In 1963, Sani Abacha was a second lieutenant in the army, and by 1969 was only a major. As a major in the Federal side, he was the subordinate of his contemporaries such as Murtala Mohammed, Benjamin Adekunle (the Black Scorpion), Yakubu Gowon, Olusegun Obasanjo, and Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, among others. But during the civil war, it is documented that Sani Abacha had a breakdown and almost left the army, but Lieutenant Colonel Olusegun Obasanjo supported him and persuaded him to stay. At one point, Abacha’s dismissal papers were on Obasanjo’s desk during the war (due to his breakdown), but he refused to sign it.
Why was this significant? Following the march of historic events: a sizeable number of the educated citizens in pre-war Nigeria either died during the war, or in post-war times were marginalized. As Richard Bourne stated “the military had always offered an attractive career to northerners and middle-belters who lacked the qualifications of their contemporaries in the south. After the war there were no Igbos in the upper echelons [military] and there were not many Yorubas” (p. 156). And since “to the victor goes the spoils”, the military that dominated post-war Nigeria offered an opportunity for people to gain power and control wealth with little cognitive merit or educational qualification. By talking Abacha out of quitting the army during his breakdown, Obasanjo enabled Abacha to remain in the army and thus inadvertently become associated –via the military–with every successful subsequent coup, i.e. he gained the opportunity to remain close to power that later propagated the chance to seize it.
The consequence of this fateful decision were manifold: By staying in the military, Sani Abacha happened to be 2nd in command during Babangida’s regime. On April 22, 1990, he ruthlessly put down an unsuccessful coup by Major Gideon Orkar. Following this, he then became Defense Minister in August 1990, neatly positioning himself as Babangida’s successor. Next, when the drumbeat of democracy was stopped by Babangida through the annulment of the election in 1993 that saw Abiola secure enough votes to become president, the military government still dominated by the north, refused to relinquish power. Therefore, instead of transferring power to Abiola, on August 26, 1993, Babangida transferred it to an Interim National Government (ING), with Ernest Shonekan as its Chairman. In this Board, Abacha was the sole military member.
As protests and opposition grew against both the annulment of the presidential campaign and the appointment of the ING that most saw as illegitimate, and thus could not fully respect, their sentiments were soon bolstered by a crucial judicial verdict in 1993. Specifically, on November 10, 1993, Abiola won a judgment in the Lagos high court, which “found that the ING was null and void because Babangida had lost his legislative authority to sign the decree empowering the ING by the time he did so” (p. 188).
Faced with an inevitable handover after the loss of judicial legitimacy, the Minister of Defense, Sani Abacha, seized power as Head of State on November 17, 1993 at the age of 50. Soon afterwards , he issued Decree No. 107 of 1993, which not only suspended the constitution, but also stated that no Nigerian court could challenge any decree issued since the military takeover in 1983. Then Decree No. 114 of 1993 dissolved political parties, ousted the jurisdiction of the courts, and nullified any effect of the African Charter. In effect, Abacha consolidated power. This gave the North a succession of 3 military rulers and thus power to exercise undisputed suzerainty over the rest of Nigeria.
But it goes further. In 1995, Abacha pursued a conspiracy and charged 44 officers with a coup plot. The so-called coup plot allegedly involved ex-generals Olusegun Obasanjo and Shehu Musa Yar’Adua (whose younger brother Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was later president from May 29, 2007 – May 5, 2010). Arrested in March and tried by a military tribunal in June, Obasanjo was originally sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment, before the sentence was eventually cut to 15 years. Obasanjo then faced the dreadful prisons in Krikiri, Lagos, Jos and Yola. Allegedly, “an attempt to poison him was foiled when he insisted on using his own doctor for blood tests” (p. 193).
Therefore, Obasanjo was imprisoned by the same person (Sani Abacha) he apparently influenced and prevented from leaving the army. In a poetic irony, the young man who suffered a breakdown (and whose dismissal papers Obasanjo refused to sign), ended up ‘signing dismissal papers’ decades later in 1995 that sent him to prison. Originally a 25 year sentence, it was later reduced to 15 years after a huge international campaign involving prominent figures such as US President Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former British Prime Minister James Callaghan, Nigerian diplomat Emeka Anyaoku, and former Guyana Foreign Minister Shridath Ramphal.
Abacha’s sudden death in June 8, 1998, precipitated the release of political prisoners, of which Obasanjo was one. After his release from prison, Obasanjo wrote a letter of condolence to Abacha’s widow, Maryam Abacha.
~Dr. Ikenna Q. Ezealah
Primary references:
“Nigeria: A new history of a turbulent century” by Richard Bourne
“Communication 129/94” by Civil Liberties Organization/Nigeria
Nation Upbuilding 