June 12: The Abacha people are now legislators, ministers — Adeniyi Akintola, SAN

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Chief Adeniyi Akintola, in this interview by SAM NWAOKO speaks on his June 12, 1993 experiences, his activism and pro-democracy struggles among other issues.

June 12 is 32 while democracy is 26 years in Nigeria. We are celebrating while some Nigerians would rather prefer that we reflect and think back to where we got it wrong. What do you feel about June 12 and democracy in Nigeria?

I think the celebration is worth the while and I also think it is one of the things that we should celebrate in the life of our nation. It is one of the landmarks in the annals of Nigeria. In the first place, we need to celebrate those unsung heroes who laid down their lives, who sacrificed their total being for what we are celebrating today. They made the government of the people by the people and for the people make sense. Although the election was annulled and denied by the powers that, some people laid down their lives for it. It is very unfortunate that in this country we have very short memory. The Tribune newspapers witnessed and covered what happened in the South West, in Ibadan and Lagos among other places during the struggle. Those of us who were involved, we knew what we went through for the June 12 1993 presidential election. At the Adamasingba Stadium, lives were lost and some were maimed. One of our pro-democracy leaders, Comrade Moshood Erubami, today is living without a leg. It is not as a result of gunshot but because Nigeria happened to him. The man went in and out of jail about 27 times fighting for democracy in Nigeria and the struggle for the actualisation of June 12 election which was annulled. Angry Nigerians came out in their thousands to protest while we also had people who were in support of the annulment. Those ones organised “2 million man march” and so on. There were all sorts of characters that were unleashed on Nigerians then. Despite all of those, here we are. So, we need to celebrate it. It is worth celebrating.

However, I do also share in the perspective of the Nigerians who say we are having too many holidays and I am in that category. There are too many holidays in Nigeria. There is no country in the world which has as many public holidays as we are having in Nigeria today.

Many Nigerians think that those who truly suffered to restore democracy in Nigeria, some of whom laid down their lives especially during the June 12 struggle, are not being celebrated enough; that those eating the juicy fruits of the struggle are not those who laboured in the vineyard. Do you think such people are being celebrated enough?

Certainly not. Those who laid down their lives, lost their businesses and everything that connects them are not the ones on the saddle of leadership in this country — minus the current President. The one before him had nothing to do with June 12 struggle and he was a beneficiary. In fact, Muhammadu Buhari was hand in gloves with Sani Abacha. He was heading the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) then, and that has been the pattern of Nigeria’s leadership since 1999. Even Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was not part of the struggle. He was a military man himself, he has always been, and he had his own issues with the military then. So, he was not involved. Indeed, he was alleged to have been involved in a phantom coup until God saved him. He was not part of the June 12 struggle. So was Goodluck Jonathan; he was not part of the June 12 struggle. And Umaru Yar’Adua too, apart from the condition of his senior brother, General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua. So we had all kinds of charlatans that were unleashed on Nigerians then by the military junta. So the insinuation is true that those who laid down their lives in the struggle and those who put everything they had on the line have not been celebrated or recognised. Comrade Moshood Erubami led our struggle in Ibadan and today walks about with one leg. Apart from Gani Fawehinmi, I don’t know how many other Nigerians that went to jail in Nigeria as much as Erubami. Today, he is just struggling to survive. Nobody recognises him, not even the South West governors. Since 1999, apart from pockets of governors like Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Rashidi Ladoja and Kayode Fayemi, all the other governors had nothing to do with June 12 struggle. Those who participated and laid down their lives really suffered. Businesses of people were ruined, like Rashidi Ladoja. I know of that because I was involved. I used to be the errand person between him and Baba Frederick Fasheun (founder of OPC). I used to be the link between the two of them. Baba Fasheun is no more, but he put in everything. The likes of Femi Falana and Beko Ransome-Kuti. They put in everything and even went to jail. Nobody remembers the family of Beko Ransome-Kuti again today, so also Comrade Ola Oni; Lam Adesina who was called a ‘prisoner of war’ by the military. They participated actively and I happened to have been privileged to be his counsel. Look at the revered Chief Bola Ige who also put in everything. He was eventually murdered by the elements of those who masterminded the creation of the June 12 problems in the first place. Nobody remembers his family in all of these.

In-between that struggle, there was diarchy. General Abacha was military president while we had democratic structures in place at the states. We had elected governors and elected state houses of assembly. In fact, you were the deputy speaker of the Oyo State House of Assembly. Looking back at your stint in the legislature, are you impressed with what we have today at the national and state assemblies.

