By Emma Amaize, Regional Editor, South-South

A  FORMER General Secretary of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, Chief Frank Kokori, is taken aback at the effort by Frank Eno, one-time Special Assistant to the undeclared winner of the annulled June 12, 1993 election, Chief Moshood Abiola, in an interview published  in Sunday Vanguard, last month, to allegedly pull the wool over the eyes of Nigerians concerning the June 12 re-validation struggle and his (Kokori) arrest. Eno’s interview was in reaction to the remarks about him by Kokori in latest book, ‘FRANK KOKORI: The struggle for June 12’.  But Kokori, who fires back, in this  interview at his country home in Ovu, Ethiope East Local Government, says Eno was standing the truth on the head.

Fred Eno, in his reaction to your book, ‘FRANK KOKORI: The struggle for June’,  said he owed neither you nor the former governor of Ogun State, Chief Segun Osoba,  any apology as you purely wrote your book to sell it and exonerate the former governor from his act of betrayal?

I am surprised hearing this from Eno because, like I said in the book, Eno was very junior to us during the time of the struggle, but, fortunately for him, he was the Media Assistant to the late Chief Moshood Abiola and it was during that period that I knew him through the late Pa Anthony Enahoro and we started working together in the area of media, not that he was in the struggle really. But in the process, occasionally, he phoned and I would phone him. But like I mentioned in my book, at that crucial moment when I went underground, when the military dictatorship was after me and my family, nobody knew my hideout. I was underground, moving from place to place, nobody, even my deputies in office didn’t know where I was at that time. But, unfortunately, on that day I was abducted, I had a phone call, that night of 19th /20th August, 1994. At that time, the military ruler, the late Sani Abacha, had banned NUPENG, PENGASSAN and NLC, so it was a very tough period. I covered  my tracks and, apart from my wife, who was always with me and my first son, who was behaving as my driver at that time since I could not trust any NUPENG driver, nobody else knew my whereabouts.  Like I said, it was not easy for another person to know where I was, but around 11.00  that night, a voice started calling me

(Reads from the book). ‘’On that night of 19th/20th August, a voice started calling me, saying, ‘please, tell me where you are stayings, it was Fred Eno.  His request sounded strange. None of my callers ever asked me to disclose my whereabouts.  Although in his 30s and by far younger than the key elements in the struggle, Fred Eno was an Abiola confidant and Personal Assistant. He played an important role, coordinating media contact for the struggle’’.

*Frank Kokori

‘But you know I can’t come out’ (that was what I was telling Eno). ‘How do I tell you where I stay?’ He said, ‘please, the issue now is that Pa Enahoro has been arrested and he handed over some important documents to me, but my own life also is also in danger’ (that was Eno speaking, trying to convince me, this was about 11.00 pm. ‘I can be arrested anytime now, Pa Enahoro said I must personally give you these documents’. Eno had struck a significant chord in me, for the rule and strategy of struggles and revolutions stipulate that if a team member falls, another must take over his role immediately. If Pa Enahoro had fallen, someone must quickly stand in for him. (Because he said he wanted to hand over some documents to me because his own life was  in danger). I remember too that my cell phone, a Motorola Workhorse, had all that day been malfunctioning. Unknown to me, the phone was being scrambled, the audio was poor.  I had earlier laid this complaint to Fred Eno and he promised to source a good replacement for me, it was up his alley (in other words, that is his duty),   being MKO’s public relations person.

‘’Meanwhile, I suggested Fred Eno take the materials to my daughter at the Genesis Hotel (that is my own hotel), but Eno declined. According to him, in the light of the NADECO chieftains’ arrest, the whole of Ojuelegba area, bordering my hotel, buzzed with SSS operatives. Once they saw him, they would pick him up too. ‘My life is in danger’, he said.  Along the line, strangely, my cellular phone became clear, crystal clear (this was a cellular phone that was giving me problem, not clear, but now it  has become clear). I could hear Eno very brightly. I could feel the desperation in his voice, almost as if we stood face to face, I could feel the tearful emotions in his voice. He sounded close to tears. I succumbed. I directed him to my hideout, which was Domino Guest House, owned by Ben Bruce’s family. A small decent place with no more than eight chalets, Domino Guest House was very neat and exclusive. My President (that is the President of NUPENG) had separated from me and stayed at a different guest house to prevent the possibility of our being arrested simultaneously. ‘Okay, meet me in front of Niger Palace Hotel, Yaba’, I told him.  ‘When you get there, ring me up. I will be there before 11 pm,’  he told me. He was not there by 11.00 pm but I kept calling him because I told him if he got there, he should call me because I was still inside my hotel room. I kept calling him, ‘where are you?’ He said he would be there before 11.00 pm because I was now afraid for  his own life too.) ‘I am on the way’, Eno assured me. But now the hysteria appeared to have evaporated from his voice. He sounded more stable and more confident in his chat with me (those were difficult times). Some minutes before 1.00 am, his final call came, he said he was some 50 yards from the Niger Palace Hotel, waiting for me in a white Mercedez Benz car, but it was so late. Usually, I never ventured out of my hideout at such a time (you can imagine at around 1.00 am, somebody who the military in the whole country was looking for, but because Enahoro has been arrested, Adebayo has been arrested, Adeniji Adele has been arrested,  I took the risk around 1.00 am). My wife was sleeping soundly; laced with medication the family doctor said would help calm her stress-fired blood pressure.’’ Actually, if you read the whole book, I started taking my wife to my hideout because I never wanted to be murdered in the night and they will now put some prostitutes beside me and would say that the man, who is leading the revolution, was caught sleeping with prostitutes and they will scatter some bottles of beer and cigarettes around the place.

