Abdulsalami’s naked dance on Abiola’s grave

Years ago, the issue of poison generated a hot debate among a group of young men in their mid 30s at a palm wine joint. The antagonist, a lanky fellow among them, in his boisterous element, argued that most victims of poison were simply careless. He was sure that if an individual drinker took along his drink while attending to nature, nobody would be able to put poison in his cup. His mates told him that African metaphysics had gone beyond putting physical substance in a drink to poison another. But he would not agree.

A fairly old man; probably in his early 70s, sitting close by decided to intervene. He told the young man to listen to his friends, because they were right. “My son, you don’t know what we call ‘aye’ (world). If you know ‘aye’, you would run and change your name to ‘Mosafaye’ – I run from the world”, he counselled, while stylishly touching the calabash from which the young man was drinking, without anyone noticing. He went back to his table to nurse his palm wine but kept a constant watch at the table of the young folks.

Minutes later, the argumentative young man took his gourd to take a sip and the old man forbade him. “Don’t drink it”, he commanded. The young man demanded to know why. The old man told him the drink had been poisoned. The young man laughed derisively. How could that be, when he had neither left the gourd for a moment, nor had anybody touched it? “OK. Dip your hand into the calabash and bring out what is inside,” the old man instructed and took a long sip of his own drink. The young man did as he was commanded. He was shocked at what he found. Sitting pretty well at the bottom of his palm wine gourd was a smooth stone known as ‘edun Sango’ (Sango’s wand). He was rattled and so were his mates. The old man collected the stone and told him: “aye lo ri yen omo mi” (you have just seen what is called aye, my son). He left and the party dispersed without finishing their palm wine.

This is no fiction. I deliberately left out the names of the personalities involved because many of them, save for one who died recently, are still very much alive.

When I read the transcripts of last week’s interview on Trust TV by the former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, on the cause(s) of death of the late Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, MKO, the acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, the story above came readily to mind. In that infamous interview, the one who has imposed on himself the role of the Reconciliator-General of the Federation, Abdusalami, insisted that the late billionaire died after falling ill.

Abdulsalami, whose government carried the burden of Abiola’s death on July 7, 1998, while in detention, wanted the entire world to believe that MKO’s death had nothing to do with the cup of tea Susan Rice, one of the Americans who witnessed the last seconds of Abiola on mother earth, served him. My intention here is not to dispute the General’s claim, notwithstanding the fact that I find his explanations very unbelievable! My probing of Abdulsalami’s magisterial claims in that interview is based on the illogical sequence of the events that culminated in Abiola’s death.

Generals, world over, are officers and gentlemen. They are also expected and, or, believed to be of high intelligence. I am worried about the narratives given by General Abdulsalami in that interview. He said that Abiola’s family members were in the detention facility to see their patriarch a day before he died. That means they were in Abuja on July 6. General Abdulsalami said some members of the family saw the billionaire that same day, while others were to see him the following day. That visit happened after the family members were denied access to the detainee on many occasions, until a benevolent General Abdulsalami came to power and granted Abiola’s family members access to him, albeit on installment; probably because they were too many, and the late business mogul might be too tired to see all of them in a single day. Abdusalami government, in its generosity and kindness, decided to lessen the burden on Abiola and scheduled for the second batch to see him the following day. Ponder on that.

The second day, being July 7, 1998, the waiting Abiola’s family members were allowed to see him. Between the two batches of family members who saw Abiola within a spate of 24 hours, nobody noticed that he was either in low spirits or exhibited traits of pain or other bodily discomfort. Coincidentally, while Abiola’s people were at the merriment of seeing him, a group of Americans were in the Barracks, the official office of Abdulsalami, to see the Head of State. Check out the personalities of the visitors: Thomas Pickering, the Secretary of State, Africa Affairs; Susan Rice, Pickering’s assistant, who later became Security Advisor and the American Ambassador to Nigeria, William H. Twaddell. Let us leave their profile in the intelligence circles out of this piece.

All of a sudden, as the Americans made to leave the Head of State’s office, the spirit of human kindness came over them. Abdulsalami said while leaving, “Pickering said ‘Your Excellency we made a request to see Moshood Abiola but we were denied”. Abdulsalami added that right on the spot, “I made a decision, I said, ‘Look, you will see Moshood definitely I overrule whoever said you cannot see him”. He immediately  directed his Chief Security to take the Americans to see Abiola – with immediate effect and alacrity! It would not matter here whether Abiola was favourably disposed or not to receiving the American team. It is also immaterial if or not the same Abiola who ‘lacked the energy’ to see all his family members at once the previous day had grown the vitality to be able to see a new set of visitors. Being a prisoner, he would not be accorded the luxury of selecting who would see him or not, he was no longer in his expansive Toyin Street,  Ikeja, Lagos home.