Certainly I am not impressed. How could I have been impressed by the type of people we are having there now? Ninety-nine percent of them were not part of the June 12 struggle. In fact, many of them were on the other side. They were part of what our leader called ‘five fingers of a leprous hand’. I know many of them including some ministers today who were hand in glove with Abacha. Some of the ministers today were in the arms race and what have you; they are today in government. Not many of those who were in the trenches have been remembered. So, I am not impressed at all. That is why we are lagging behind. Imagine all the kind of things we have been hearing from the National Assembly, it saddens one a great deal.

What was that specific difference you made in your era as a legislator which is lacking in the current crop of legislators in Nigeria?

At that time, even though we had a kind of diarchy, we still made serious impact as a legislature because we were free. People still remember that I was kidnapped and locked in the boot of a car because of our insistence on rules and regulations. Those of us who were in the House of Assembly were very young. I was barely 29 years old at that time and we had quite a number of our contemporaries and even the elderly ones cooperated well with us.

That time, we queried the governor’s decision to inflate the cost of contract for the purchase of vehicles that we met on ground. At that time, the departing military administrator had left a chain of cars for the usage of the members of the state executive and the legislature. But he left none for the judiciary. Quite a number of judges in the state then were without official cars, including the chairman of the Armed Robbery Tribunal, Justice Popoola, who lost his son to armed robbers at Ajeigbe Roundabout on the Ibadan Ring Road in his private car. He had no official car. Even Justice Atinuke Ige, who was later elevated to the Court of Appeal, had no official car. The Chief Judge had one rickety car and at least, six of the judges had no car. Then the legislature too, the Speaker had one old and rickety Peugeot 504 and I, the Deputy Speaker, had an old, rickety Peugeot 504 car too. So, we wanted to know what became of all the vehicles.

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And of course we took on the state government. The Commissioner for Works and Transport was summoned, so also was the Director of Transport Pool. They both confirmed the unwholesome handling of the vehicles and of course the inflation of the purchase of each of the vehicle from N187,000 to N340,000. We wanted to know who made it double. What informed the government of the day to add almost N130,000 to the cost price which had been paid for by the previous administration. Of course we called them to question and there was pandemonium all over the state. The following morning, I was kidnapped and was thrown into the boot of a car and taken to the house of Baba Lamidi Adedibu. But for the elders in Ibadan, maybe one would have been forgotten by now.

I remember the then Iyalode of Ibadan, Mama Aminat Abiodun, came and told Adedibu that nothing must happen to that boy, which was me. I had my hands tied to the back, was thrown into the boot of a car and I didn’t know where I was being taken to. It was when we got to Molete that I knew. And I was in my pyjamas. I was undaunted, and I said I was ready to die — ready to give it everything. Even members of my family were so worried and asked why I would utter such a statement. Unfortunately, we don’t have such commitment again. The younger ones of today would rather not lose the temporary advantage. They only live for the moment than live for the people.

Meanwhile, it was a unanimous decision of the House to probe the purchase of the vehicles. It was confirmed that even the head of the Celestial Church in the state was having some official cars allocated to him, because the governor happened to be a member of the Celestial Church. We knew some women of easy virtue who were using official cars allocated to them because they were close to some people in government. It was that bad. The SSG alone was having 12 vehicles in his pool while the Speaker who was the Number Three person in government had only one rickety vehicle, and the Chief Judge had one rickety one. How can that happen? That singular act of the State Assembly led to a change of everything.

The judges were given their brand new cars immediately. But that was then. I wouldn’t know any state assembly that will try that type of thing now.

You were the deputy speaker of the Oyo Assembly, and you doubled as the chairman of public petition and judiciary committee. As a principal officer of the House back then, what was your general welfare package like in terms of salary and emoluments, apart from official vehicles?

The salary we earned is in the public domain. For the Speaker of the House of Assembly, the salary total per annum, including allowances, was N22,500. That was the same salary with that of the Deputy Governor. The Speaker and the Deputy Governor were on the same salary. My own salary as the Deputy Speaker was N21,500 per annum, which means that my take-home was not up to N2,000. It was N1,700+ per month, and we were living on that. That was it, including allowances. Meanwhile, there were no special allowances, nobody was being paid housing allowance because we were all from Oyo State and you were expected to have your own home or your family home where you would reside. And Ibadan is cosmopolitan — there was and there is still no inhibition as per accommodation. The State Assembly members other than the principal officers had no official vehicle, not even a rickety one. Nothing.