‘’At the reception, I woke up the boy on duty and asked him to escort me to the Niger Palace Hotel where I needed to bring some people who would be lodging in the guest house with me. (Actually, I had planned to help Eno get accommodation in the guest house. It was a safe haven to which no one would think of searching for me and him). I led the way towards the Niger Palace Hotel, and the boy followed from a distance.

‘’Shortly, in the midnight shadows (as we were moving towards the Niger Palace Hotel), I saw a white Mercedez Benz parked close to the hotel. Sure that it contained Fred Eno. I keenly approached the vehicle. The back passenger door opened as I touched the flank of the vehicle. The other side opened too. Then I found hands grabbing at me. I quickly back-pedaled. Too late! The hands found me and eagerly pounded me with a rain of heavy blows. They tried pushing me into the Benz, but I held on to one assailant’s shirt.

‘’The boy following me quickly retreated, standing away in the shadows. From there, he saw everything. That saved him and helped my case. He must have heard me shout. ‘I am Kokori! I am Kokori! I am not a criminal! They are trying to kidnap me!’ (This was after 1.00 am now). We struggled; something told me my assailants were security agents. They were big muscular creatures and I, so diminutive, but they could not overpower me. Like a frenzied demon, I fought viciously against all attempts to push me into the car.  I held on to the open car door. One of them left the fray and moved to the back of their car. He opened the car boot and returned with a spray gas that he sprayed into my face. The pungent chemical stunned me and momentarily knocked me off balance. They immediately bundled my slack form into the car. The struggle took no less than two minutes. Engines revved into life. Tyres screeched. Two cars flew out of the shadows into the night; one contained me, in the company of people I now guessed formed a squad- a special squad, in my own vehicle were four men, the other car followed with two or three more men. They threw me on the floor of the vehicle and sat on me. Two of them sat on my tummy, with their combined weights, pinning me down to the car floor, I was still conscious but could hardly breathe. I gasped for breath. Were these the throes of death? For a brief moment, some life came into me and I spoke hoarsely. ‘My death will set this country ablaze!’ Somehow, I had managed to say the right thing. Since the strike was on, I had strong confidence in NUPENG. Despite the government’s hammer, NUPENG and PENGASSAN had maintained its strike, and effectively, even though NLC had been all along reluctant to join the latest fray. I was confident my death would spark that fire of Labour solidarity nationwide. Injury to one usually amounted to injury to all.”

You have vividly told the story of your arrest that night, but from what Fred said, he was also arrested  just like Pa Enahoro and others. So he may not have been the one who spoke to you, as you claimed. What do you really think happened for it could also be a case of mistaken identity or they put a gun  to his head?

That is it. What happened is this. I told you Fred was Abiola’s media man, and they were staying at Sheraton Hotel; obviously, government was looking for me and my NUPENG people, not them actually. At that time, there was a strike. I was the arrowhead of the struggle. So the issue was that …what I came to realize and which I asked him too when we now met.  That night after being picked up, that is the interesting thing about this book (pointing to the book, a copy of which he later gave to Sunday Vanguard). I was first taken to Shangisha, SSS Lagos office;  from Shangisha to Awolowo Road. But  the call that brought me out was  from Fred Edo, who said Chief Enahoro had been detained.  When  I was taken to Awolowo SSS office, around 2.00 am or 3.00 am, I was sitting at a desk behind the reception and  feeling pains  when one of the captives, Adeniji Adele, a  former Chairman of Lagos City Council, came and  saw me  as he passed by. In the process, he went to tell Enahoro and others that I was there. They now sent one of the junior SSS boys to greet me and they were sorry for what happened. I stayed there till Saturday morning inside a disused office where they locked me. A doctor was called the next day (Saturday); when he saw my situation, he treated me. On Sunday morning, they came and led me out into a vehicle. In that vehicle, lo and behold, I saw Fred Eno and Adeniji Adele. It was a Peugeot  station wagon, I was in the middle seat with two armed guards. Eno was in the front seat and Adeniji Adele was behind, on the back seat. I wanted to talk to Eno but I could not because the soldiers were armed to the teeth and very brutal.  I could not say anything. But at the presidential wing of the (Lagos) airport, I managed to whisper to Eno, ‘Why did you do this?’ Eno said, ‘I will talk later, we shall talk later’,. because  he could not really explain anything there,  that was the end. We were taken to Abuja, where we spent about five weeks. Actually, during this period, we did not see ourselves, because I was locked 24 hours somewhere, I did not know where they locked Eno and others. But after the five weeks, they now came, picked me from my room, some of us were regarded as terrorists, so nobody talked to us. I was moved into a vehicle. Suddenly, I saw Eno. So he must have been kept in some other quarters.  Then with Adeniji Adele, they took us to the airport,  put in a presidential jet and  flown out. I thought we were being flown back to Lagos, but after about one hour, as I explained in my book, I knew it was the arid Savanah of the North. So I knew it was Bama Prisons they might be taking me to. But in Maiduguiri, we alighted from where they later took me to Bama Prisons. I later learnt that Eno ended up in Enugu Prisons. I know he spent some time there, but after about a year or so, he was released or may be less than a year. But I was in Bama for four years. I was released in 1998, I never knew anything about Eno again. From 1998, my memoirs were not written because of the devastation I went through and a lot of problems, which I narrated in the book. But at a stage, I  stopped working on my memoirs and I started doing other things. I went back to NUPENG, settled some things, and later retired. 2005 when Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti died and I was playing a very prominent role there as one of those planning the burial ceremony, it was there that a young man walked  down to me, I could not even recognize him and he said, ‘Chief,  do you not know me?’ I said ‘no’, he said ‘I am Fred Eno’ and I exclaimed, Eno, what happened to you, we have to see, we have to talk. He said, ‘Okay sir’.

