This is the first time a detailed analysis of the issues
leading to the June 12, 1993, election and detention and subsequent
controversial death of the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola, winner of the election, is
outlined by an insider who is very close to both Abiola and late Sani Abacha to
know the secret details.
Below is Dr Ore Falomo, Abiola's personal physician's Revealed:
Can you recall your last meeting with M.K.O Abiola. When was it, and what was
the state of his health?
It was about two weeks before he died. But the visit before the last was more
remarkable. It was arranged by the military government to dispel the rumour
that Abiola had died in detention. They quickly arranged a
meeting for me to go and see him. They sent one captain from
Aso Rock to me to tell me that I was needed urgently in Aso Rock. This was the
penultimate meeting to the last meeting with him. I found the message strange
because my previous meetings were arranged by the commissioner of police in
Abuja, under whom Abiola was supposed to be. Whenever I visited him, I usually
returned to Lagos by 6pm, but that day, it was not possible because immediately
I got into the car, they started driving round Abuja to waste time so that it
would be dark and I won’t recognise where they were taking me to.
When we got to the place, Abiola was there. It was a new place; I had not seen
him there before. It was a bungalow. As soon as they opened the door and Abiola
saw me, he came towards me and we hugged. We sat and unlike before, none of the
guards waited to listen to our discussion. We spoke Yoruba all the time. They
objected to it at first, later on they agreed. That day he was behaving like he
was in the spirit. I told him there was a rumour that he had been killed. He
said, ‘I know that I’m dead. They have dug the grave. They have put me in the
grave except that they have not close me up.’ I asked, ‘What happened? Have
they injured you or injected you?’ He said no, but that he just knew.
That means he had the premonition that he was going to die in detention.
Yes. As he was talking, his mood changed. He told me he had forgiven those who
caused his incarceration; that it was left for them to ask for forgiveness from
God. He said he forgave them because he wants God to forgive him his sins. All
these were strange, because in my previous visits, he was always asking about
the things that were happening in the country. Then he started singing, ‘Nearer
my God to thee, nearer to thee.’ He used to sing Christian songs. After signing
the song in English, he started singing it in Yoruba. Then he got up; hugged me
and we began to cry. It was very emotional. I tried to calm him down, because I
didn’t know what he had seen. All through this period, the guards did not come
to say time was up. I told him I will tell the story to the people, which was
normal after every visit.
But did you observe any sign or symptoms of illness in him?
No. He was neither sick nor injured. You could say his spirit was low, but his
body was good. There were no signs and symptoms of any illness. He spoke from a
very conscious mind. That was the most poignant visit. The last visit was
routine; to change his toiletries and so on.
The then Commonwealth Secretary-General, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, recently told us
that when he visited Abiola few days to his death, he was in high spirits,
because he was happily awaiting his release. How did he overcome the
depression?About two weeks to Abiola’s death, Abdulsalami Abubakar had started
to send out word that Abiola might be released. So, the whole town started to
rejoice. I don’t know how that one was done. They even got to me and said my
trips to Abuja would soon end. I knew the government was not going to try him.
Chief Rotimi Williams had already told us that they did not have any evidence
against him. There was no point going to court. As far as I knew, Abiola knew
that they would not allow him to come out just like that since they would not
take him to court. Every time, they were asking him to denounce his mandate and
prepare himself for another election, but he refused. During my last visit, I
told him I had the rumour that Abubakar will release him but I did not want him
to believe the rumour until there was concrete evidence.
How did you receive the news of his death?
That day, I was in the sitting room here. A call came from the personal
physician of Abubakar. He said, ‘Doctor, get yourself ready and start coming to
Abuja. The Head of State has sent his personal jet through Governor Buba Marwa,
it would be at the VIP section of the airport.’ Of course, I was not going to
enter that aircraft. But I asked him, ‘Why are you sending for me? I was given
about two weeks appointment to come and see Abiola, so tell me what has
happened that warrants me to come urgently.’ He didn’t want to tell me that
Abiola had died, so that my reaction would not be, ‘Alright if you have killed
him; eat him. I’m not the doctor for the dead, but for the living.’ That could
have been my reaction, which was exactly my reaction when I finally learnt that
he had died. After that, I called Kola Abiola and told him that something bad
had happened but that I didn’t know the extent. The doctor also told me not to
come alone; that I should bring any of my colleagues. I then thought, maybe he
had not died. I told Kola and he said, ‘Doctor let’s go to the airport and take
the plane to Abuja.’ I didn’t know Kola had heard. We boarded Kola’s car and he
tuned to BBC news. At that time, it was about 15 minutes to 6pm. Then they
announced that Abiola had died. I asked Kola, ‘Is that true?’ He wasn’t crying,
I knew he had heard. I told him to turn back. And just before we got to
Maryland, people had started rioting. We were lucky to escape without the car
being damaged.
