Pa Ayo Opadokun is an elder statesman and a former Secretary General of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO). In this interview, he speaks on the autobiography of ex Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida, and annulment of June 12, 1993 presidential election, among others, ANAYO EZUGWU reports
What is your take on General brahim Babangida’s expression of regrets over the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election?
My immediate reaction is to say that he was just unfortunately dancing on the graves of innocent martyrs that were killed just for him to remain in public office and appropriate public funds to himself, his family and his collaborators.
What would that one do now? What would this so-called admission do for us? And beyond that, the winner of the election was assassinated by the state. His wife was also assassinated by the state.
So many young Nigerians died on the instruction of Sani Abacha’s government on the streets of Ikorodu. And when we even wanted to go and bury 30 of them who were from Ikorodu, we went to the morgue, and the security men overpowered us and told us to ask their families to come and collect their remains to bury. No ceremony.
That is slapping people and not allowing them to cry. So, the so-called admission is not only pretentious, but very dubious and without remorse. I dare say that Babangida in his so-called 398-page book, engaged principally in revisionism, obscurism and escapism.
That’s the totality of my summation of the book itself. He has not revealed anything. Look, by the second day, that was June 13, 1993, like he admitted, all the results were known, because by the extant laws then, all results were to be displayed at the polling units where voting took place, at the local government, at the ward level and the state level.
So, we had all the results in our hands. And to think of it, his eggheads, principally Dr. Omo Omoruyi, had in his book, revealed the totality of the whole thing.
That the election result was completed at the wards. I just again watched the video clip of the interview granted by Prof. Humphrey Nwosu, the chairman of National Electoral Commission (NEC then) to SaharaReporters, where he gave available information. The results had been completed at the wards; Abiola even defeated Tofa in Kano State.
So, there was nothing new in what Babangida was saying. He was just rambling. But the unfortunate thing for people like us is that even at the twilight of his life, he is not repentant of the treasonable conduct that he and his collaborators engaged in.
He is usurping political power for them to appropriate to themselves the wealth of the nation, which they did for eight years, and Abacha took over and did worse things than him. So, there was nothing really for anybody to imagine that was contained in that book.
Babangida did say at the book launch that people wanted him to say ‘I am sorry’, but he said admitting or taking responsibility is far bigger than ‘I am sorry’. Don’t you think this is something that should be accepted?
No! On occasions where he had been confronted directly, he has equally admitted that he took responsibility. This is not the first time that he was saying it, but it might be the first time that he has written it as an account.
And I’m just sorry for him. My Bible tells me that when they shall say peace and concord, then sudden destruction will descend upon them.
What the Nigerian Army, which Babangida is part of, had done to the country since they forcefully captured power on January 15, 1966, was to arrest our national growth and development
And it will be like a woman in travail and they cannot escape. That’s what 1 Thessalonians 5:3 tells me. And that’s what’s already happened to him. So many lives have been wasted by him and he’s gallivanting now, pretending as if he is a statesman.
If he had said ‘I am sorry,’ would it have taken away this pain that people like you who were there with NADECO and so many people who lost their lives felt at the time?
If he had said he was sorry, even the so-called admission of being sorry as at now will still amount to nothing. The gregarious wickedness they have unleashed on our country has reduced us to nothingness.
Come to think of it, what the Nigerian Army, which Babangida is part of, had done to the country since they forcefully captured power on January 15, 1966, was to arrest our national growth and development.
They have stunted all the prospects that Nigeria had to date. India, which is comparable to Russia in the concept of ethnic nationalities abandoning different countries, got its independence in 1947.
We got ours in 1960. Take a look at the difference between India today and Nigeria. Perhaps the Indian Army was part of the struggle to liberate that country after over 300 years of British colonialism.
But because the Nigerian Army was a global outsider element that was merely set up to not only confront, destroy, maim and oppress the natives, they have always behaved like an army of occupation. And that’s what they were engaging.
So, they take Nigeria for granted till tomorrow. In their first outing, they spent 13 years. In their second outing, in full military uniform, they spent 15 years. That’s 28 years. Instead of allowing Nigerians to govern themselves, they brought in their military commanders in the name of Olusegun Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari later on.
Since 1966, you can understand what that meant to us. They have destroyed the collective destiny of our people. They have finished us as a people. That’s why Nigeria remains a country of opposites. We export what we don’t have – democracy. We import what we have – petroleum. What type of country is this one?
Several NADECO members like Pa Alfred Rewane and of course, Kudirat Abiola were killed, even as Pa Abraham Adesanya miraculously escaped after his car was riddled with bullets. Your house was attacked also. Can you share those experiences?
When we announced the establishment of NADECO in May 1994, we knew that our ways were parallel to that of Abacha. If we succeed, he will not be in office.
For him to be in office, he had to unleash terror on us. Part of the terror was that they imagined that Pa Alfred Rewane, a distinguished elder statesman, decent man, one of the best that Nigeria can ever produce, was the sponsor of NADECO. And they sent their agents after him.
