ABIOLA'S STATE MURDER, YORUBA PEOPLE ACCEPTED HIS BLOOD MONEY IN LIEU?

Intriguing! Intriguing! Intriguing! Icheoku says this is greater than a bombshell and would pass for a nuclear detonation of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima magnitude. Abhorable indeed if it is true, the allegation by Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, former Chief Security Officer to former military dictator General Sani Abacha, that the Yoruba people of Southwestern Nigeria took blood money of the murdered Chief Moshood Kolawole Abiola from the then Nigerian government headed by General Abdulsalam Abubakar and then sold out on the June 12th mandate?

Icheoku says this scandal is greater than America's Watergate and demands an immediate and exhaustive investigation geared towards bringing to book, all the culprits involved and those who are otherwise implicated in the murder of a Nigeria's president-elect and philanthropist extra-ordinaire, Chief MKO Abiola - a fully detribalized Nigerian with a very benevolent large heart. What makes this allegation more horrendously riveting is the assertion by Mustapha that he has the conspiracy to murder Abiola and the actual murder of Abiola recorded on a videotape? Icheoku hereby demands that Mustapha make this tape or tapes public or in the alternative, copies of them available to CNN, Al-Jazera, Nigeria-tilted on-line websites for security purposes before those implicated henchmen of Nigeria secures the tapes by all means necessary including torturing his mother and family to death to make him yield those incriminating tapes. Going to the Attorney General of Nigeria with the evidence, as would be the case in more civilized and functional State-hoods, is a waste of time as the AG might dismiss it in the same manner as he dismissed Ibrahim Babangida's Iraqi Oil Windfall papers. 

However, it is possible that Mustapha is bluffing by alleging the existence of some non-existent tapes; so the government of Nigeria owes it to the world to clear its name in this complicity by insisting that those tapes be made public or at least, let Mustapha recant or withdraws his damaging accusation that Chief MKO Abiola was murdered by the Nigeria State. Pressure should be mounted on Mustafa and if it means in exchange for his freedom that those tapes be made public. Icheoku does not see any reason why a government that is willing to negotiate and is negotiating with Boko Haram Islamic terrorist cannot strike a deal with its prisoner Mustapha, in order to solve a murder of the magnitude that was Abiola's killing while in the custody of the Nigerian government. A government continuing in the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan, as the baton of governance which Abdulsalam Abubakar handed over to Olusegun Obasanjo was in turn handed down to President Goodluck Jonathan; who stands now to answer for the alleged atrocity of the government of Nigeria that allegedly murdered Chief MKO Abiola. 

So Icheoku asks, who knows what and who did what? Who ordered the hit on Abiola and who carried it out? Was Jerry 'Boy" Useni in the know or was he an accomplice to murder of both Abiola and Abacha? Who played what role? What does Mustapha's video tape contain - giving him the benefit of doubt that he spoke the truth and was not bluffing when he alleged that he has some tapes? Did he secure the tapes in a bank vault or are they in a safe deposit box somewhere outside the country or with his lawyers? Times like this, make many honest Nigerians nostalgic about the late Gani Fawehinmi and Icheoku wishes he was still around to assert himself on this allegation. Who else outside Abdulsalam Abubakar, who ordered the payment of the hush blood money to the Yorubas over the murder of a Nigeria's president elect, Chief MKO Abiola, knows what went down or instigated and hatched the heinous plot? 

As Icheoku read the account of this criminality, the spine shuddered and the hand trembled that the Nigeria State could so coldly terminate the life of a man, so endeared in the hearts of millions of Nigerians and in this cavalier manner; and was impetuous enough to pay bribe to the Yorubas to buy their silence and keep them quiet? The then government of Nigeria forgot too quickly that Abiola was only Yoruba by birth and that the whole Nigeria was his home and constituency; that the mandate that Abiola had was held in a sacred trust on behalf of millions of Nigerians who overwhelmingly voted for him regardless of the fact that his was a full Islamic ticket - himself and his vice presidential candidate who are both Muslims; and that he did not represent just the Yoruba people? They also forgot that Abiola was literally speaking the most Nigerian of any Nigerian man or woman and that he was widely loved both for his philantrophy and for his taking wives from practically every conceivable place in Nigeria. Chief MKO Abiola was in short, a brother and inlaw to all Nigerians; yet his blood money was paid only to and accepted by the Yoruba people?.

According to Al-Mustapha, the sums of $200 million, £75 million and N200 million were respectively withdrawn from the Central Bank of Nigeria on the orders of then Head of State army man Abdulsalam Abibakar and was used to appease and buy out the Yoruba people and their agitation for June 12th effectively terminating the quest about what happened to the prospective president of Nigeria? Icheoku says this is a very damning allegation and if true, these Yoruba leaders should be ashamed of themselves for betraying and selling out one of their own and just for some millions of colored and printed papers? Judas Iscariot at least committed suicide to appease the pangs of similar betrayal of our Lord Jesus Christ and Icheoku expects nothing less from these Yoruba leaders; admitted they would claim that they did not pawn Abiola up but only collected some money following his death? To this school of thought, Icheoku says blood money is blood money and it does not matter when it was collected whether pre-killing or post-killing since the objective and purpose remains the same - to make responsibility for the murder just go away. 


