By Okey Ndiribe

His death thirteen years ago yesterday, was the end of the dubious political transition programme he foisted on the country. After seizing power from an entrapped Chief Ernest Shonekan, Head of the Interim Nation Government five years earlier, Gen. Sanni Abacha had made some pretence of sympathy for Nigeria”s pro-democracy movement.

There was even speculations that he had promised to hand over power to the winner of the 1993 polls Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola. But it did not take long before Abacha began to show his true colours.

He first bared his fangs early in 1994 when he organized elections into the National Constitutional Conference (NCC) which he convened in response to the fierce demand for a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) which the pro-democracy and human rights groups had championed as a solution to the political logjam in which the country was embroiled after the cancellation of the 1993 poll.

The poll was adjudged as the best the nation had ever held at that time. The electoral process for membership into the conference was itself was booby-trapped in several parts of the country. This became manifest in the manner the environmentalist Ken Saro Wiwa and eight other Ogonis were framed up for the murder of the Ogoni four.

Abacha left no one in doubt about his jackboot tendency when he arrested Abiola and threw him into jail for declaring himself President in 1994. All entreaties to him to release the winner of the 1993 election fell on deaf ears. The maximum ruler bared his fangs one more time when the National Democratic Coalition issued him a deadline on handover of power to Abiola.

As the expiration of the deadline drew nearer in 1994, Abacha”s goons went berserk and made efforts to silence the entire opposition either through direct murder or imprisonment. During this period, NADECO”s financier Chief Alfred Ogbeyiwa Rewane was murdered in cold blood in his house in Lagos.While all this was unfolding, the National Constitutional Conference (NCC) which the Abacha regime convened boldly announced a terminal date for military rule in the country.

 This was too much for Abacha to tolerate. He promptly ordered the arrest of former Chief of Staff Supreme Headquarters Major Gen. Shehu Yar”Adua (rtd). Yar was eventually jailed. Yar”Adua”s sin was that he was widely believed to have influenced the declaration of the conference which gave the regime a deadline. As if this was not enough, Abacha went after former military Head of State Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo (rtd); he too was arrested and framed up in a coup plot.

Yar”Adua eventually died in detention after he was allegedly poisoned while Obasanjo outlived the dictator in jail. Abiola”s wife Kudirat who had stood with her husband in his agitation to de-annul the cancelled election was brutally killed by Abacha”s murderers.

There was also an attempt on the life of the then leader of NADECO the late Pa Abraham Adesanya. Even Gen. Oladipo Diya, who was Abacha”s deputy was not spared. He too was caught up or rather lured into a coup plot and sentenced to death.

During this period, journalists who wrote stories the junta didn”t like were also jailed after being subjected to kangaroo trials or were simply arrested and kept in under-ground detention centres for long periods without trial. Among the journalists who were jailed were George Mbah of Tell Magazine; Kunle Ajibade of the The News Magazine; Chris Anyanwu of The Sunday Magazine and Niran Malaolu of the Diet Newspaper.

The labour movement was not left out as the Nigeria Labour Congress was shackled. Pro-democracy and human rights activists who escaped the assassins bullets were thrown into prison on trumped up charges. Among prominent human rights and pro-democracy activists who were jailed in this manner were Dr Beko Ransome-Kuti, Dr. Fredrick Fasehun and Sylvester Odion-Akhaine.

Others like Prof. Wole Soyinka, the late Pa Anthony Enahoro, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Ralph Obioha and several others were forced into exile. As all these vicious human rights abuses were being committed by the Abacha junta, the dictator was also busy plotting how he would metamorphose into a civilian President.

Towards realizing this goal, he sponsored the formation of five political parties which pro-democracy groups promptly labeled by Bola Ige as five fingers of a leprous hand. The five parties eventually adopted him as the sole candidate for the sham elections which Abacha planned to organize.

The activities of the five parties were complemented by the activities of its youth wing-Youths Earnestly Ask Abacha. Abacha”s sudden death on 8th June 1998 torpedoed his anti-democratic agenda.At the time Abacha died, Nigeria had become a pariah nation which was isolated in the international community.

His successor Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar set for his administration the goal of returning the nation it to the comity of civilised nations. He did not waste time to outline his transition programme which lasted for nine months.

Gen. Abubakar expanded the democratic space and the electoral commission he set up registered several political parties. He also gave the nation the 1999 Constitution which was used to midwife the fourth republic.