Nigeria’s Ambassador-designate to Germany, Femi Fani-Kayode, has faulted the criticism levelled against the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) by former presidential candidate Peter Obi.
Obi had issued a statement on X praising the late Military Head of State, General Sani Abacha, while denigrating NADECO’s activism.
He said, “Today, General Sani Abacha, once presumed face of oppression, will be remembered as seemingly more democratic and more respectful of human rights than the so-called champions of activism from the NADECO days. Power indeed reveals character.”
Reacting, Fani-Kayode described the statement as an attempt to denigrate the leaders of that movement and its members who single-handedly fought military rule and made the ultimate sacrifice for democracy in our country.
He recalled that Obi worked assiduously for General Abacha whilst the NADECO leaders and footsoldiers resisted him and were being locked up, driven into exile, subjected to the most brutal form of oppression, persecution and torture, blown to pieces with bombs and slaughtered by soldiers in the streets.
“Worse still, the unrecognised and defunct Association of Destructive C*nts (ADC), of which he is a leader, has a National Chairman by the name of Brigadier General David Mark (rtd) who, in 1993, said that if the winner of the June 12th 1993 election, Chief MKO Abiola, were sworn in as President he would shoot him in the head!
“It is because of people like Peter, David Mark and Abacha that the military Head of State at the time, General Ibrahim Babangida, was compelled to annul Abiola’s election, after which the nation was thrown into chaos and turmoil with many innocent and defenceless Nigerians killed over the next 6 blood-soaked and terrifying years,” he said.
Fani-Kayode pointed out that Obi’s Obidient supporters were not born at the time and do not know the “shameful role he played in that chapter of our history, but we will educate them.”
He said Obi and the members of his deregistered and defunct party should be the last people to talk about fighting for democracy and accusing others of not being democrats and of being dictators.
The ambassador-designate said most of them were part and parcel of the “brutal military regimes that terrorised our people and, unlike others, he did not have the guts to resist tyranny and oppression at the time, but instead wholeheartedly espoused, embraced and supported it.”
He advised him to keep NADECO out of his mouth, or risk being taken to the cleaners, urging him to enjoy the democracy and free speech we have today, which others fought and died for between 1992 and 1999, and to stop trying to revise history and rubbish the efforts of our heroes past.
“Many of us were in NADECO, and we are living witnesses to what happened.
“We spoke out, wrote articles, suffered persecution, were locked up, were tortured, were killed and were forced into exile. Some of us had our homes burnt by the military and our relatives targeted and murdered.
“Those were the darkest days of our history, which many seem to have conveniently downplayed or forgotten today.
“Those were also the days when our country came closest to breaking into two, and a second civil war was imminent.”
He said it was displeasing to see NADECO veterans like Ovation Magazine boss Dele Momodu and former Minister of Interior Rauf Aregbesola among those who are rubbishing their past sacrifices.
“Imagine Rauf holding the microphone for David Mark, the architect of Abiola’s woes and one of the reasons he is no longer alive today, in a press conference?
“In fairness to Atiku Abubakar, he opposed Abacha too, but Obi was firmly in bed with him, and Mark was one of the primary architects of the annulment of June 12th.
“The blood of all our colleagues and compatriots who were killed at that time still pains and hurts us, and we shall never forget them,” he said.