Did you eventually go to Abuja that day?
I refused to go. When we got back to the house, Kola asked me: ‘What is going
to happen next?’ I said, ‘Nothing; I’m not going to Abuja.’ Then he said he
must go. I said ‘Yes; go so that you take care of the body. One thing I want
you to tell them is that they must not bury him because he is a Muslim. There
must be a post-mortem.’ They were already talking to Abiola’s two wives about
burying him immediately.
REVELATION!
They arranged for them [the two wives] to come and see Abiola the day before he
died. That was of course for them to say goodbye. They did all of these without
my knowledge. Up till that time, I was the only one in five years, who was
allowed to see Abiola.
Then I received another call. This time, the governor of Lagos, Marwa, said I
should come, that the pilot and others were waiting, that he would send a car
to pick me. I declined the offer and asked them to wait. I called Prof. Oye
Adeniran to represent me. I told him to tell Abubakar’s physician that I want a
post-mortem. When the doctor heard my request, he then called me back and said
he would advise Abubakar that there must be a post-mortem. Then he said, ‘These
are two deaths too many.’ He was referring to the death of Sani Abacha and that
of Abiola. You remember in Abacha’s case, there was no post-mortem. How can a
Head of State die so suddenly and he was hurriedly buried without a
post-mortem. I told him that I would assemble a team of international
pathologists to conduct the post-mortem. So, the body was embalmed and kept in
the morgue waiting for the pathologists to arrive.
Some said Abiola was beaten to death, others said he was poisoned. As his
doctor and member of the team that conducted the post-mortem, what were your
findings?Abiola was not beaten. He died shortly after the American delegation
got to Aguda House by 3pm. According to the written press conference given by
Ambassador Thomas Pickering, who led the American delegation, Abiola died
between 3:20 and 3:40pm that day. Nobody told Abiola that he was going to have
visitors that day. So, they woke him up and he just brushed his teeth and came
out to meet with them. He had not had his lunch. These were facts borne out of
the autopsy. His intestine was clear. They exchanged banters, he told Susan
Rice, who was part of the delegation, what she wore the first day he met her.
Pickering said Abiola’s brain must be sharp to remember all that.
According to them, their mission was to convince Abiola to denounce his mandate
and go for another election. By then Abacha had gone, one of their problems had
been solved. Abiola was left. They had brought that suggestion before and
Abiola rejected it. So, their mission was unnecessary because they were not
going to get him to say yes. It must have been for another purpose. When they
came in, the chief guard that usually stayed with Abiola was not there because
they didn’t tell him some people would be visiting. Abiola came unaccompanied
to that meeting. Of course, they had been told he was a tea drinker. They
brought a special flask, which Hamza Al-Mustapha described as
multi-dimensional. They poured themselves tea and poured tea for Abiola. There
was no precedence of a visitor bringing tea for the host. It is unconventional.
It is not done anywhere in the world. Not only did they bring it, they offered
someone in detention tea, with no guard around.
And Ambassador Pickering said in his press conference that shortly after he had
taken the tea, he complained of pain in the chest and grabbed his chest. And
later, he felt uncomfortable and then, he went to the convenience to ease
himself, but he did not come back as expected. They called on him and he told
them he was coming. By then, he had started feeling weak. They asked him if
they should call the doctor but he said they should ask the guard to get his
pain tablet. But he died before the pain tablet arrived. By the time the doctor
came, Abiola had already died. They took him to Aso Rock clinic, where they
tried to jerk his heart back to life, but he was gone. That was how he died.
Are you saying that the US had a hand in Abiola’s death?
Yes. It is necessary to note that death followed Pickering’s missions. A
notable personality usually dies after his mission to any country. You can go
and read about him. The question was: Why did he come? We know him as Central
Intelligence Agency man and he was not the serving ambassador in the country
then.