Eno’s explanation in my office
I gave him my address and phone number, this was 2005.  After some time, he came to my office and he started explaining all these things away.  That he was not the person, that maybe he was mimicked.  But I said… I knew his voice and the way he did the whole thing and the way they now treated him with kid gloves and everything. I know a lot of things happened.

Do you not think that it is a case of mistaken identity from the defence Eno put up because he said that when he came to your office, he explained and you replied that you now understood what transpired?

I never said so. When  he came to my office, I  questioned him, ‘why did you do that?’ Even while in the plane, I told him that even if they put a gun  to  his head, why did he do that? ‘Because I was the only man standing, the arrowhead of the struggle, why did you have to betray me?’ The way I  lived my life, I felt nobody could do such thing in the struggle we were in.  All the  unions, the whole country, human rights society and, international community were looking up to me, ‘It is only this man that will sustain the struggle and fight the military’. ‘Why did you do that Fred?’, I asked him repeatedly and he said, ‘We shall talk, we shall talk’. So that talk was after about how many years? He came to my office. Normally, after many years, what will I do? But I asked him again, ‘Eno, why did you do this to me?’ He said, ‘No, chief, I do not think….’ In all, what he said is that he, he was not the person. I said, ‘You are not the person, you Eno that speaks to me every day on the phone’ because we spoke on the phone regularly. We did not really meet apart from once or twice. Because even Enahoro, if Enahoro wanted to talk to me at times,   he would tell Eno to pass a message to me, so I know Eno’s voice 100 times. When I read Eno interview, I just laughed, he jumbled the whole thing. That we were detained in Abuja for three weeks… who told you I was detained in Abuja for three weeks? I was detained in Abuja for more than that. I was making my prison notes. So I knew everything from that day. Even on the 22nd when I arrived in Bama, it was used as an examination question for warders there, which day did Kokori arrive in Bama Prison? Answer: 22nd September. So from August 20th to 22nd September, that is five weeks, not three weeks, so he jumbled everything.

Osoba connection

There was something too that happened that brought Osoba into the whole thing. When I came from prisons, I started hearing rumour that Osoba was the person who betrayed me. People were saying it;  actually, they were after him. I knew Osoba  around 1990 when we started the defunct SDP. I was the National Financial Secretary, while Osoba and others were aspirants. At a stage, I was the sole administrator  for  Ogun and Osun states and I was close to Baba Gana  Kingibe and the Secretary General, Anielo. So, we took decisions for the party, but I knew Osoba  as a pleasant man. Later, he won  election and became  Ogun governor. He has huge human relations because if you phone him, Osoba would reply you; if he is not there, he will return your call even when he was  governor. And I knew too that when I was in prison, he visited my family on many occasions and,  in his manner, he often times gave  them something.  So when I came out and there was this blackmail that he was the person who betrayed me, I  said no;  even the NADECO people, some of them started trumpeting it. During the first June 12 anniversary  that we held with all the people that mattered, Papa Adesanya, Tinubu, all the governors were there, somebody made a speech that some traitors were there, referring to Osoba. So, I countered it there. I said no, there is no iota of truth in the allegation. ‘This man did not betray me, I know those who betrayed me’, but I never mentioned  any name. On one or two occasions too, it happened at Abeokuta when Osoba was campaigning to be governor,  I  went there and said no, give me evidence, there was no evidence. I know it was Eno who phoned me. He was the person calling me, calling me, not once, not twice, …then my phone was even misbehaving. You know the secret police can jam your phone.  So, Eno is the person that I hold responsible for this thing and I made it clear to him because it was after some years. When I came out of prison, everybody that was anybody was coming to see me because they had all been released long time, even people like Pa Adesanyo, Ayo Onabanjo, Gani Fawehinmi came to see me, I never saw Eno. I only saw Eno seven years later. Guilty conscience was pricking him, but he felt  I should not reveal it to anybody,