That time, we spent only 18 months in office and we opened a new road from Ibadan to Iseyin. There was no road there before. It was constructed newly from Moniya, not rehabilitated from Moniya to Iseyin, because before then we used to pass through Oyo to Oke Ogun through Fashola. When the Oke Ogun River overflowed, you would have to abort the journey and wait till the tide subsided. That was the time we did so many things, including OYSADEP which used to be ONADEP — Oyo North Agric Development Project. It was taken to Saki to open up Oyo North. At that time, the road leading to Saki was not passable. It was during the Kolapo Ishola era that we opened up the place because everybody was on top of the game. We were all on our toes to get something for our constituencies. That was the time the road from Omi Adio to Ido town was constructed. It was constructed in 1992. Thank God for Governor Seyi Makinde who has now rehabilitated the road almost 40 years after. The road stood the test of time and it was not constructed by the state government; it was constructed by the local government. We put pressure on the local government chairman, Alhaji Oyebamiji, and he constructed the road. The same LG chairman also connected Ido with electricity from Omi Adio for the first time. That was in 1992. There was no road then from Eleyele to Ido as we have it now. There was no connection, and you either went through Omi Adio or through the compound of NIHORT. That was the setting then and you cannot be comparing what happened then to what we have now.

A trite cliché for the legislature now is “they are rubber stamp.” With what you have narrated, wouldn’t you agree with this common description of the legislature of nowadays?

I think a term was coined by former President Olusegun Obasanjo. He used the term: ‘Guided Democracy’ and he went about saying that we could not go into full-blown democracy at that time. He was a dictator. He achieved quite a lot, but he was a dictator. There was no freedom as such. The kind of freedom and indiscipline we are having now was not commonplace. Nowadays, nobody respects anybody. The Executive doesn’t respect the Legislature, the Legislature doesn’t respect the Executive. I remember then, as a deputy speaker, when I sneezed, the commissioners caught cold. Throughout my tenure, I never visited the office of any commissioner — who is he? He had to come and report to the party and there was discipline within the party. Everybody played their role as was expected. But the reverse is the case now. The state commissioners don’t respect party leaders. The commissioners were not nominated by any party leader; they were brought in by the respective state governors. The governors are in charge, they are emperors, so to say.

I remember that the current President of the Senate had that name ‘Emperor’ attached to his name then, and things were so bad. People would still remember the experience of Akpanudoedehe in the hands of this President of the Senate. He was the governor of Akwa Ibom State then. It was myself and the former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo that were sent by Bola Tinubu to go and rescue that fellow. He was chained hands and legs and was brought to Abuja in a helicopter. We had to go and rescue him on the instruction of the current president, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who was the leader of our party then. He was everywhere trying to fight for the common people. These Abacha people are now the ones leading us.

Talking about dictatorship, the government under which you operated was a dictatorship, and it was not a benevolent one. Today, state governors are emperors as you have described them. But looking at the Abacha era, Mrs. Abacha is saying that people are not being fair to her husband. She said people are being unfair to her husband and that he knew nothing about June 12. How would you react to Mrs. Abacha’s position?

Well, we are in a free world and anyone can say what they like. However, the woman can say that to the marines because those of us who went through hell under her husband have different opinion. In the time of her husband, everything was under his jackboot. There was no freedom. There was no accountability of any kind. Nigeria was just a federation by name. It was only the PTF that did some flashes of projects in the northern part of the country and nothing more. The effect of PTF was never felt in the South West, especially in my state, Oyo, and Oyo was the capital of the Western Region. So, the woman is free to say whatever she wants but the records are there to contradict her.

She also reportedly said her husband rather saved money for Nigeria…

How? By stealing the money? Does she know what Nigeria went through to retrieve those monies… the money her husband stashed away, and Nigeria had to go through legal and diplomatic hurdles to be able to trace them. Give it to Obasanjo. Does she know how much Obasanjo retrieved from foreign banks? Was the money saved through the Central Bank? That is the official bank of Nigeria. If her husband saved the money at all on behalf of Nigeria, in which bank was the money stacked? Some of them are still pending there. Successive Attorneys-General of Nigeria have been having battles with these banks to repatriate the money to Nigeria. Right from the time of Obasanjo, there was no attorney-general that has not struggled to get us money. The current Attorney-General has been doing a yeoman’s job in that direction. Does she know how much the current Attorney-General has retrieved from these foreign banks? And in whose name was the money stacked? Is it in Nigeria’s name? I don’t want to use any strong word against the woman. Let’s just leave it that way. Nigeria is a country of anything goes, and it is only here that her type would become First Lady.