General Abdulsalami in his tales disclosed that it was at this meeting with the American team that Abiola fell sick and was rushed to the medical centre, where, Baba Kola, died. The General left out a vital detail here. The tea cup. But never mind. Susan Rice had earlier filled the gap, when in her narrative years ago she wrote that minutes into the conversation (about what?), Abiola started coughing and when the cough was developing into hiccups,  she, Rice, noticed a set of tea service and offered a cup of it to Abiola, who drank and he became history! Remember the story at the beginning of this piece. The old man stylishly touched the gourd of palm wine and a stone was found inside later. But here, like the Oro cult, Abiola only saw the Americans, and began to cough. Could this be a case of Oro’s death warning cry?

During Oro cult festival in my locality, whenever the real deity, the Oro himself, is coming out of the grove, his priests go ahead and give the death warning cry. They shout: “Eepa, o ri firi; o ku firi”(be warned, you see him in a jiffy; you die in a jiffy). That is exactly the sense I can make of General Abdulsalami’s narrative of Abiola seeing the American team and started coughing almost immediately.  Rice herself said that Abiola’s cough to death started within five minutes of the team stepping into Abiola’s detention abode. Now, picture a man who saw his family members a moment ago. Picture a vibrant Abiola, who laced all his sentences with proverbs. Create the picture of a convivial Abiola, in his jocular best with his family members. Then do a caricature of the same man coughing minutes later, probably holding his throat and then landing on the floor with a loud thud, never to rise up again. Whatever pictures  you get, leave them to ferment for a while as we return to the last part of General  Abdulsalami’s tales.

Immediately Abiola was pronounced dead and Abdulsalami was notified, he was in a dilemma on how to break the news to the world and Abiola family members. Then he found a deus ex machina in Ambassador Babagana  Kingibe,  Abiola’s running mate as vice president in the June 12 election, but who had jumped ship, abandoned the mandate, and became the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF. Again, I allow Abdulsalami to state his case: “I must be thankful to God and again to Ambassador Kingibe because we called on him and asked him to bring the family of Abiola. So when they came, I broke the news, that unfortunately, this is what has happened”. Who else could have brought in Abiola’s family to come and hear the bad news if not an ambassador plenipotentiary, a diplomat of no mean repute and the undeclared vice president to Abiola, Babagana Kingibe himself.

Now put all these illogical tales and the make-believe coincidences together and you will get the same picture of an attempt by General Abdulsalami to extricate his administration from culpability in the death of Abiola. More intriguing is why the retired General chose to tell these tales, 24 years after Abiola had died. What is the rationale behind the interview?  Why did the former Head of State, who refused to appear before  Oputa Panel on the same issue and who had refused all these years to comment on  Abiola’s death suddenly develop the urge to speak? What fanned the urge to talk now?

I dare say here that it is rather unfortunate that General Abdulsalami would remind us of the unfortunate incident of Abiola’s death at this period. That interview is totally uncalled for, save for a thorny conscience. In Abiola, the world lost a humane character. In MKO, the Yoruba race lost one of its best to the wickedness of a contraption called Nigeria. We wailed, we mourned and we consoled ourselves. And just when we thought our agony over MKO was over, the man in whose hands Abiola died chose to dance naked on Abiola’s grave, scratching the scar of our sorrow again.

Abdusalami came up with his 24-year-old tale because he believed that our memories are short and we are equally handicapped. The Minna General has forgotten the words of our elders that a child who hits the Iroko tree and begins to look back does not know that the big tree does not kill in a day. Whether he likes it or not, Abdulsalami should know that the issue of Abiola’s death is akin to stepping on chameleon’s excreta. No matter how you wash it, the offensive odour does not go away. It does not matter anymore who or what killed Abiola or how Abiola died. One thing is sure and this confirms the saying of our elders: “Eni pa gunugun ko ni ka ogun odun” (he who kills the vulture will not live to be twenty years). “Eni pa akalamagbo ko ni ka ogbon osu” (he who kills a ground hornbill will not last thirty months). “Ekun, igbe, ohun ose nile eni pa alapandede” (wailing, crying and hissing in the home of the one who kills a swallow). These are as irrevocable now as when they were first issued.  Asee!