The concrete-slabs highwalls around their homes couldn’t deter hired nightcrawlers from exterminating them. Their bulletproof vehicles made no difference when pellets from AK47s rang through with fire and fury.
Hordes of security guards around them became mere breathless effigies before mean and menacing gun-toting killers. In their own blood their bodies were immersed. These victims of political assassinations I dedicate my treatise today were politicians, businessmen, or others connected to men connected to power. They were silenced under the hails of assassins’ rending bullets. Others were butchered and hacked to death in ghastly, grisly, and gruesome manners. It seems as if life in Nigeria is worth not a mite or a farthing in the eyes of those who are thirsty for power.
A man called MKO Abiola was a very wealthy and generous man. With his affluence and influence he touched lives and impacted destinies. At a season in his life, men around him coaxed him into running to be Nigeria’s president. He surrendered to their pressure to lead Nigeria out of the woods. The pulse of the nation beat heavy. Excitement and apprehension together leased spaces in many homes. Democracy, a system that amplifies the voices of the people and tramples and thrashes on dictatorship, was about to undergo a towering test. Abiola signed on under the Social Democratic Party as the presidential candidate. The National Republican Convention candidate, Alhaji Bashir Tofa, did the same for his party.
A military dictator, Ibrahim Babangida, whose hors d’oeuvres were the aura and opulence of the Presidential Villa, was the unfair umpire. Then June 12, 1993 presidential election. Abiola received over eight million votes winning in 19 states. The NRC’s Tofa received over six million votes and won in 10 states. Of the over total 14 million votes, Abiola won almost 60 per cent. But the supervising junta who was a friend refused to let him wear the crown. His election was voided, but he kept up the fight to win back his mandate.
Why did the self-styled evil genius Babangida annul the election results? He claimed he was compelled to do so because he knew that Abiola’s new democratic government would sooner than later be toppled through another military coup d’état. Another dictator, Sani Abacha, later came on board who subscribed to the order of the predecessor junta. Abiola continued the fight to reclaim his mandate; but Abacha wasn’t having that. He slammed MKO in jail without batting an eye. Abacha died and Abubakar succeeded him. In jail, MKO Abiola kept on fighting until one day he sipped on a cup of toxic tea; and thereafter succumbed to the Grim Reaper. He was only 60 years old when somebody killed him. This is how the game of politics kills good men in Nigeria. And the killers we will never find.
Chief Bola Ige’s story was a whole lot different. He was the sitting Attorney General of Nigeria. Ige, the erudite lawyer. A man of wanton and wise words and master-orator. A linguist of large latitude. A multi-linguist of incomparable match. In 2001, a group of killers broke into his home and was murdered in cold blood before Christmas. In 2014, I met Architect Muyiwa Ige, the son of the slain enigma. Eye-ball-to-eye-ball in his office in Oshogbo 2014 as Commissioner for Lands, Physical Planning and Urban Development in the State of Osun, I asked the question: “Who do you believe killed your father?” The younger Ige rolled out the story and images as the killers came into the house snuffing life out of the man we all loved. Chief Bisi Akande is a leader in the ruling party All Progressives Congress. He was Osun State Governor 1999-2003 when the incident occurred. In an interview, Chief Akande said these words when asked whom he thought killed Ige: “Obasanjo’s government killed Bola Ige”. But Who killed Bola Ige? We may never know.
Dele Giwa was a journalist of note in all of Africa. The founding editor of a Lagos-based magazine, Newswatch, also became one of the statistics of unsolved high-profile murders in Nigeria. October 19, 1986, Giwa was sitting in his office with one of his editors, Kayode Soyinka, when the evil mail man with the killer parcel bomb came. The opened parcel bomb was detonated on his laps instantly killing the beloved journalist.
Over 30 years after, investigation is ongoing. The image of the tragedy that befell Giwa is still projecting in my head till today. There are some mean men in Nigeria when there is contention for power and money. Who killed Dele Giwa? In Nigeria, we may never know.
Pa Alfred Rewane was one of Nigeria’s elder statesmen and NADECO financier. Pa Rewane sledged hard on military dictatorship in that season of Nigeria’s life. In 1994, hired killers visited his Ikeja home and murdered him in cold-blood. A few apprehended suspects pleaded not guilty; but who killed Pa Rewane? In Nigeria, we may never find out. Chief Ogbonnaya Uche was probably on a cruise to winning the senatorial election in Orlu Zone of Imo State when night crawlers mauled him to death in his home on February 8, 2003. The killers escaped; and long arms of the law are still trying to track the perpetrators.
In July 2006, the Grim Reaper ripped through the Dolphin Estate Ikoyi home of Engineer Funsho Williams when he least expected. Many Lagosians believed then that the Lagos PDP governorship candidate was on his way to winning the election scheduled for the following year. Twelve years after, the killers have not been apprehended.
Nigeria’s homicide and murder rates may not be comparable to some African nations. In South Africa, it is 33.97 37 per 100,000 people per year; Lesotho, 41.25 per 100,000); South Sudan, 13.90. But in neighbouring Ghana, it is 1.8 per 100,000 people per year. In war-ravaged Liberia, it is 3.23 per 100,000 people per year. But in Nigeria, it is 9.85 per year per 100.000 inhabitants. This must be a concern.
Many prominent Nigerians have been murdered by unknown gunmen across Nigeria. There are also many who have narrowly escaped the sledge hammer of death. Seeking political power and influence sometimes mean seeking death? How much does life mean in Nigeria? Election season is here again. Guns are filtering in AK-47s, General-Purpose Machine guns and Rocket-Propelled Grenades sneaking in through our borders. Nigeria is sitting on a keg of gunpowder. Poor men don’t buy guns, rich people do. Some of the weapons have been intercepted. And only God knows how many of the big weapons have passed through the eyes of our security needles. If you are killed in Nigeria because of politics, you may have died in vain. The people you fought for may never remember you; and the country you defend will not celebrate you.
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