NIGERIA-RIGHTS: Death in Jail Spurs Free-Detainees Calls

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

LAGOS, Dec 10 1997 (IPS) - The death of Gen. Shehu Musa Yar’Adua while serving a jail term for an alleged coup plot has spurred calls for the release of Nigeria’s political detainees and earned its government widespread condemnation.

In a statement made available to IPS on Wednesday, the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) said Yar’Adua’s “sudden death … has vindicated the CDHR’s consistent description of the present Nigerian military regime as a bloodthirsty one determined to perpetually hold on to political power…”

The rights group said the general “had no record of any serious or terminal ailment, as confirmed by family sources” and that “according to the wife who visited him in prison just three weeks before his death, (he) was hale and hearty till then”.

If he “could suddenly die in this mysterious circumstance, it has become incontestable that it is only by sheer providence that Nigerians will ever see the likes of Abiola, Obasanjo, Ransome- Kuti and all other detainees alive again,” CDHR said, recalling that it had reacted with scepticism to a “so-called promise of amnesty for political detainees” issued on Nov. 17.

Nigeria’s military leader, Gen. Sani Abacha, had said in a Nov. 17 broadcast that his government had “decided to grant amnesty to those detained persons whose release would constitute no further impediment to the peace and security of our country”.

More than three weeks later, not a single detainee has been freed.

Since the crisis that followed the annulment of the 1993 presidential election, believed to have been won by Moshood Abiola, at least 100 persons have been jailed for apparently political reasons.

They include: people arrested in the wake of an oil workers’ strike in 1994; those suspected of involvement in a series of bomb blasts; those held in connection with a 1990 coup and persons, including journalists, rights activists and military officials who were convicted for the March 1995 coup plot.

Fears for their safety have been heightened by Yar’Adua’s death, which has also generated anger against Nigeria’s military government.

Reports from the northern town of Katsina where Yar’Adua was buried on Tuesday, say many area residents who had hitherto worn brooches depicting Abacha as a mark of support, removed them as they chanted anti-government slogans.

According to other reports, people in the south-western town of Abeokuta, were anxious abut the fate of three detainees who come from the town — Abiola, ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo and human rights advocate Beko Ransome Kuti — and called on Abacha to release the detainees without delay.

“This is an eye opener. We fear that what happened to General Yar’Adua could happen to others in detention. We, therefore, use this occasion to call on the Federal Government to make good its promise by releasing all political detainees,” said Emmanuel Sorunke, a community leader in Abeokuta.

Tunji Abayomi, who was Gen. Obasanjo’s lawyer during the March 1995 coup trial, also called for the release of the detainees.

“The death of Shehu Yar’Adua reminds us, once again, how far arbitrary and capricious power has made strides over the land,” Abayomi said in a statement. “Yet, unless we take pains to put a stop to the vassalage of power that today faces us with the reckless killing of both citizens and the state, we may not avoid the danger that stares at us as a people.”

Udenta Udenta, director of publicity of a political association in eastern Nigeria – the Eastern Mandate Union – regretted that Yar’Adua did not die a free man and urged Abacha to release other political prisoners. “The death of any of them again in prison could hardly be rightly rationalised as a mere coincidence,” he said.

Acting Chair of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), Abraham Adesanya, said NADECO and other pro-democracy groups never believed Yar’Adua and the others convicted for the 1995 coup plot were guilty.

Yar’Adua’s death in prison, he noted, “shows the recklessness of the use of power by the military administration to incarcerate whoever they want to jail.

“The pro-democracy groups have been loud and clear on the open abuse of human rights by this government. Now, with the death of Yar’Adua, we don’t know what the government will do with other detainees, many of whom we know are sick and desire medical attention.”

Human rights activist and lawyer Gani Fawehinmi, who feels Yar’Adua’s death is not natural, called for a UN probe into it.

“The suddeness of the general’s death needs to be investigated by the international community,” he said. “I am very saddened by the death. I am also worried about the repercussions of the death, which tells us how unsafe Nigerians in incarceration are.”

“If Yar’Adua could die like that, I am afraid for the health of Chief M.K.O. Abiola, the president-elect, and Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo and the rest,” said Fawehinmi, who has been detained several times by the military.

The chair of the Centre for Free Speech, Richard Akinola, noted: “It portends a dangerous dimension in the political crisis of Nigeria. It means the lives of other political convicts or detainess are not guaranteed.”

And, addressing journalists in the western town of Akure, a former army division commander, Maj. Gen. Olufemi Olutoye, urged Abacha to release the political detainees without delay to prevent more deaths like that of Yar’Adua.