That woman is a mother and I think she should go and apologise to the traders at the Gbagi International Market at Ife Road in Ibadan to apologise to the women there. If she takes time to visit Gbagi, they will show her the list of the people that were mowed down because her husband was passing through from the airport, and that was the last visit of her husband to any state in the southern part of the country. That he was passing by and people were shouting “Ole Ole”, that was their only offence, and it was because her husband annulled the June 12 election for which people sacrificed their time and energy.

People came out in their large numbers to protest and because the winner of the election was under lock and key. On the instruction of her husband and on that day, I was living at the Olubadan Estate just opposite the market and as a democracy activist, I was leading a group of people. On that day many people were killed in cold blood. The woman should not just annoy some of us. She is making me to remember that sad day her husband passed through that road from the Ibadan Airport. He was heading towards the Odogbo Barracks of the 2 Mechanised Division when it happened. If she did not remember, let me remind her. For me to listen to whatever she is saying, she should first take time to visit the market. The names of those killed are captured there, pasted at the place of the Babaloja there. She may turn around to say her husband never knew anything about it, and throughout his lifetime, he never apologised for the killing.

When you look at democracy and politics generally in Nigeria since 1999, what would you say about progressive politics?
Progressives is long gone now. Even our leaders will agree that much. The conservatives, the people we call the Demo, have taken over the politics of Nigeria. The only time the progressives were in government under this dispensation was between 1999 and 2003. In fact, by 2001/2002, the progressives had lost their steam. By that time, democracy and politics generally in Nigeria was now based on what you have in your pocket. Politics now in Nigeria goes with very deep pockets. Virtually all the people that were governors in 1999 never bought the tickets. They never purchased the tickets and I remember that back in 1992 when I contested and won and became the Deputy Speaker of my state’s House of Assembly, nobody asked me for N1, not even a Kobo was collected from me. My election was based on merit, based on my past activities in the party and so on. It was the party members that made contributions for the elections and everything. Nobody would ask you for anything and there was discipline.

One example of party discipline is this: I was elected as the Speaker of the House. There were two lawyers in the house, myself and Dr Akin Onigbinde. I hail from Ibadan Zone, he hails from Ogbomoso Zone. Of course, by number it would be foolhardy of him to have wanted to contest the speakership with me. But he came from an area dominated by NRC. Of all the five members from Ogbomoso, he was the only one elected on the platform of SDP, and they were the only NRC members in the house except for one or two from Oke Ogun that joined them. So, when we were doing the election, I was overwhelmingly elected. I had 51 votes out of the 52 members of the house. But the former chairman of APC in Oyo State, Chief Akin Oke, was the PRO of our party SDP then, and he raised a fundamental question. He said the Ibadan Zone had taken the governor, the Chief Judge is also from Ibadan Zone, and the Speaker too has been elected from Ibadan Zone. What is going to be the fate of other zones?

That question set the party leaders thinking. It pricked their conscience and I now became the sacrificial lamb. The leaders approached me right there and told me point blank that I was the only one that could step down so that they could give the thing to Ogbomoso Zone where the man came from. That was after I had been elected. If it were to be today, it is up to the person to go to court and say afterall, I had been elected. But I had to step down for him right there, he became the Speaker and I the Deputy Speaker. Do we have such discipline in any party today? No! If you make a mistake and the type of thing that happened to me happens, you will not step down. You will take the matter to court. You can see the difference.

If you lose the confidence of the chairman of your party at the ward, you lose your seat. At that time, no governor had the temerity to appoint all the commissioners. He will bring the list to the party caucus, the party will concede two to three seats to him and now allocate the rest to the zones, including portfolios.
But today, the governors are in charge of everything. No party control and no party has that power with the exception of Lagos State where you still have some modicum of discipline.
The others don’t have discipline and it cuts across party lines, it is not about PDP or APC, no discipline. So, the progressives have lost the fire. The question now is how much money do you have? Somebody can just come in from America with loads of money but without anything else and they will just hand the ticket over to him. It was not like that before and that has been the bane of our party (APC) in Oyo State.

So, what do you see in the future, does the emerging politics encourage you to place hope in tomorrow’s Nigeria?
I don’t think that question should be for me because I am already winding down. I am in my mid-sixties now and I think I have had enough of this kind of politics. We never had it this way. Don’t forget I am an Ige Boy. One of our leaders recently said that we cannot have it like before again, that that era is gone. That leader noted that what Akintola and his team fought for then – politics of compromise – is what we are now doing.
Progressives don’t compromise. We stand by whatever decision we took. We didn’t mind being outside of the government and we didn’t care. But today, everybody wants to be in government because people no longer cherish their means of livelihood.

