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20 Things To Remember About Abacha by KWD99(m): 11:02am On Sep 08, 2015 |
General Sani Abacha, born on September 20,
1943, was Nigeria’s military head of state
from November 17, 1993 to June 8, 1998
when he died suddenly. It is exactly 17 years
since he died, but how much of his history do
you still remember?
1. A Kanuri originally from Borno State,
General Sani Abacha was born and brought up
in Kano state, which he made his home.
2. He married a Shuwa Arab, Maryam, also
from Borno state, in 1965 and they had six
boys and three girls. The first child, Ibrahim,
died in a plane crash in 1996.
3. The last of their children was born in Aso
Rock in 1994 when Abacha was 50 and his
wife 47. The boy was named Mustapha,
supposedly after Abacha’s chief security
officer, Hamza al Mustapha.
4. Abacha was the first and only military head
of state who never skipped a rank to become
a full-star general.
5. Abacha announced the coup that brought
an end to the government of President Shehu
Shagari on December 31, 1983, and brought
Major-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari to power.
6. After Buhari was overthrown in a palace on
August 27, 1985, it was Abacha that
announced the chief of army staff, Major-
Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, as the new military
president and commander-in-chief of the
armed forces in an evening broadcast (the
coup speech was read by Brigadier Joshua
Nimyel Dogonyaro).
7. On appointment as chief of army staff in
1985, he caused a stir when he said the issue
of “second in command” to Babangida had
not been resolved, even though Commodore
Ebitu Ukiwe, as chief of general staff, was
understood to be holding the position. It was
later resolved in favour of Ukiwe.
8. Abacha was commissioned 2nd lieutenant
in 1963 after he had attended the Mons
Defence Officers Cadet Training College in
Aldershot, England.
9. He was believed to have participated fully
in the July 1966 countercoup, which led to
the death of the head of state, Major-Gen.
Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, and subsequently
resulted in the civil war.
10. Officially, he did not overthrow the interim
national government in 1993. The head of
government, Chief Ernest Shonekan, resigned
and Abacha, being the secretary of defence
and the most senior member of government,
took over. Unofficially, it was a bloodless
coup.
11. He was known as a man of “few words
and deadly actions” and he demonstrated
this as head of state with one of the most
brutal regimes Nigeria has ever had. There
was massive crackdown on the media, civil
rights groups and pro-democracy campaigns.
12. Two of the most important
recommendations of the 1995 constitutional
conference he set up are: 13% derivation for
oil-producing areas and six geo-political
zones.
13. He never held a non-military appointment
in his career until he became minister of
defence in 1990 (later re-designated
secretary of defence in 1993). He was a Lt.
Gen then.
14. His supporters describe him as a good
economic manager and that he stabilised
exchange rate at N22/$1 but the unofficial
rate was N80/$1. This created colossal rent-
seeking, with many “chosen” associates
buying at the official rate and reselling at
four times the rate in the black market.
15. It was under Abacha that Nigeria became
a perpetual importer of petroleum products,
as all the refineries packed up. However, 17
years after his death, Nigeria is still heavily
dependent on fuel imports.
16. An unforgettable phenomenon under
Abacha was the importation of “foul fuel”
which had an offensive odour and damaged
car engines.
17. He was instrumental to the restoration of
peace and democracy in Sierra Leone and
Liberia after years of civil wars.
18. He increased fuel price just once in his
four-and-a-half years in office and set up the
Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund, which was
widely acknowledged to have performed well
in infrastructural development and
intervention programmes in education, health
and water.
19. His wife set up what is now known as the
National Hospital, Abuja. It was originally
named National Hospital for Women and
Children before it was upgraded into what is
intended to be Nigeria’s no. 1 public hospital.
20. His death is shrouded in mystery: the
most popular version is that he died in the
midst of Indian prostitutes flown in from
Dubai but the official version is that he died
of heart attack. A more likely story is that he
was “eliminated” to end the political crisis in
Nigeria. |
Re: 20 Things To Remember About Abacha by Tboysalau(m): 11:29am On Sep 08, 2015 |
I was here |
(1) (Reply)
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