Abubakar was the one who gave them the appointment. During a cocktail to
celebrate the US National Day, I asked the US Ambassador why they brought
Pickering and others. I told him that Abacha, who was occupying Abiola’s
position had died and why did they bring another military? We should also note
that after Abiola died, Abubakar went to White House to visit the sitting
American President and he went in military uniform. Can you recollect anybody
who entered White House in military uniform? It is not done. He was given that
exception. Up till now, nobody has repeated the precedence. What did he do? How
long had he been on the throne here that he was received by the American
President? Abacha was gone, Abiola was gone and they thought Nigeria’s problem
was solved. But here we are.
The current American President has not found it important enough to come to the
same country in which the previous governments took very big roles in taking
those two actors out. I think it high time US apologised to Nigeria for the
roles it played in the death of Abiola. The US also insisted on sending at
least two pathologists just to protect its image, because there were rumours
that it was the US that killed Abiola. Tony Blair sent a message to me through
the British High Commissioner here that he was nominating Dr. John Shepherd,
one of the top pathologists in England, and we made him the team captain. Human
rights groups from Chicago sent in a pathologist. America insisted that they
wanted to be well represented. So, they sent one Muslim doctor and one
Christian doctor to me. I was there; Abubakar’s doctor was there; Dr. Coker,
the owner of that hospital on Victoria Island was there and the team.
You believe Abiola was poisoned, but how come this team of highly qualified
doctors, including yourself conducted the post-mortem and concluded that Abiola
died from natural causes?No, what they said was that there was not enough
supply of blood to his heart because there was a collection of fatty materials
in the blood vessels that supply blood to the heart. His heart did not get
blood supply; that was why he died eventually. The question is, why did that
happen? How could that happen to somebody who just woke up, had not done
anything and was not doing any exercise. There are people who have worse
conditions than that and they are still alive. Something must have engineered
the heart to behave the way it did that Abiola could not survive more than 10
minutes. We took specimen from his intestine, took his blood and sent it to
toxicologists in Canada and in London.
Another question to ask was where did Pickering type his press statement?
Abiola died around 3:40pm and by 4pm, Pickering read his typed-written press
statement and said he must have died of heart attack. The doctor that took
Abiola’s body to Aso Rock clinic had not come when Pickering addressed the
press. Could something have triggered the heart attack? The answer is yes. We
also know that there are drugs that can affect the rhythm of the heart. Such
drugs can disturb the rhythm of the heart to an extent that the heart can stop
pumping blood. If you give it to anyone to drink in tablet or liquid form, it
can make the heart to stop within minutes. Does this leave traces in the blood?
Yes, because medical science has perfected all that now. They just conducted
the post-mortem of Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian man that died about five
years ago. When he died, nobody suspected, but now they believe he was poisoned
and they are trying to find out what type of poison it was.
So, you believe medical science can detect the poison now?
Yes, and that is why we are calling for a more detailed investigation into the
cause of Abiola’s death. Why are the human rights activists here not pushing
for further investigation into Abiola’s death? Our government did not even want
to say that the man won the election, until President Goodluck Jonathan came.
But did Abiola have any health condition that could have resulted to sudden
death?
Tell me who had a better health than Abiola. Before he was detained, Abiola was
a globetrotter. If not because he was very healthy, he wouldn’t have lasted
five years in detention. He was not exercising, not seeing people and so on.
They even tried to injure him once in the office of the Commissioner of Police
in Abuja. A police officer that came from Aso Rock threw Abiola against a
pillar and he hit his back and his spinal cord protruded. We gave Abiola a
newspaper, and the policeman wanted collect it from him, but he refused. Then
we looked for CT scan and there was none in Nigeria but Abacha was ready to let
him go abroad for treatment. But many people feared that if he left, they would
not have allowed him back into the country. This was because he had gone once
and the then interim President Ernest Shonekan, did not allow him back into the
country. It was the same Abacha that ensured that Abiola returned. Abacha had
to change the guards at the airport, replaced them with his own guards and
asked them to fly Abiola in from Cotonou. I was close to Abacha to know all
these. Abiola landed and trouble started. Then there was the afternoon coup,
Abacha took over from Shonekan. As far as Abacha was concerned, his reign was
not to be permanent, he had to remove Shonekan to foil Ibrahim Babangida’s plan
to come back. Babangida’s intention was to transform into a civilian president.
If Abacha was not interested in ruling for long, why didn’t he install Abiola
when he got to Aso Rock?
