Major General Tajudeen Adeniyi Olanrewaju is one of the few retired military officers who can be said to have seen it all.

He was Commander, Corps of Artillery, Nigerian Army; General Officer Commanding, Three Armoured Division, Jos; Minister, Provisional Ruling Council, PRC in the Abacha regime; Chairman, Supreme Military Tribunal, ST, that tried the last batch of officers involved in the Gideon Orkar abortive coup of 1990; and Minister of Communication, before he himself was charged along with other top military officers with plotting to overthrow the late Gen. Abacha.
Providence intervened while they were awaiting execution as Abacha died a few hours before they were to be dispatched.

The 65 year old general told Bashir Adefafaka about his experience.

On growing up
I was born in Lagos on 8th May 1946 believed to be the time Harbert Macaulay died. That’s why I was nicknamed ‘Macaulay’ and that used to be my nickname for a long time. Because Lagos was a very small place in terms of population and the families there in those days interconnected to one another.

Fortunately I was born in a place that was well known: Isale Gangan in Lagos where families interrelated. There, we have our place, we never rented a house and we were living as unit.

There was no where you mention Baba Alagbede in the area that people won’t know him.
went to primary school at Odunfa and thereafter St. Saviour Primary School, Aroloya. In 1961 I got admission into Ahmadiyyah College which happened to be the best Muslim college in Nigeria because I belong to that family and I am actively involved in the missionary activities there.

More or less I will say the Ahmadiyyah College was the college choice for most Muslim families in Nigeria at the time.

One of those elite who came together to establish that school was my grandfather, Alhaji Muritala Animashaun.

When I look back I am very satisfied and fulfilled that I had education.

And to summarise my own family background, going by the four cardinal points of a family set up, I can say I have a very great and glorious family background. From the father’s side we have the Animashaun, which is the largest family in Nigeria today, so to say, and most especially in Lagos. Our record shows that, today, we have almost 10,000 members of that family and we still relate very well.

Then on my paternal grandmother’s side, she also belonged to Adesakin family which was part of the first Olubuse in Ile-Ife. So, we are also part of that particular heritage. But from my own mother’s side or my own great, great maternal grandparents, they were direct sons and daughters of Oba Dosunmu of Lagos. Along that ageline too is that today, my great, great, great maternal grandparents were the Isale Eko and Onigbongbo Aworis.

And in Isale Eko today, my parents are still well known as Baba Alagbede. There then I was known as Macaulay but I was very young. I was coming on Sunday to play with my grandparents before I then would come back to my father’s place in Isale Gangan. That was the stage that I was when I left Ahmadiyyah College successfully.

What followed after the Ahmadiyyah College?

I got employment in ECN, Electricity Corporation of Nigeria, which is now Power Holdings Company of Nigeria, PHCN. That was what stopped me from doing my A’level because I was playing football and then I was taken in. I played with football legends like Gboko, Tunde Disu, Omokache; all of us were there in ECN. Then and then I began to see myself and my future in the academics and I decided that look, let me now go for another greener pasture and so I decided to go to England. At that time most of my friends were all planning to go to America and I was trying to do the same. But I didn’t succeed.

What were the factors responsible for your inability to make it to England?

The money as at that time made it just impossible. Not that I was not taken. I was in fact offered admission by Birmingham University but there was no money and there was no way you could even go to send money because you are now talking of 1966 when the crisis had already started; the Civil War. So it was not possible to send the money when I saw an advertisement by NDA, Nigerian Defence Academy, in the newspaper and I applied and completed the process for entry.

We were taken to run a short service because as at the time we were coming into the NDA after most members of the officers corp of Eastern extraction had left their units in Lagos to go and fight for Biafra and Nigeria Army didn’t have enough officers to deal with the crisis and also to prosecute the war.

So all they then did was to look for young people they could train. We were trained, commissioned and I ended up being posted to the Corps of Artillery. That was where I found myself and I enjoyed my career in that place very well. It was not the initial plan for me to be there, circumstances made it so and I did not regret any minute I spent there. Because I rose from the beginning as a young officer to the top of the corp as Brigade Commander of Corps.

The last of the game was that of Commander, Corps of Artillery and that is the corp that has been very prominent and I happened to be one of the many officers who have commanded the place.

Chief Bode George is one of your friends. Has his recent experience affected your relationship?
I was with him, I mean I was with Bode George yesterday (Tuesday March 29, 2011). I am standing by him and all our friends are standing by him regardless of what is happening to him on the political terrain.

For us as friends, we are going to stick with him to the last. That is the way we started. I also went to prison politically too. I went to the school of life the way he did and I know he’s not going to be the last person to go there. And those who are mocking him now can still be prisoners. No condition is permanent.

You are consistent in your position that the circumstances surrounding your trial and subsequent conviction for coup plotting are a mystery. What was your experience during the trial?

I never in my widest experience thought that I would spend time in prison. The death sentence passed on me defined my life and in fact I’m now in paradise shape of what life is all about. A friend and colleague, General Victor Malu, who headed the tribunal, passed the death sentence. And the date that thing was done, being 28th of April, is the date that one of my daughters was born.

March 22 was the day Pope John Paul II came to plead on our behalf with General Abacha. Again March 22 happens to be the birthday of my first daughter. When I was moved from Abuja to Jos to face trial on January 14, that again is another day one of my daughters was born. And I think General Abacha also died on June 8 and particularly MKO Abiola died about a month after on July 7, a date, which again fell on the same date my son was born.

All these appear strange to me because these events that led to our release were equally strange. Though I do not know the truth about this that we were to be executed the very day General Abacha died, we had the remission of our death sentence by General Abdulsalaam Abubakar to prison terms after seven days. Initially I had my fear that it was going to be from cell to the prison for execution. But dramatically we had all this heavenly intervention that made it impossible for the execution to take place.

And then it has really, really strengthened my belief in the efficacy of prayers. Because in the darkness of my cell, I used to pray and do my Tahjud ( spiritual night vigil). As I finished solatul subhi (early morning prayer), I fell asleep and I had a dream that we would be set free. It was on May 28 or May 29.

Abacha died a week after and we were now moved from the cell to another place to serve our sentence after the remission.

I must at this point now express my profound appreciation to the whole people of Nigeria and the international community for the roles they played in various capacities to ensure that, not only were we not executed but also that we were released and freed.

All done, I strengthened my resolve and my belief as well that my trial was simply about the nature and uses of political powers and that the time is not up for my death. So my prison experience has changed my life outside it. Talking about strength, therefore, who am I? Power belongs to God. Ina shata lillahi jamian, God says, “All Power belongs to God.”

It’s an experience that led to my belief that when you have the conscience that is attuned to prayers, you can get out of trouble. But I would reserve my comment for another day about what led to it.

There were various plots and eventually the triumph was put over darkness. I think that’s where I want to put it because there will be another time in my own memoirs when I would be able to say something about what happened. So I think that’s the way I feel I could explain the dramatic turn of events that happened in my life.