He was on Abacha’s side against Abiola — Odumakin

Mr. Yinka Odumakin

In response to Sen. Anthony Adefuye’s account of the ‘June 12’ struggle, spokesman for the Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, tells ALLWELL OKPI in this interview that Adefuye lied against the group’s leaders, who also led the National Democratic Coalition

You have objected to last week’s interview where Sen. Anthony Adefuye gave an account of some events that occurred before and after the June 12, 1993 election, which Chief MKO Abiola won. What are your objections?

I think Senator Adefuye is trying to launder his image and rewrite history before our very eyes. Ordinarily, for those of us who were involved in that era, the thing to do is just to laugh off the things he said. But there are children who were born in 1993 and 1994, who are now about 20 years old, and who may not know what happened. Therefore, we need to put the records straight.

Sen. Adefuye said the Afenifere leaders were not with Chief MKO Abiola, that they did not forgive Abiola for the role he played in stopping Chief Obafemi Awolowo from becoming President; therefore, they didn’t work for him in the June 12 election. I think that is an absolute falsehood. At the Social Democratic Party convention in Jos, where Abiola emerged presidential candidate, (the then Afenifere leader) Sen. Abraham Adesanya went around lobbying delegates, using his senatorial contacts, as a member of the Senate in the Second Republic. He lobbied for Abiola to become the presidential candidate. It got to a point that Sen. Adesanya could not get a hotel in Jos, he had to sleep in his car. You know how cold Jos could be, he slept in his car to ensure that Abiola became the presidential candidate of the SDP.

Are you saying there was no grudge at all against Abiola from Awolowo’s political family?

Awolowo and Abiola made up before Awolowo died. There was no grudge against him. When he became candidate, Afenifere leaders worked for Abiola’s victory. And when the election was annulled, they were at the forefront of the resistance. Sen. Adesanya was detained several times. In fact, at a time, Gen. Sani Abacha’s agents shot at his car but he escaped. And so it was for many of his colleagues; Pa Ayo Adebanjo was detained; Chief Ayo Opadokun, who was the Secretary of the National Democratic Coalition, spent close to three years in detention; Olabiyi Durojaiye was locked up in a dungeon, an underground cell, for years. Those who managed to escape, like Gen. Alani Akinriade, who had his house bombed, everything he worked for, all the military laurels, all his records of the civil war were bombed by Abacha. Dr. Amos Akingba’s house was occupied by almost 250 soldiers for almost three years. They vandalised the whole place. So many NADECO leaders made tremendous sacrifices. For Sen. Adefuye to try to rewrite history to malign the people who made such heroic sacrifices, while he was cavorting with Abacha and Gen. Oladipo Diya, is uncharitable. He (Adefuye) was with Abiola before and during the election. But immediately it got to the struggle stage, he bolted with Diya and Abacha, which explained why young people who knew the role he played, went after him when he came to Abiola’s house to shed crocodile tears after Abiola died.

What role did he play that made the youths attack him?

I remember July 7, 1993, when Sen. Adefuye’s friend, Abacha, rolled out the tanks against the people who were protesting the annulment of the June 12 election. On Ikorodu Road alone, we counted 355 dead bodies of young people killed by soldiers. Up till today, we are still supporting some people who lost their limbs to that struggle. There is a particular guy who lost his two legs and some were totally incapacitated. They invested all their hope in the possibility of Abiola becoming President. Abiola was killed and his body was brought back and Sen. Adefuye showed up among the mourners. The young people could not take it. They picked him and stripped him naked. I was in Abiola’s house that day. The leaders of NADECO were inside the house. They didn’t know what happened. It was just instantaneous; a spontaneous reaction by the youths, who identified him as one of the people who betrayed MKO. To now come to malign the dead, people who are nobler than him, is absolutely uncalled for. If not for the fact that our moral walls have collapsed, the person who played the kind of role that Sen. Adefuye played in the Abacha era; who was chastised openly the way he was, should for the rest of his life lie low and keep his head and not begin to insult people.

But then Sen. Adefuye said he was attacked inside Abiola’s house by Lateef Shofolahan and four boys sent by the NADECO leaders?

