Daily Independent Online.
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Wednesday, July 07, 2004.
Revealed: Yar’Adua jailed for asking
Abacha to quit - Malami
By Ikechukwu
Amaechi
Group
Politics Editor
Former Nigerian High Commissioner to South
Africa, Shehu Malami, has alleged that late Shehu Musa Yar’Adua was
convicted of coup plotting by the Abacha junta for spearheading the campaign to
end the prolonged military rule by 1996.
Yar’Adua, along with President
Olusegun Obasanjo and some serving military officers were arrested in 1995 for
alleged coup plotting.
Although the death sentences passed by a
military tribunal on them were commuted to life imprisonment, Yar’Adua
died in prison in controversial circumstances.
Malami was a close friend of both
Yar’Adua and Abacha.
He said in an interview that
Yar’Adua’s offence was not coup-plotting but his unrelenting
campaign that Abacha should hand over power to an elected government.
“At the time, they said he
(Yar’Adua) travelled to the United States and Europe and in all the
conferences taking place, he asked the military to leave for civilians to come
back. That was a little of the background,” Malami said.
He recalled advising Abacha against
self-succession but stressed that the hard man never intimated him of nursing
any such plans.
Asked if Abacha was really interested in
transmutation, he answered: “I don’t know. I never discussed with
him. But I told his very close friends that he should not succeed himself. I
told (Abubakar) Abdulsalami who, fortunately, is still alive. I told the late
Ibrahim Gumel.
“I told these two that Abacha should
not succeed himself and I believe some of my opinion filtered to him. But I
never discussed the issue with him and he never told me that he wanted to
succeed himself”.
However, contrary to the widely held view
that Abacha was a sadist who inflicted much pain on Nigerians with his very
brutal government, Malami said the man who appointed him as an ambassador was
indeed a very humane and listening leader.
Recalling how he effected
Yar’Adua’s release when he was first arrested for campaigning
against the Abacha regime, Malami said: “When he arrested Shehu Musa
Yar’Adua for the first time, a member of his (Yar’Adua) family,
M.T. Usman, who was formally Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Works (he
is now the Turaki of Katsina) came all the way from Kaduna to see me.
“I was staying at the Sheraton Hotel
and he came and said, please, I know how close you are to Sani Abacha. I want
you to please help me to ensure that he (Yar’Adua) is released. That
evening, I had an appointment to see Abacha and I went with Sule Hamman who is
alive.
“Hamman is one of the leading lights
of the ANPP (All Nigeria Peoples Party), I think he is the Campaign Manager for
(Muhammadu) Buhari. He was also there at the Constitution Conference Commission
with me and I took him that evening to see Abacha.
“After discussing so many things, I
told Sani Abacha: ‘Sir, Shehu Yar’Adua has been arrested and his
father is like my father. Sir, Yar’Adua was my junior boy in school like
Buhari. Sir, you are the fountain of honour. You have arrested him and you have
every right to do so, but please temper justice with mercy.
“Sule Hamman also chipped in, saying:
‘Please sir, you have heard what Sarkin Sudan has said. Sir, please, it
will be good if you could consider releasing Yar’Adua’.
“Abacha didn’t utter a word. It
took quite a long time to plead with him. Sule Hamman supported me and he
(Abacha) didn’t say anything. But just as we were coming out, he
accompanied me to the car, and I told him again, ‘Your excellency, I have
spoken to you about Yar’Adua, what do you say?’
“And he said, ‘thank you, leave
it for me’. And he got Yar’Adua released the following day. Yaya
Kwande is a living witness. He was a great friend of Yar’Adua and he
(Yar’Adua) sent him all the way from Kaduna to come and thank me for the
part I played in making sure that Abacha released him.
“So, Abacha couldn’t have been that bad. He may
have done some wrong things but there was also something good about him”.
