Gen. Sanni Abacha and the Miracle of June 8

Late Gen. Sanni Abacha

It is a popular saying that "whatever you do will never be forgotten even at your demise". This saying was in line with the life and time of the 10th Nigeria's head of state, General Sanni Abacha.

Abacha was  a Nigerian Army officer and politician who served as the Head of State of Nigeria from 1993 to 1998. He was born September 20th, 1943 and died June 8th, 1998. Before becoming the head of state, he was the Chief of Defence Staff from
August 1990 to November 1993.

Gen. sanni Abacha was popularly known as a successful coup plotter because his  military career is distinguished by the string of successful coups. He is by some records the most successful coup plotter in the history of Nigeria's military. It was recorded that he had taken part in a lot of coup, some of which were the July 1966 coup; 1983 coup which brought General Muhammadu Buhari to power, and the August 1985 coup which removed Buhari from power.

Gen. Sanni Abacha was a very strong and dutiful military man. In 1990, he became the first Nigerian soldier to attain the rank of a full General without skipping a single rank.

His regime (1993-1998) was associated with a lot of phenomenon; his administration became the first to record unprecedented economic achievements. He oversaw an increase in the country's foreign exchange reserves from $494 million in 1993 to $9.6 billion by the middle of 1997. He reduced the external debt of Nigeria from $36 billion in 1993 to $27 billion by 1997. He brought all the controversial privatisation programs of the Babangida administration to a halt. He reduced an inflation rate of 54% inherited from Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida to 8.5% between 1993 and 1998. He did all this when the nation's primary commodity, crude oil was at an average of $15 per barrel. However he later threw Nigeria citizen into a tight grip.

Abacha's government was accused of
human rights abuses, especially after the hanging of Ogoni activist Ken Saro-Wiwa because of his opposition to the exploitation of Nigerian resources by the multinational
petroleum company, Royal Dutch Shell Group. He didn't stop there, he charged Moshood Abiola and Olusegun obasanjo with treason; he jailed them and charged
Wole Soyinka with treason.

During Abacha's regime, he and his family reportedly stole a total of £5 billion from the country's coffers. In 2004, Abacha was listed as the fourth most corrupt leader in history.  March 2014, the United States Department of Justice revealed that it had frozen more than $458 million believed to have been illegally obtained by Abacha and other corrupt officials.

However before his death in 1998, Abacha gave Nigeria citizen a light heart when he promised that an elections would be held on August of that year with a view of handing power to a civilian government on 1 October. This piece of news which was a call for joy to Nigerians soon turn sour when it became apparent he had no intention of permitting a honest election. By April 1998, he had strong arm the country's five parties into endorsing him as the sole presidential candidate for the election. The knowledge of this threw the whole citizen to a sombre state.

This state did not last up to two months when a great shout of celebration and excitement engulfed the nation. The news that brought about this euphoria was the announcement of the dead of Gen. Sanni Abacha in the early hours of June 8th, 1998.
 Though in my tender age, I can still remember vividly that there was a lot of shouting, dancing, and singing everywhere around me. I was thrown into a state of dilemma that the dead of a soul which normally suppose to be a thing of sadness can suddenly become the source of joy for a whole nation. I got the cure for my dilemma when I became mature enough to understand history.

Though the cause of the people's joy was known but the real cause of the dead of the feared general is still unknown. However, government report States that he died of a heart attack.

There are other speculations related to the cause of his dead; the most popular of  them was that he died in the company of two Indian prostitutes  imported from Dubai. The prostitutes laced his drink with a poisonous substance which made him feel unwell from around 4:30am when he retired to his bed to 6:15am when he was confirmed dead.

The late general was married to Maryam Abacha and had seven sons and three daughters. He left fifteen grandchildren: eight girls and seven boys. His dead led to the transition to democracy in 1999 under the coordination of Maj. Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar who was his Chief of Defence Staff and the head of state that was sworn in after his dead.

How time flies. It is twenty years today that this Gen. Sanni Abacha left this world. Indeed, everybody will be remembered for what he or she has to offer life.

Written by Olugbodi Florence