKO Abiola, winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election.
Unlike his military ruler predecessors, General Abdulsalami Abubakar had begun the genuine return of power to a democratically elected government. As a prelude to this, on 15 June, 1998, the new Head of State ordered the release of some high profile political detainees, which included the then General Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibrahim Dasuki, Chief Bola Ige, Beko Ransome-Kuti, Chris Anyanwu, Ovie-Kokori and some other journalists and pro-democracy activists who Abacha had incarcerated. On 9 July, 1998, Abubakar’s Provisional Ruling Council (PRC) also commuted to jail terms the death sentences earlier passed on General Diya and his colleagues for their alleged involvement in the December 1997 coup. This was followed by his government’s unveiling of a political transition programme on 20 July, 1998, which affirmed 29 May, 1999 as handover date, thereafter proceeding on 11 August, 1998 to inaugurate a 14-member Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) headed by Justice Ephraim Akpata (rtd).
Assured that General Abubakar’s new government meant well, an exodus back to Nigeria of exiles who had fled the Abacha rule began. NADECO had been a huge thorn in the flesh of General Abacha. Formed on 15 May, 1994, the aim of the founding of the coalition was to press for the revalidation of the June 12 election. Its first baptism of fire was the 23 May, 1994 call for a boycott it made of the Abacha National Constitutional Conference. On NADECO’s order, that conference was massively boycotted, the South-West being the hub of resistance to it. The boycott was so intense and effective that Ibrahim Coomasie, Nigeria’s inspector general of Police, declared NADECO illegal on 31 May, 1994; a call which signposted Abacha’s eventual clampdown on Nigerian pro-democracy activists. NADECO then experienced the first bite of Abacha’s Dracula incisors, with its members bailing out of Nigeria through orthodox and unorthodox routes.
We sat awaiting Kokori’s august guests. They all arrived to pay what they called homage to the petroleum union czar. Dan Suleiman, Odigie-Oyegun, Peter Obadan, Bola Tinubu and Tokunbo Afikuyomi walked into Kokori’s living room hugging one another with a suffusion of handshakes. They were all obviously very excited at the reunion. It was not much of a speech-making event but an opportunity to relive the years in the trenches and appreciate how Providence had made them outlive the maniacal machinations of Abacha. As they did this, I moved round them for interviews. Bola Tinubu, the man who was senator in the previous aborted republic, and who today is the president of Nigeria, was my first target.
“What struck you as you first came back home; your impression of Nigeria now, that is?” I asked.
“Retrogression, rolling backwards, on reverse gear, that is my impression. Sad. That people are still queuing at the petrol stations, spend more productive hours at the petrol stations than in economic sector. It is a very sad story… You see poverty, glaringly in the face of the people in a nation that has so much resource to give. It hurts,” Tinubu told me.
When asked about his experience in exile, he made an ad-lib detour to Kokori: “…Our own situation was even much better than him (pointing to Kokori) who we are here to pay tribute to today. A man (detained) in dinghy, six by six cell, blindfolded, not with cloth but there was no daylight in the prison; he was tortured mentally, physically and emotionally. Ours was only restricted to mental torture…” The interview ended with my asking Tinubu to cast his mind back on Abacha’s rule and did he wonder how Nigeria could have ended up spending five grueling years under the dictator? His response: “Abacha was a possessed man, evil in true calling of it because he had no leadership quality, no vision whatsoever. He was trained to brutally win a war, shoot and kill…He coupled that with his sense of dishonesty, lying, manipulation and deception…What…became seriously sad was the people who now became members of the five political parties who wanted Abacha to reign. They could not see anything wrong in what Abacha was doing to their brothers and sisters. They are political prostitutes who should not have any political opportunity in any political environment in the next five to ten years… (they) don’t deserve to be in any position of trust or leadership in this country…”
Dan Suleiman too was full of praise for Kokori and all the returnee exiles had very uncomplimentary words for Abacha. For Commodore Suleiman, “his demise…was a judgment from above and our only desire is that we never have to go through such an era again in our lives.” To Obadan, “Abacha was bad news. He was a bloodthirsty demon and it is unfortunate that the military raised such a monster, very unfortunate.” When I asked Oyegun to look at the Abacha phenomenon in retrospect and proffer what was responsible for his downfall, he said, “I will say, God, because the good old saying is that those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.”
The likes of Kokori should remind Nigerians that the civil rule they enjoy today was not handed on a silver platter. It cost the lives, blood, tears and freedom of some Nigerians who fought for it as the country walked down the aisle of this long road to freedom. Kokori played a major role in the protests that sprung up across the country immediately General Ibrahim Babangida annulled the election. It was the first time NUPENG would be realising the awesome power in its hands to singlehandedly paralyse the country’s economy. Kokori weaponised this by instigating workers to embark on a strike that caused a total paralysis that grounded Nigeria’s economy. Thus, on 5 July, 1994, NUPENG and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association (PENGASSAN) struck, throwing Nigeria into the longest strike in its history, as protest against the annulled presidential election raged in Nigeria.
A number of other events followed. On 8 July, 1994, an orgy of riots broke out in the Southwestern states, especially Lagos, Oyo, Ondo, Ogun, as well as Edo State, and on 3 August, 1994, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), in solidarity with the oil workers’ strike, also called for a general strike. This led to the crackdown by Abacha, who sacked the Executive Councils of NUPENG, PENGASSAN and NLC, shut down three newspapers, The PUNCH, Concord group and The Guardian. Abacha was said to have baited Kokori with a mouth-watering appointment and cash, but upon refusal, laid a snare for Kokori who was finally arrested on 18 August, 1994.
