Labour leader Frank Kokori, was jailed for successfully organising a nationwide labour strike to protest the annulment of the ground breaking election. Additionally, ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo was not spared, and had to endure three tortuous years in jail. Abacha presented before him trumped up charges before an illegally summoned kangaroo court for a “phantom coup” that Obasanjo knew nothing about.
Finally Abacha detained Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, whose only crime was that he won a presidential election and wished to enforce his mandate by declaring himself president.
Reader, while remembering the five year misrule of “General” Sani Abacha, we should also take note of the evil deeds of other compatriots in crime worldwide. And on the International scene, we have to protest against the actions of those who today are waging wars of aggression and are killing thousands of innocents in Gaza and Ukraine. These dictators are Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, and Valery Putin of Russia.
All despots often masquerade under misnomers, catch phrases and doubtful titles, such as Chairman, President, General-Officer-Commanding, Head of State, Field Marshall etc. We should all speak up so that our protests may highlight the nefarious actions of these evil men. The injunction that one should not speak ill of the dead cannot apply to these earlier mentioned dictators, because of their obnoxious participation in all manner of wickedness!
For any person who can read between the lines of history, will realise how Abacha was able to steamroll and bulldoze his way into power at the earliest opportune time, by simply and studiously riding on Babangida’s back, in a vexatious and criminal baton exchange “coup d’etat.”
Babangida and Abacha are merely the opposite sides of the same coin! Abacha was a presidential misfit because he entered into the exalted office of governance by subterfuge, guile and deceit. It was for these reasons that so many persons in Nigeria openly and brazenly rejoiced at his death, because he had nothing further to offer the nation, apart from misery, sorrow, toil and tears!
According to credible reports Abacha stole so much money from the coffers of this country and its treasury, that up till the present day Nigerian leaders are feverishly and frenetically striving to recover these stolen funds. And this stolen money was to the tune of millions of dollars!
Reader, we must ask ourselves, what did Abacha wish to achieve with so much of his money stashed away in foreign banks? What did he plan to utilise this money for? This stolen money is euphemistically referred to as “Abacha loot,” and wherever it is found strenuous efforts are made to have it returned. To answer the questions as to why Abacha had to steal such monumental amounts of money, one can only gain enlightenment from the song of the renowned American singer, songwriter and Nobel laureate, Bob Dylan, who sings: “The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind.”
Every kidnapper who abducts innocent persons and takes them into the deepest forest, and who release them only after a hefty ransom in the tune of millions of naira, has been paid, he has likewise embraced the “spirit of Abacha” in the kidnappers tortuous soul and mind.
This is because the kidnapper has not worked for this stolen and ransomed money, and that he has subjected the kidnapped persons, and his (or her) relatives, to acute and unnecessary stress. It is not hard to conclude that such miscreants (kidnappers) who have embraced the spirit of Abacha, and qualified to bear the tag, “the Sani Abacha in each of us!”
Every dictator, (especially one who has arisen from out of the ranks of the military, such as Valery Putin,(Russia) Yawori Museveni (Uganda), Nicolas Maduro (Venezuala), Charles Taylor (Liberia), Prince Yormie Johnson (Liberia) the late Idi-Amin (Uganda), the late Muammer Ghadaffi (Libya), the late Samuel Doe (Liberia) etc. and all miscreants who refuse or neglect to hand over power to awaiting better equipped successors, and who endlessly fiddle with power, tricking their subjects with numerous rigged, spurious and endless “elections” and “transforations to democratic rule,” which “transformations” always invariously turn out to be a hoax.
Reader, these despots have refused to hand over power to competent and awaiting successors. All such dictators have likewise embraced the name tag, “The Abacha in each of us!”
Reader, any university professor who engages his female students in unwanted and unsolicited sexual promptings, as far as to alter and lower her grades if she “does not “cooperate,” if she does not “play ball,” i.e. if she does not sleep with him. Such a professor has embraced the “spirit” of Abacha and in any case the epithet applies to him “The Abacha in each of us.”
Counterfeiters, swindlers, confidence tricksters, 419 and Yahoo boys, drug barons and their couriers who get youths addicted to brain-alternating substances, to traffickers of children and adults, to smugglers, hit-men, and all who do not derive their incomes through legitimate means, all these deserve to be described by the epiteth “The Abacha in each of us.” applies.
Reader, finally about Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida himself, what can be written about him? After all by his book launch titled “A Journey In Service” he is the subject of this writing! A write up on Babangida would require an entire book! Let that be left to historians! This writer does not now feel like writing about Babangida. So let us give him space. After all he has apologised! So this writer will merely say “let him be,” until a later date, and a better time.
Concluded.
Aluko can be reached via: 08057007383 or [email protected]
