For those of you who had brain cells on your head and could remember NTA news stories and stories from Newsweek and Tell magazines you sure as heck would remember the fear of bomb blasts and assassinations that pervaded the late 80s and through the 90s from Dele Giwa to innocent Nigerians who were at the wrong places at the wrongs times here's a compendium.

October 1993- Hijack of a Nigerian Airways Airbus A310-200 from Nigeria to Niger Republic by four teenagers (acting on their own volition (sure))

May 15, 1995: The National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) emerges as a protest movement for the revalidation of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential elections, eventually assuming the unofficial status of an opposition group.

May 31, 1995: Bomb blast at the launching of the Family Support Programme (FSP) at the Ilorin Stadium kills two. This causes a lot of anxiety and insecurity throughout the country. (Maryam Abacha was supposed to be at this event but did not show up...such convenience)

January 18, 1996: Bomb blast at Durba Hotel Kaduna kills one, and injures another.

January 19, 1996: Bomb explodes at Malam Aminu Kano Airport, Kano.

February 2, 1996: Alex Ibru, publisher of The Guardian titles and Abacha’s first Minister of Internal Affairs is shot and wounded by gunmen suspected to be hired assassins.

February 3, 1996: Bomb explodes at the main Police station in Zaria.

April 13, 1996: Bomb explosions at Ikeja Military Cantonment; one person killed and two injured.

April 25, 1996: Bomb explosion occurs at the Ikeja Air force base, injuring two.

June 4, 1996: Alhaja Kudirat Abiola senior wife to the president-elect and a fierce fighter for the validation of the mandate, is murdered by unknown assassins in Lagos.

November 14, 1996: Car bomb explosion at Murtala Mohammed International Airport kills 3 persons including the Chief Security Officer of the Federal Airport Authority (FAA), Dr. Shola Omasola.

December 16, 1996: Col. Marwa, Lagos State Administrator escapes death from a bomb explosion that apparently targets his convoy; three injured.


December 18, 1996: Bomb explodes at Lagos State Secretariat, hits Lagos State Transport Corporation bus, critically injuring two.

January 7, 1997: Bomb explodes at Lagos mainland, kills two soldiers, injures many.

March 12, 1997: Government charges Chief Enahoro, Chief Falae, Prof. Soyinka, General Akinrinade and others with treason.

March 16, 1997: Government arrests Chief Don Etiebet, former petroleum minister and chieftain of CNC, in connection with the local government elections.

March 25, 1997: Lagos State obas and leading chiefs, rather infamously, declare support for Abacha government at a public rally.

May 7, 1997: Bomb explosion kills one woman and injures two in Lagos.

May 12, 1997: Bomb explosion hits police truck, injures two soldiers and a policeman in Ibadan.


On the spate of bomb blasts or explosions witnessed during the Abacha years, in Nigeria, such terrorist bombings heightened insecurity in the country.

The police often insisted that most of them (the victims) were NADECO agents.

Cases of hired killings often with a political undertone, were also on the rise in Nigeria during this period.

Often the killers (assassins) or the brains behind such killings were not found by the police.

Chronology of Major Political Events in the Abacha Era (1993-1998) - Enemaku Idachaba

Again, “demons” can always appear as rulers and use the instruments of coercion to terrorise and bamboozle their citizens into obedience and submission, as General Abacha did in Nigeria between 1993 and 1998.

As at the compiling of this list, members of Abacha's Strike Force trained in subversion and terrorism on their fellow Nigerians are still active and living fulfilled lives, don't believe everything you read on the news they have used such tactics before and won't stop using it as history countinues to repeat itself.

Autocrats, dictators and tyrants use terrorism ... to suppress and repress opposition and calls for change in order to preserve the status quo and the existing privileges, I must point out here too that governments at times have to use force legitimately to defend the state, life and property against criminal terrorists and unnecessary violence. ~ Osisioma Nwolise


They will kill the Police, they'll kill soldiers, They'll kill children; all so they can create a non-existent enemy.

Yes oh

You are saying Abacha history is repeating itself?

bigFOOTcaveMAN:
You are saying Abacha history is repeating itself?

Exactly, and all the specialists during Abacha's regime are all well, hail and hearty. Even Al Mustapha who was the chief architect is out and about.

bigFOOTcaveMAN:
You are saying Abacha history is repeating itself?

In a larger and more bloody scale.

Every reasonable person who’s not on N30,000 monthly pay knows this.

The unknown gunmen has always been one of their script, a sophisticated one to give a dog a bad name and then hang him.

Unfortunately, many souls have been lost to this shenanigan. Thank goodness the international observers can see through this deception hence the asylum offer to persecuted groups.

I know what’s eating up many Igbo haters on this page and Nigeria as a whole.