It was the angry youths who identified him as a saboteur that attacked him. Shofolahan couldn’t have attacked him, because he and Shofolahan were working for the same Abacha government. How could an Abacha agent attack another Abacha agent? He was with Abiola when things were good; when he thought Abiola was going to become President. When the struggle started and his friends, Diya and Abacha, came to power, he crossed to the other side. When Abiola died, he came to join the mourners. They thought he came to mock them and the youths reacted spontaneously.  It was a mob action.

If the NADECO leaders didn’t sponsor the attack, why then did late Sen. Adesanya apologise to Adefuye before he died?

That is a cheap lie. I found out; Sen. Adesanya’s son, Bayo Adesanya, said Adefuye never came to see Pa. Adesanya before he died. He should tell us the date, time and place where he met Pa. Adesanya and Adesanya was dancing and saying he was happy that Adefuye had forgiven him. Forgiven him for what? Adesanya would never have apologised to him. And it was uncultural for him to mock the dead by saying, ‘look at how Bola Ige died, look at how Adesanya died.’ Yes, Bola Ige was murdered and we have yet to find the murderers; Pa. Adesanya died at 86 as result of an illness. Has a diviner told Adefuye how he will die? Why mock the dead?

If he had betrayed Abiola as you said, how come he was going to Abiola’s house frequently and even tried to save the life of Abiola’s wife, Kudirat?

He said Diya sent him to Kudirat that someone speaks Hausa and Yoruba fluently and so on. That is just hogwash. It’s just that God gave Diya a second chance, he was to be killed like Abacha. People have tried to overlook the role he played during that time. Diya was the one Abacha used to deceive people all over the place that he was going to hand over power to Abiola; that the coup was for Abiola. We know the friends of Adefuye who were part of that perfidy; those who wrote Abacha’s coup speech; those who asked Abiola to sign that Abacha will hand over to him. Those are Diya’s friends. Six days before Gen. Diya was arrested for planning a coup, he was in Lagos. I saw him around Gbagada; he was coming from Lagos Island and he had this truck-load of soldiers in their battle gear, you will think they were going for Boko Haram. Everybody was running helter-skelter. I remember that day, there was a pregnant woman who ran into a ditch and she fainted. People had to revive her. A man I met there that day, Commodore Frank Ademoroti, was so incensed he was asking, can Diya go to Kaduna and do this kind of thing, terrorising people off the road? To now say he was the person that sent him (Adefuye) to go and warn Kudirat not to go out is hogwash. But if that is true, it means that Diya and Adefuye should answer for the murder of Kudirat because they had information that she was going to be killed and they did nothing to stop it. We even remember that at the burial of Pa. Adekunle Ajasin, Diya came to represent Abacha. He ensured that NADECO leaders were not allowed to enter the church. He cordoned off the church.

But Diya arranged for Abiola to be released on bail and NADECO leaders discouraged him from taking it, according to Adefuye?

That is the most illogical statement of the year. It was Diya, Adedibu and the rest of them, who, for their selfish interests, asked Abiola to surrender his mandate and take a bail and say he would not talk about June 12 again. Even at the last meeting he (Abiola) had with the United Nations delegation, he was defiant. He refused to surrender his mandate. Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo went to meet him in prison to ask him to surrender his mandate; he abused Obasanjo and told him: You cannot tell me to betray the Nigerian people. He lived the last years of his life as a true Aare Ona Kakanfo; as a warrior who did not turn from the battle. He carried the cross to the end. How can he say NADECO leaders, who had no access to Abiola, discouraged him from taking the bail? Where did they meet? In any case, it is quite illogical. The people he said betrayed Abiola all went through one persecution or the other. When Abacha died and NADECO leaders met with Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, their first demand was that they wanted to see Abiola, and that almost stalled the meeting. But the most uncharitable thing is to say they collected money from Abdulsalami. I remember that Pa. Adesanya said anytime he went to Abuja, he ensured that he did not carry any bag or briefcase. That was how transparent Adesanya was. We, Afenifere, challenge Sen. Adefuye to a debate on any national TV. We are ready to sponsor a one-hour debate on TV. Let him come and name names and give evidence. Diya that he said told him all these should also come. We challenge Adefuye and Diya, let them come out and say the whole truth.