₦airaland Forum

I inturn tender my unreserved apologized for my misguided opinion on the initial press release by the bank in an earlier thread on this forum.

This month marks 20 years since the deaths of General Sani Abacha and Moshood Abiola in 1998. Just before their deaths, Nigeria’s situation was as follows:

Nigeria was being ruled by a reclusive military dictator called General Sani Abacha
General Olusegun Obasanjo and over 50 other army officers were in jail on trumped up charges of coup plotting.
Nigeria had become a pariah nation after being expelled from the Commonwealth for executing Ken Saro-Wiwa and other activists who were campaigning for a fairer share of Nigerian oil revenues and against the environmental damage caused to their lands by the drilling and spills of big oil companies.
Lt-General Oladipo Diya, Major-Generals Abdulkareem Adisa and Tajudeen Olanrewaju, and several other officers were on death row awaiting execution for their role in another coup plot.
The winner of the acclaimed June 12 1993 election Chief MKO Abiola had been in jail for 4 years, kept incommunicado from the outside world.
General Abacha was on the verge of transforming himself from a military ruler to civilian President having strong armed all the 5 political parties (“five fingers of the same leprous hand”) into adopting him as their presidential candidate.
Genuine democracy seemed far, far away.
Plus a lot of the “pro democracy” activists shamelessly abandoned Abiola to join Abacha (Olu Onagoruwa, Baba Gana Kingibe). Even ministers in Abacha’s regime were not safe. The Guardian Newspapers (owned by Abacha’s minister Ibru) was proscribed by a newspaper proscription Decree and shut down after it criticised the government. It was the paper’s continual criticism of Abacha’s regime that led to the near fatal assassination attempt on Ibru.

The Abacha -v- Abiola power struggle was holding the entire country hostage. Abacha’s thirst for power and Abiola’s unrealised mandate. Even if Abacha is removed, what to do about Abiola who won a credible election? Then the following cataclysmic events happened in the space of 30 days:

On June 8 1998 Abacha dies of a heart attack and is hurriedly buried without an autopsy by the time the news filters through to most Nigerians. Nigerians publicly celebrate the death of a reviled leader with wild jubilation. General Abdulsalam Abubakar quickly replaces Abacha and announces that Abiola will be released but that he had to realise that his mandate had expired. A lot of chicanery was used to get Abiola to renounce but he refused. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is sent to talk to him and explain that his “term of office” had expired since 5 years had passed since the June 12 1993 election. All to no avail. Exactly one month after the death of Abacha, Abiola suddenly dies of a heart attack on July 7 1998.

With Abacha, Abiola and the June 12 issue out of the way, General Abubakar announces a swift 10 month programme for a return to civilian democratic rule. Just 10 months after Nigeria seemed doomed to perpetual military rule under General Abacha, the military steps down and a new democratic government is elected under President Obasanjo. The speed with which Abacha’s infrastructure was dismantled just seemed too contrived. With Abacha alive and Abiola incarcerated, most people thought democracy was years away in Nigeria. Just 10 months after his death everything he did was undone: his killer squad was dismantled, coup convicts and pro democracy activists released, Nigeria back in the Commonwealth, democracy restored, and the army back in the barracks. Note that a lot of Abacha’s cronies survived in office and resurfaced in subsequent dispensations (Sarki Mukhtar – NSA, Jerry Gana etc).

Somehow exactly 30 days apart, both men die of heart attacks. Abacha is prevented from becoming a civilian ruler, from executing the condemned men like Diya, Adisa and Olanrewaju, and a recalcitrant Abiola (who refuses to renounce his mandate) also dies. Problem gone, debate over, fresh start. All rather convenient isn’t it?…. How easily we forget….


https://maxsiollun./2018/06/12/what-really-happened-to-abacha-and-abiola-2/amp/?__twitter_impression=true[center][/center]

According to the Nobel laureate, ‘‘It is not possible to honour MKO Abiola in one breath and admire his tormentor in another breath."

Since Abacha is the "tormentor" in question that Buhari dearly venerates, it therefore implies that both of them should automatically be on the hall of shame.

Good! Let the wave sweep them all-criminals both in APC & PDP.

Good! Let the wave sweep them all-criminals both in APC & PDP.

The complete June-12 results have never been officially decleared That was just a costly political joke by Falana.

They are among the vallians of the June-12 struggle.

"In a statement, Omokri reminded Buhari that people only compare themselves to the best, adding that the reason why he constantly has strong need to compare himself to Jonathan and former President Olusegun Obasanjo is because he suffers from inferiority complex"

Simply true! People with low self-esteem often do this as a means of forcefully asserting their low self worth.

pcjuvy:
There are 2 teams in a football match

Each team has 11 players

Each male player has 2 "balls"

There are 22 players on both teams

22 players each with 2 balls

That makes it 44 balls on both teams

Plus the ball on the field = 45 balls

How the 45mins for half time was created

Nice football mathematics there.

Nice one there by this government.However as Shehu Sanni postulated;
-“The greatest honour the government can do to the spirit of June 12 is to habitually respect the rights of Nigerians to differ and to dissent without persecution, obey court orders and prosecute the war against corruption without discrimination."

phase1:
What hate did they spew? The respect for seat of the presidency is liquidated today because of Yoruba insultive nature. There was no form of derogatory word they didn't use on GEJ because he refused to tow the 'nationalist' path of deriding and marginalizing Igbo just like his predecessors.

Today for you to be seen as 'nationalistic', you must hate the East and anybody who seem to be their friends. Ogundamisi rode on anti-Igbo expletives, on twitter and Facebook to become a presidential appointee on media today.

As long as Igbo remain part of this contraption we'll continue to document anti-Igbo atrocities so that the hypocrites won't develop collective amnesia and deny them in future.

I radically abhor injustice in any form.

Thanks sir.God bless you well.

Guess this man is also an IPOB as the present government & their allied zombies will want us to believe ? Buhari does not even his is a failure because of these sycophants.

I remember 2 people were killed in Sango area of Ibadan then.RIP all the heros & heroines of the June-12 struggle.

Jolar101:
Is either this old man visited or working on to visit Aso Rock for 20 million naira for campaign team.

These old men can't keep lying to sensible electorates.

The zombie Prof.also help to confirm Momoh's assertion.