When Abacha got to Aso Rock, he called Oladipo Diya and some other people to go
around and feel the pulse of the people. Diya was here in my hospital, he went
to Gani Fawehinmi; he went to the Oba of Lagos, Oba of Benin and the Ooni of
Ife. All these people told him to tell Abacha to install Abiola. Diya went back
and told Abacha to discard those views; that no military man takes power and
hands it over to civilians. Remember Abacha did not get out of Aso Rock till he
died. He was a soldier to the core. He didn’t know how to play politics. One of
the reasons that military did not want to leave Nigeria’s political life was
that Abiola told them that he will probe all of them, when he became president.
Don’t you think Abacha would have killed Abiola to pave the way for himself
becoming a civilian president?
Abacha would not have killed Abiola. He never wanted Abiola dead. Abacha never
wanted any of these people’s death. The death of Shehu Yar’adua, was carried
out by Abacha’s chronic cohorts. They were going to do the same thing to
Obasanjo. When we heard, we sent a message down to the doctor and person
in-charge of the prison in Plateau, that they were coming to inject Obasanjo.
At that time, they were removing people who would constitute a hindrance to the
five parties that were to endorse Abacha. What would it cost Abacha to kill
Diya, Olanrewaju, Adisa and others who plotted the coup? It would not take five
minutes. Is it not strange the deaths recorded under Abacha were civilians and
not soldiers?
Being Abiola’s confidant, one wonders how you were that close to Abacha.
I met Abacha in 1982. He was a brigadier in the Nigerian Army. He was coming
back from Lebanon as the head of a peace-keeping mission. I had a friend called
U.S. Yaro. He was a general in the Nigerian Army. He brought his third wife to
me, I treated her, she became pregnant and she delivered a male baby which was
what he was looking for. So, you can imagine the joy. He thought I was the best
gynaecologist in the whole world. We became very close. This Gen. U. S. Yaro
belonged to the right group in the Army. He was then made defence adviser in
London and he went with his wife and baby. He told me, ‘Anytime you are in
London call, you must see this baby grow.’ I went to London on holiday, I
called him and he said, ‘There is somebody I want you to meet. He has just
arrived from Lebanon.’ He knew that man was going to become somebody in
Nigeria. I had never been a friend of the Army. I’ve been fighting them from
the time I came back from England in 1970 as a doctor. We fought all of them
except Muritala Mohammed, because he had settled problems between doctors and
Gen. Yakubu Gowon. So, when he (Mohammed) became Head of State, he knew what
doctors wanted. We were not asking for increase in salary, we wanted them to
build a good health system, especially after the civil war ravaged parts of the
country.
Yaro sent a car to take me to where he was hosting the Nigerian contingent led
by Abacha. When I met Abacha, he promised to visit me in Nigeria the day after
he arrived. Coincidentally, we flew the same plane from London to Lagos and he
spoke to me about himself all thorough that journey and the next day, he showed
up at my door as he promised. I was very happy to have known Abacha. He was a
truthful and straightforward person. If he did something, he would never deny
it. He would not tell a lie. He had a list of friends. I was his number two
Christian friend. We were not up to 12 on that list. To underscore how crude
but genuine he was, he was taking money directly from the treasury to Aso Rock.
He didn’t how to make money through contracts and things like that. And he kept
the records. I had a lot of personal experiences with him. His wife delivered
their last child here; a girl. I was the first to tell him his wife was
pregnant, they were not expecting it. Abiola knew I was close to Abacha; there
was no hiding.
But for the role you said Diya played, do you think Abacha would have installed
Abiola as President?
I believe that. Let me tell you this. The first coup against Shonekan was
planned for the Saturday preceding the Wednesday that he was toppled. It was
supposed to be bloodless. Why would Abacha do a coup, when he was the most
senior officer in a military regime that had not handed over power? He was the
defacto leader. Abacha planned that coup and the plot was leaked to Shonekan.
Shonekan was to be in Abeokuta for that weekend until Monday and was to be
arrested there. Some of us, including Abiola, knew about that coup. And the
idea was for Abacha to take over and eventually install Abiola.
When that coup was foiled, we were sad. Abacha then planned it his own way and
made it happen on Wednesday when they usually had their weekly Supreme Military
Council meeting. At the meeting, Abacha just walked in with Gwadabe and Gen.
Mohammed. He knew Gen. Mohammed was the one who leaked it, but he didn’t want
to cause an uproar in the country. He told Shonekan to write his resignation.
