POLITICS-NIGERIA: Alleged Coup Plotter Dies in Prison

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Remi Oyo and Toye Olori

KADUNA, Nigeria, Dec 9 1997 (IPS) - The death Tuesday of Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, a retired Nigeran army general jailed for allegedly plotting a coup, has put the spotlight on the continued detention of political prisoners in this West African nation.

A state radio broadcast briefly reported the death of Yar’Adua, convicted in 1995 for his alleged involvement in a conspiracy to overthrow the regime of Gen. Sani Abacha. He was sentenced to death, but this was later commuted to 25 years’ imprisonment.

Yar’Adua, 54, whose death was attributed to an undisclosed illness, was buried later Tuesday according to Muslim rites in his northern hometown of Katsina. It was the first time that a convict had been released to his family for burial.

An IPs correspondent who visited his country home in Kaduna, also in the north, reported that 57 persons signed a condolence register, and the political content of some of their messages was unmistakable.

“It is a real pity that people like you should be used as a sacrificial lamb for this country,” wrote one man who signed his name as Fidel Abdul. “Rest in peace but we are afraid for the direction our country is going.”

“May Allah grant General Shehu Yar’Adua eternal rest and peace,” wrote Col. Abubakar Umar who has criticised Abacha’s seizure of poer after the annulment of the presidential election in June 1993. “… May our own end be peaceful as willed by God. We wish that his death will be a lesson to all. We come from God and to God we shall return.”

Yar’Adua was second-in-command to General Olusegun Obasanjo, who was head of state of Nigeria from 1976 to 1979, who also is serving a 25-year jail term as an alleged coup plotter.

Abacha announced on Nov. 17, during a broadcast marking the fourth anniversary of his regime, that he would grant amnesty to some detainees, which also include trade unionists and human rights activists, but none have been released so far.

Before the alleged coup, Yar’Adua had been a prominent politician, popular in most of Nigeria, but his hopes of becoming head of state were thwarted when then military head Gen. Ibrahim Babangida disqualified all 23 presidential candidates, replacing their parties with two government-registered ones.

Yar’Adua later had constant brushes with the Abacha regime. On February 12, 1994, soon after he returned from an overseas trip, he was arrested and detained by security officers.

He subsequently challenged his detention in court, claiming that it was illegal, and demanded huge damages. But four days later, when the case was to come up for hearing, Yar’Adua was released from detention, ending a five-day public outcry over the incident.

The general was again arrested in his country home here on March 9, 1995 in a nationwide swoop by security forces, in which several other military officers, politicians and ex-soldiers were detained for what the government said was a plan to overthrow it.

Before the authorities confirmed his arrest, there had been rumours – denied by the government – that Yar’Adua was being held for his insistence that the Abacha regime step down by January 1996.

Yar’Adua was tried in secret, along with 39 others, by a military tribunal and sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to a 25-year jail term after appeals from his associates and the international community. The trial itself was roundly condemned by human rights groups worldwide.