Part of the demands of a progressive in those days was that you must have a means of livelihood. The progressives’ camp was not meant for all comers, they must know your antecedents, what you are doing before joining politics. If you go through the Hansard of the Oyo State House of Assembly, you will see what happened in the First Republic, Second Republic and even in our own time. Our leaders encouraged debates and discussions, nobody would put you down because you had contrary opinion. But the reverse is the case today, discipline is gone.

So the future, from what you can see, is not encouraging?
Certainly not. It is not.

Can’t we do something about it?
Another example was when we formed the Alliance for Democracy (AD). I was the first counsel for the party under Mommoh Yusuf. Osun State was created in 1991 and by 1999, the two states were still being administered by our leaders politically as one under the leadership of Chief Bola Ige. Our overall leader was Chief Abraham Adesanya in Ijebu Igbo.
We had issues with finance and somebody just mentioned someone called Iyiola Omisore. Omisore came and provided us the necessary financial wherewithal with which the party was financed, including vehicles and all. Chief Bisi Akande, who never on his own wanted to become governor anyway, was drafted in by Chief Bola Ige. Voting then in Oyo and Osun was voting for Bola Ige. It was just like in those days when voting for Action Group was voting for Awolowo. Chief Omisore came in and wanted to become governor but the leaders said no, and told him to go and queue and learn the rope. We must know you and where you are coming from. He agreed. He provided the finances with which we ran the party in the two states and Chief Akande was magnanimous enough to suggest his name as his deputy and it was even contested by some of the leaders like Chief Lere Adebayo and Chief Moji Akinfenwa, who said he needed to be studied. But Chief Akande prevailed on them.

When they saw his behaviour and his ambition and so on, I was the one charged with the responsibility of going to Osogbo to remove him. I acted as counsel for the House of Assembly.
When he went to court kicking against his removal, I was the one that defended the party and threw out his case. That was about discipline. Once you are asked to go and do something, nobody asked questions, but today what do we have?

Party discipline also meant that you have to do what you are supposed to do even if it means going against your friends and associates. The case of Obanikoro’s son comes to mind. I was saddled the responsibility of taking the case of Musiliu Obanikoro’s son, who allegedly won the election in Ikoyi/Obalende, the local government of our leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
That was an abomination. So, I was drafted in. At that time Cardinal Odumbaku was the deputy to Chief Ajomale. Obanikoro happens to be my friend and when this son of his was getting married, we all wore the same clothes — aso ebi. But for the sake of party discipline, I had to go out there, defend the party, got the boy removed on appeal and got the party’s candidate there as dictated by our leader, Tinubu. Even when Obanikoro came to me in Ibadan to say ‘this boy is your son, I told him it was against the wish of our leader’. That was party discipline.

In the build up to the June 12, 1993 election, Chief M.K.O. Abiola wrapped his programmes in a document he entitled “Farewell to Poverty”. Do you see any government in the country genuinely pursuing this type of agenda going forward?
Yes, the current administration is pursuing that vigorously. The naysayers might not see it because of their mindset but we can see that the rotting that started right from the Second Republic has bedevilled this country so much that for anybody to make a difference you have to take very hard decisions. We must therefore commend the current government for being bold enough to recognise that and fixing it. A credible leader must be ready to take the people to where they should be, not where they want to go. Have you ever seen any populist leader achieving anything tangible? Even in your own home, if you are not disciplined enough as a father to run your home, your children will become undisciplined. There has been too much indiscipline in Nigeria, we need a leader like Tinubu. We were all in this country when some people were going to the Central Bank at night to take money, unaccounted for. Now, a Daniel has come to judgement and whip us all back to line. We are not disciplined and we need somebody who can look at us in the face and tell us to our face that look, no free meal again.

Nigerians are used to free things and many people were trained free of charge by the government to become what they are.
But Nigerians know how much they pay to train their children and wards abroad. So, the present government has risen to the occasion to tell us that no free meal again. We have this sense of entitlement, we want government to do everything for us.
It is not done anywhere in the world.

How will that help us out of the poverty in the country?
This government has started on the right track. For instance, if you have your ward in the university, let him or her apply for student loan. You don’t need to stress yourself. The student loan thing is free, it is a means of relieving the parents of their burden to pay their wards’ school fees. And people are not talking about that. Do you know how much has been committed to the student loan thing? How much are people paying as tax? Thank God he has come to eliminate double taxation and all that. It is quite unfortunate that people are not seeing the efforts of this man called Bola Ahmed Tinubu. But they will appreciate him later.