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.
Pa. Fatai Olayiwola Olagunju aka Fatai Rolling Dollar was born on the
22nd July 1926 to the family of late Chief Olagunju in Ede, Osun State.
He started his musical career in 1953 and has trained many professional
musicians, such as Evangelist Ebenezer Obey, late Dr. Orlando Owoh, Bob
Aladeniyi amongst others. Pa Rolling dollaD has played music throughout his life time and has travelled far and wide preaching the gospel of music.
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