Because they could not get access to his house, they went ahead to bribe an officer of his flour mill in Warri, who gave them the sticker. And they painted a car like that of the flour mill from Warri with the sticker. And as soon as they came to his home, the security men just opened the door because they thought it was from the flour mill.
And those who came to assassinate him just came, they pushed the stewards to take them to his room and they gunned him down. Kudirat was on her way to continue the campaign for her husband to be released and for the validation of the election, when the agents of Abacha attacked and assassinated her.
On my own, they thought that I was hiding in the house; they touched my house, they put fire on it so I would come out of my hiding. Unfortunately, that won’t have mattered to me because we had taken a bond. I had banished fear from my life from day one. It was just by God’s providence that Senator Adesanya escaped.
So many of our leaders were maimed; there were leaders whom many people don’t remember today. I’m talking about young people who were maimed on the order of Abacha on the streets of Lagos. How do you account for all these?
People like us cannot be spreading red carpet for them for the evil they unleashed on us that have made Nigeria to be so retarded up till today. The black race looks up to Nigeria to provide leadership as the most populous black nation in the world.
We are failing abysmally because we cannot even govern ourselves. The current efforts being made by President Bola Tinubu, who I dare say was one of our leaders at NADECO, and he’s the only one I can say without any doubt in my mind, who has technical knowledge about money and finance, is trying to put certain things in place, which are putting Nigeria into economic hardship.
I hope he will take much more decisive steps to lift Nigeria out of the current hardship and economic misery that we are seeing. I know he can do it.
Do you agree with the call by Senator Orji Uzor Kalu that Abiola be recognised as a former president?
But much more than that is the fact that those who brought us to this abysmal mess ought to be made accountable. On what basis was Babangida and his collaborators going to stand to say the reason for the annulment?
And he was now making Nigeria look like nincompoop by saying that he was in Katsina when Abacha annulled the election.
That was untrue. Go and take a look at the video interview of Prof. Humphrey Nwosu. It will tell you what happened on June 10, June 11, June 14, June 15 and June 16.
Babangida presided over the National Security and Defence Council, where they were trying to see how they could make it impossible for that election to be held. But with the intervention of the international community and the civil society in Nigeria, Babangida conceded for that election to hold.
But he was not true to himself because it was his Attorney General, Clement Akpamgbo, whose former junior counsel went to ask that that election should not be held. That was against the extant law that no law could prevent the holding of the election.
Because that election took place, the National Security and Defence Council made several efforts again. A so-called justice went ahead and said the results should no longer be announced.
Many Nigerians have questioned some parts of the book as not being true; what is your take on that?
I will like to take objection to certain portions of the book. On pages 111, 113, 113, chapter 6, chapter 7, page 259, Babangida started by saying that it is the nonperformance, terrible performance of the civilians that normally bring the military into office.
That was a shameful, totally self-serving argument. He equally admitted in those paragraphs that he’s not saying that the military regime is a better option and that it is the kind of government that can provide solutions to the Nigerian problem.
Why did they treasonously overthrow and then negotiate a federal constitution by ethnic nationalities who are forced into cohabitation by the mercenary colonial masters? On pages 111 and 113, he was talking about Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC).
Nigeria was never a full-time member of OIC until Babangida instructed Rilwan Lukman, his petroleum minister to attend the OIC meeting as a full-time member. And it was not discussed at the Armed Forces Ruling Council. They should be ashamed of their conduct.
While you are signing to become a soldier, you are to defend the territorial integrity of the country, not to overrun the democratically elected government, but that’s what they have done. And any country anywhere in the world, where the military has captured power, everything within such a geographical entity becomes part of this point of war.
So, all of us have been part of this point of war since 1966, and they are doing whatever they like with us. I must say Nigeria should know that we don’t accept any of these fictitious writings. They are all a package of revisionism, escapism and obscurity. They are half-truths.
Some people have said that since IBB admitted to knowing what happened and taking responsibility, he should be tried, given the attendant loss of lives at the time. Do you agree with that?
Not only do I agree, but I will say all military men who have taken part in an insurrection against the state should be brought to account.
Each time that we force them to go back to the barracks, they have gone on their terms, carrying all the loot, all the guilty wealth. Look at the Nigerian space today; who is a rich man that is not a military?
If he’s not a military man, he was made by the military. He must be one of their surrogates, one of their sympathisers, one of their acolytes, one of their loyalists and their band. And they showcased themselves at that book launch.
Quite a number of them have become faceless now. The truth of the matter is that if he had not annulled that election, Abacha would not have come into office, and the extent of disunity in Nigeria would not be much more than it is today.
That’s why Justice Dahiru Mustapha, former Chief Justice of Nigeria, said at an event that Nigeria is more divided today than it was before independence. All these are the negative legacies that the Nigerian Army left for us.
And they have done so badly for holding what did not belong to them, and they are still holding on to them till tomorrow. So, I must confess to you that all this self-serving, I take responsibility, I’m sorry, it’s too late in the day. They should be taken into account.