For those who didn’t know or have forgotten, Nigeria was a miniature war zone in the struggle between Abacha and the pro-democracy activists. On 31 May, 1995, a seismic bomb blast was recorded at the launch of the Family Support Programme (FSP) in the Ilorin Stadium. Two people died. Similarly, on 14 November, 1996 a car bomb exploded at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, killing three people, including the Chief Security Officer of the Federal Airport Authority (FAA), Dr Shola Omasola. In Ondo, Ondo State on 25 September, 1997, a bomb went off in the country home of Chief Alex Akinyele, ex-information minister. I was there and saw the deep hole it made in the chief’s house. As the Yoruba say that calamities come in a jiffy (peki laa ko eemo), two weeks before his arrest, General Diya narrowly escaped being bombed when an explosion rocked the Abuja Airport, as he prepared to fly to Markurdi, Benue State to represent Abacha at the funeral of the mother of Major-General Lawrence Onoja. Intels later revealed that the Abacha government was behind the bombings. It was a precursor to his other calamities.
Unexplained murders of those who had one or two things to do against Abacha’s sit-tight government were rife, as some were either detained or they disappeared. Chief Alfred Rewane, Mrs Suliat Adedeji, Rear Admiral Olu Omotehinwa, Admiral Tunde Elegbede and many more were cruelly murdered. On 12 September, 1994, Olu Onagoruwa, a highly respected pro-democracy activist, who was serially pleaded with not to accept the Abacha invitation to work in his government, was sacked as attorney general and minister of justice, although he claimed to have resigned. Apparently having a feeling of monachopsis, Onagoruwa had disowned eight inhuman decrees promulgated by the Abacha government. He had earlier lost his son, Toyin, who was murdered by some unknown assailants.
In an interview he later granted TheNews magazine, Onagoruwa had explained Toyin’s death thus: “General Abacha was not happy with my departure from his government. He felt I was arrogant and over-bearing. News started to get to me that I was in danger and that I should be very careful…Little did we realise that he would pounce on our son, Oluwatoyin, who qualified as a lawyer in 1995. Toyin was very dear to us. He was a loving child; he was palpably cheerful and kind. He had one boy, Victor, as his friend. They were so close that the boy looked very much like part of our family. When this boy could not pay his school fees, I had to pay. On the day of his wedding, my wife and I stood in as his parents. We do not know how this boy got into the SSS (State Security Service) camp and these operatives used him against us. He told them Toyin’s movement in the evenings, particularly to his fiancee’s house; and he told them the address of the house… they felled Toyin.”
When some of us agonise on how little difference exists between then and now, few know the depth of our feeling of déjà vu and the privations we also suffered. I had resigned from the Tribune to join efforts with Segun Olatunji, Adeolu Akande, Wale Adebanwi and Bode Opeseitan in a newly founded newspaper named Omega Weekly. We were unpretentiously adversarial in our relationship to the military government. Our stories, features and editorial opinions were audaciously disdainful of Abacha and his government. Adebanwi got whiffs of happenings in the Villa almost immediately they occurred, which decorated the front pages of our newspaper. We were the newspaper wing of the pro-democracy activists. One day, we received Intels that Abacha’s goons were after us. So, in the night, we ferried all our computer machines to my rented apartment at Oke-Ayo, Odo Ona, Ibadan, where we began to produce the newspaper and to print it in undisclosed locations. God bless her soul, my landlady, Mrs Folasade Asake, never knew that high treason was being spun in her house. If any one of us was ever captured, we would have suffered Bagauda Kaltho’s fate.
In their hearts of hearts, many of those I interviewed in Kokori’s house on 10 October, 1998 must be thoroughly dejected about their post-Abacha Nigeria dream and what we have now. Nigeria, under “the progressives” and “the pro-democracy activists” answers to that old saying that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Tinubu’s impression of Nigeria as “retrogression, rolling backwards, on reverse gear” is still the sad lot of the country today, if not worse. His “people are still queuing at the petrol stations, spending more productive hours at the petrol stations than in economic sector,” that he judged as a “very sad story” is still the sad story Nigeria grapples with. His “you see poverty, glaringly in the face of the people in a nation that has so much resource to give,” sounds like a prophecy he foretold of Nigeria in 2023 under his watch as president. Poverty and hunger seem like the prevailing zeitgeist in Nigeria now. The president must be agonising today about what to do to reverse his prophecies and make Nigerians sing Alleluyah. I am sure Frank Ovie-Kokori died a sad man last week.
The one that hurts most is that, if Tinubu, 25 years ago, was that incensed with General Abacha as “a possessed man, evil in true calling” and was riled at those who worked with him, who “could not see anything wrong in what Abacha was doing to their brothers and sisters,” how did he feel working for Abacha’s main man, Muhammadu Buhari, to be president in 2015 and how comfortable is he with Abacha’s very well known business associate, Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, as our minister of Budget and Economic Planning today?
I wonder what is the present state of the families of those who died in the struggle for the actualisation of June 12; those shot by soldiers and policemen; those who struggled for a better Nigeria but are confronted by an opaque future today. It reminds me of Peter Tosh’s “Jah Sey No song.” At some point, it dawned on this iconoclastic reggae music singer seeking change in the world that the struggle was a mirage. He was getting wary of the feeble impact of his songs, especially the repeated attacks and assaults without let that he got from the authority. So, in “Jah seh so”, Tosh launched into existential rhetorical questions. He repeatedly asked if a Rastaman, the longsuffering believer, “must bear this cross alone and all the heathens go free?/ Must Rasta live in misery and heathens in luxury?/Must righteous live in pain and always put to shame?/Must they be found guilty and always get the blame?”
Is that the song those who yearned for a great Nigeria; those who walked barefooted through the thistles and briers of military rule, are now singing? Frank Kokori died a few days ago on his 80th birthday. He was an authentic hero of democracy. May his valiant soul rest in peace.
Credit: Festus Adedayo