Shonekan asked ‘Why should I resign?’ Abacha asked him, ‘Who are you waiting
for to obey my instruction? Here is the Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Mohammed; here
is Col. Gwadabe, here is Col. Aminu.’ Abacha pulled out his pistol and then
Shonekan’s personal assistant, Isaac, who told me the story, said he quickly
wrote the resignation letter for Shonekan to sign. He wrote it; it was typed
and Shonekan signed. Abacha told Shonekan that a car was waiting for him
outside, he should board it to the airport and fly to Lagos. Abacha then went
into the plane with Gen. Mohammed and told him that if not for their
friendship, he would have blown up his head for what he did. Because of that,
he removed him as the Chief of Army Staff, and put Gen. Chris Ali, who was
pro-Abiola. These are the things that would tell you that he would have
restored Abiola’s mandate.
But it seemed he was carried away by the proposal for him to transform to a
civilian president
Well, I don’t think so. Another thing happened. When Abacha became Head of
State, Rev. Chris Okotie, in a bid to solve the problem and get Abiola
installed as president, wrote a proposal to Abacha, suggesting an arrangement
that was common in South America, in which Abiola would be the president, then
Abacha would be like a prime minister. He wrote that proposal and came to my
house to discuss it with me. We agreed to travel together to Abuja; that I will
go and see Abiola and he will go and see Abacha. When Abacha read the proposal,
he told some people to come and pick me up from where Abiola was at that time
to Aso Rock. When I got there he said, ‘Doctor I have seen the proposal from
your friend.’ I didn’t know Chris (Okotie) had been there, so I said ‘My
friend?’ He said ‘Yes, the reverend gentleman you came in with from Lagos.’ He
just said to me, ‘Look I didn’t contest to be president or prime minister or
anything like that; I don’t want all those things.’ He said the proposal was
good but he was reluctant. He was not ready for it, he said, ‘How can I just
make myself prime minister, it will complicate things more.’ He said his role
should be to settle matters amicably.
Is it true that some Yoruba leaders betrayed Abiola?
They did so initially because they believed that Abiola would not get
acceptance from the Awolowo camp. Abiola was NPN before, he then changed camp
to UPN. Abiola belonged to the NPN, he gave more money to the NPN and donated a
little to UPN. People advised Awolowo to return the money to Abiola querying
why he gave some much to NPN. However, some Awoists thought it was wrong to
have returned that money. Because we all knew how UPN was getting money then,
it was from states controlled by them. It is the same thing that Action
Congress of Nigeria is doing. They learnt it from the Awolowo group. I was not
only Abiola’s doctor; I was his friend, confidant and in-law. When the election
was near, we told Abiola to go and see Mama Awolowo and also Arthur Nzeribe, because
was one politician in Igboland that had won his constituency repeatedly. He
visited Nzeribe first, and Nzeribe was very happy and pledged to work very hard
for him. When he landed in Lagos, we drove straight to Mama, and we arrived
there just before dinner. He prostrated and said he would not get up until Mama
said she forgiven him from the bottom of her heart. Mama forgave him. If you
remember, Abiola won Ogun State 97 per cent. Nobody has ever done that, not
even Awolowo. He confounded those Yoruba Obas. Those people went to Babangida,
who likes to divide and rule, to put obstacles in Abiola’s way. When I was
arguing with one of those people, he said Babangida told him how much the
Federal Government owed Abiola, and said what else did Abiola want?
How did the Federal Government owe Abiola?
It’s simple. Abiola was the one who paid for the kit, clothing, food of the
Nigerian soldiers sent to Liberia. Babangida was telling him, buy this, buy
that for us, we will pay you back. Babangida was trying to make Abiola so weak
that when the election came he would have no money left. But Abiola was doing
it for a friend because he knew Babangida would claim glory for a successful
outing in Liberia.
Abdulsalami Abubakar went to Abiola’s house and promised them that he would
ensure that the Federal Government paid what it owed Abiola. Go and find out if
he or successive administrations fulfilled that promise till today. Abacha, of
all people, paid part of the debt, before Abiola declared himself President. Some
of those people that betrayed Abiola are still alive. Let me just tell that Oba
of Lagos, who has since died; Oba of Ijebu Ode, who is still alive; Alake of
Abeokuta, who has since died; Oba of Benin, who is still there; and Soun of
Ogbomoso, were pro-Abiola. Most of the other people were against him. They took
sides with Babangida because they wanted contracts.
