I’ve become more circumspect, lately, in my choice of labels for our leaders, past and present. I was going to begin this piece by referring to the regime of Nigeria’s last but one uniformed leader, General Sani Abacha as one of untold tyranny, unequalled dictatorship, unrivalled despotism. Abacha, however, has been succeeded by some of his former colleagues, out of uniform, supposedly guided by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, whose actions would diminish the crimes and misdemeanors of the “goggled one.” Where an elected leadership presides over an administration denominated by glaring favoritism, circumscribed by astounding nepotism, hallmarked by indefensible sectarianism, unparalleled lawlessness and astounding disregard for the rule of law, it becomes imperative to check for appropriate parallels and parameters to describe the regime. When the actions or inactions of the rulership, challenges the very foundations of national unity, interrogates our security, dilates our communal stability, questions our hitherto fragile cohesion and integration, and impinges on our carefully managed fault lines, we have to be restrained in deploying a one-size-fits-all profiling for every dispensation.
At the height of the reign of terror foisted on on our land during the regime of Sani Abacha, a few names were unwittingly incorporated into local folklore, on account of their *Hitleresque*, maybe *Aminian* enterprise in that regime, unparalleled in the sociopolitical history of Nigeria. A certain Hamza Al-Mustapha, a Major in the Nigerian Army, who was Chief Security Officer, CSO, to Abacha, reportedly, represented everything that was mischievous, dreaded and fearsome in that administration. His name was indeed a recurring decimal at the Human Rights Violation Investigation Commission, also known as the “Oputa Panel,” constituted by administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in 1999. The initiative to attempt to heal the wounds of the nation’s chequered past, especially the period between 1984 and 1999, when Nigeria was under the rule of four successive military dispensations.
Al-Mustapha was not a Member of the Provisional Ruling Council, PRC, the highest decision-making organ of that government, nor was he a member of the Federal Executive Council, FEC. He was not a Military Administrator in any of the states, nor did he head any government department or agency. But the recurrent heckling of the press characterised by malevolent, vicious and violent attacks on media houses; the brutal attempts to rein in pressmen which culminated in the abduction and killing of some journalists; the pursuit and intimidation of real and perceived enemies of the Abacha government including even some government officials, however, implanted the name and visage of Al-Mustapha on the public consciousness. Those familiar with the reign of Idi Amin Dada, the self-styled Field Marshal who was President of Uganda from 1971 to 1979, will readily recall Amin’s hit man, the monster called Isaac Maliyamungu. Maliyamungu’s principal schedule, was the brutal suppression, even extermination of enemies of his boss, real and perceived, across the country.
Under Abacha, groupings and associations like the National Democratic Coalition, NADECO, which was constituted by a broad spectrum of democrats to bring pressure to bear on Abacha to step down for the winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, were constantly harassed and harangued by Abacha’s henchmen. They were so pursued, because they held opinions contrary to that of the administration. Al-Mustapha was allegedly the face of that Abacha terror machine, which visited *sorrow, tears and blood* on hapless Nigerians, to borrow a line from the lyrics of one of the songs of the inimitable Fela Anikulapo Kuti.
While Al-Mustapha was generally considered the face behind the mask calling the shots from the fortressed comfort of Aso Rock, another name which assumed national notoriety was a certain Barnabas Jabila Mshelia, nicknamed *Sergeant Rogers.* Rogers was said to be Al Mustapha’s man Friday. He stalked the streets of Nigeria, ever baying for the blood of the innocent as propitiation for the god who sent him on errands, and pretty regularly too.
Memories of the daredevil antics of Lawrence Anini and his second-in-command, Monday Osunbor, who terrorised Benin City, the serial capital of Midwest, Bendel and later Edo State back in 1986, were in the recesses of our collective memory, when Rogers rudely reminded us of that unsavoury past. Anini was the prototype Robin Hood, who robbed banks, shot at people, but was curiously benevolent, as he sprayed currency notes on the streets during his getaways. Eleven policemen and nine other lives were lost to Anini and his daredevil acolytes on his deathly enterprise. His driving skills were out of this world, his marksmanship, impeccable. He was a national nuisance whose bloodletting endeavours not only caught the attention of Ibrahim Babangida, Nigeria’s President at the time, but virtually cost a sitting Inspector General of Police, Etim Inyang, his job. He was succeeded by Ibrahim Gambo Jimeta, who continued the manhunt for the evasive, even elusive Anini.