Icheoku wonders who constituted these Yoruba leaders that partook of Abiola's blood money in lieu of realizing June 12th in whatever capacity or symbolism? Did Ooni of Ife, Alaafin of Oyo, Oba of Lagos, Oba of Benin, Soun of Ogbomosho, Bola Tinubu, Olusegun Obasanjo, Segun Osoba, Adedibu and whoever still leads or serves as a Yoruba leader partake of this blood money? If yes, they should take ropes to Olumo Rocks and with nooses formed, yield their respective ghosts; and if no, they should forcefully demand an a full investigation into the allegation of Chief MKO Abiola's murder followed with a full page apology from Mustapha for slandering them, since accusing fingers are already pointing at them being the known and apparent Yoruba leaders then and still subsisting till date. They must force the hands of President Goodluck Jonathan to set up an investigative panel to liaise with detained Major Mustapha to disclose what the knows about how Chief MKO Abiola was murdered by the Nigeria state. If this could happen to Abiola it could happen to anybody and these Northern Nigeria Islamists have got some guts to just kill Abiola in such cavalier manner just as they did Igbo's Agunyi Ironsi and without consequences? 


Icheoku says times like this should put into the cooler the saying that "vengeance is mine says the lord" and let all that are complicit in the state-murder of MKO Abiola pay the price and NOW! What does Olusegun Obasanjo know, afterall he was president immediately following Abdulsalam Abubakar handing over in 1999? Was it part of the bargain for him to sweep everything under the rug and if, why did he sell short his Yoruba race by not being audacious enough to unmask Abiola's killers? If Northern Nigeria Islamists could demand and are getting the prosecution of those brave security officers who killed Boko Haram leaders, why would the killers of the world 's respected businessman Chief Moshood Kolawole Abiola not at least be outed and prosecuted? 


Icheoku's head is almost popping out of its cranial container as this allegation is analyzed and thoughts thereto put here in e-prints. Put in another way, it is both hair-raising and bone-chilling that a crime of this magnitude could take place in Nigeria and among Nigeria's higher ups and people are still keeping quiet about it? Where is Pastor Tunde Bakare on this? Although Professor Wole Soyinka is now retired but at least Icheoku expects him to issue a statement? Where is Femi Falana on this and is there going to be a request for information leading to Abiola's death and a verification of the Central bank records for the withdrawals of $200 million, 75 million pounds and 200 million Naira for collaborative evidence of the alleged. Where is Afenifere, Oha n'Eze Ndigbo, Arewa and other assemblies of Nigerians demanding an investigation into the state-murder of a man who they gave their mandate to be their president? Sometimes Nigerians' complacency is very unnerving and this is the bane of a society that still wallows in the magnitude of oppression that obtains therein where no one wants to sacrifice for the greater good of the society. Were Nigeria Syria or Libya, the revolution there would have petered off once the first shot rang out of the government army's tank or rifle as everybody scampers for safety as Fela put it, "Nobody wants to die" and you ask yourself what is a life in bondage really worth?


However Mustafa failed to disclose to Nigerians and the world at large how much blood money was paid to Kano State leaders and all other leaders of the Islamic Sharia North on Abacha's own head if truly Abacha was himself killed too and did not die of penile-vein embolism as a result of some ingested tainted-viagra? Or is Mustafa by this allegation, just trying to incite a revolution among Yoruba youth against their leaders for not only selling out on their cause but for keeping the millions of blood money to themselves by his selective amnesia regarding midget of Kano's own paid hush blood money? Fair disclosure demands that Mustapha makes full and complete disclosure of this alleged murders and also release the said tape/s now in order to force the hands of Nigeria government to act on the murders or at least secure them a world-wide ridicule and opprobrium for being a state that murders her citizens in cold blood including a president-elect? 


There is a lot of things gone and still going awry in Nigeria - a painted putrid sepulcher of a place that is oozing with morbidity and no one wants to do anything about it in order to fix it? Could someone please tell Icheoku that President Goodluck Jonathan is not one of the inside-men and part of the problems with Nigeria; otherwise where is his promised reform of the country? At least he could start by instituting a judicial panel to zealously pursue an Abiola's murder inquiry? He could start by asking the Imam of the Central bank of Nigeria Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi to confirm or deny the alleged withdrawals made at the Central bank and should in addition summon Chukwuma Soludo to give his own insight as the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria who must have had a whiff about such large cache of cash moving out of the bank vaults. But before Icheoku forgets, let Nigeria not forget that Nigeria's former Attorney General and Minister of Justice Chief Bola Ige was similarly murdered by the State during Olusegun Obasanjo government, yet no investigation has been conclusively carried out till date to unearth his killers. If Bola Ige's killing was not carried out by the high and mighty State or at least with its tacit approval and support, how else could a serving Nigeria Attorney General and Minister of Justice be killed during dinner with his family and in his home, with the number of security officials guarding him that were supposed to provide him with round the clock security? It simply does not add up and defies every logic. Nigeria, a country standing and walking on its head and somebody says, it go better?