Coup: Nigeria owes us apology, not amnesty—Anyanwu

By Emmanuel Aziken

ABUJA — Senator Chris Anyanwu has dismissed calls for amnesty for her and others imprisoned over alleged participation in the phantom coup plot of 1995, saying Nigeria rather owed her an apology.

“Nigeria owes me an apology and not this talk of amnesty,’’ an angry Senator Anyanwu said yesterday.

She spoke in reaction to reports in some newspapers (not Vanguard) of a pardon for her and some army officers jailed by the Gen. Sanni Abacha regime on account of the reported 1997 coup plot allegedly orchestrated by that regime’s number two, Lt.
Gen. Oladipo Diya and some others.

“I am not part of that arrangement and what I and those boys deserve is an apology for all that we suffered,’’ she said in reference to the plight of some military officers allegedly framed up in that coup plot.

“We were unjustly denied our freedom and rubbished in the service of our fatherland and you talk of pardon? What we should be talking of is an apology for all that we suffered and lost for the fatherland,” the journalist-turned-lawmaker told Vanguard in yesterday.