Shina Rambo, another outlaw who specialised in snatching exotic automobiles on Lagos roads, was the major successor act to Anini in the business of banditry. Rambo, whose real names are Olusegun Adeshina Adisa Kuye, reigned during the early 1990s and is credited with atrocities akin to the exploits of Anini. At the height of his criminal fame and jurisprudence, Rambo reportedly robbed 40 choice cars in Lagos in one single day, and drove in a convoy, with utmost triumphalism, through Nigeria’s borders with Benin Republic, to his hideout in Nigeria’s Western neighbour. He was alleged to have had a pact with the border police, which made them look the other way, whenever he was at work.
In those testy days during the regime of Sani Abacha, the fear of Sergeant Rogers, a member and chief marksman of the dreaded *strike force* one of the security contraptions under Al-Mustapha, was the beginning of wisdom. Rogers himself volunteered at the “Oputa Panel,” that he was the officer in-charge of logistics of the deadly unit and custodian of a broad array of arms and ammunition. He and his comrades in that mortal preoccupation, underwent very special anti-terrorism programme, where they were trained by Israeli instructors. According to Rogers, the second-in-command in the strike force was a certain Ibrahim Umar, a lieutenant, while Mohammed Abdul, better known by the alias *Katako* was one of Rogers’ several accomplices on their various missions. Rogers and his colleagues hunted down their preys on the streets of Lagos, in operations reminiscent of scenes in an action movie. If such potential victims holed themselves up in their homes, they were traced, tracked down and hacked down.
The world woke on June 20, 1994, to news of the assassination the previous night, of Muftau Adegoke Babatunde Elegbede, who had held several positions of prominence, under successive military administrations. Elegbede, a Vice Admiral, was murdered in cold blood, along the Gbagada/Oworonshoki expressway in Lagos. His assailants gave him no chance of survival as he was reportedly hit by more than 70 bullets from automatic rifles.
October 6, 1995, the Ikeja, Lagos residence of elder statesman, Alfred Rewane, was invaded, and the old man eliminated. Rewane, a very successful businessman, was a major financier of NADECO, the major anti-Abacha pressure group and fingers naturally pointed in the direction of Abacha’s goons. Alex Ibru, a former Minister in the Abacha government, was the next target on February 2, 1996. Ibru who was in-charge of internal affairs between 1993 and 1995 in that administration, was yet another Nigerian of note, who was hunted. His newspaper, *The Guardian,* was perceived as antithetical to the Abacha regime. Indeed, the newspaper was earlier shut down for two months, between August and October of 1994. The car in which Ibru was riding was generously perforated with bullets. Ibru and Femi Kusa, an Editor of *The Guardian* at the time, were so badly wounded, that they had to be flown to England for treatment.
Four months later on June 4, 1996, Kudirat Abiola, wife of Moshood Kasimawo Olawale Abiola, winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, was mowed down on the streets of Lagos. Kudirat, 44 years of age at the time, was very vociferous about the return of her husband’s presidential mandate, stolen by Abacha, to him. She was also unrelenting in her clamour for his release from incarceration. Olu Onagoruwa, a senior advocate of Nigeria, SAN, and former minister of justice in the very same Abacha government, lost his son, Oluwatoyin, also a lawyer. Suspected marksmen of that regime, trailed him a week before Christmas in 1996 and shot at him just as he was driving into his father’s home. This is not forgetting the attempt on the life of elder statesman Abraham Adesanya, on January 14, 1997, shortly after he left his office. About 40 bullets were reportedly expended in that operation on the senior citizen.
This is not precluding journalists who were either killed by Abacha’s errand boys, like Bagauda Kaltho, or those who were framed up and imprisoned, notably Kunle Ajibade, Chris Anyanwu, Ben Charles-Obi, George Mbah, Onome Osifo-Whiskey and Babafemi Ojudu. Moshood Fayemiwo, publisher of *Razor* magazine, was kidnapped in broad daylight in Benin Republic February 1997 and kept incommunicado for seven months, till September of that year.
Source: Tunde Olusunle Ph.D, The Guardian