Remembering November 17, 1993 in history: The day Abacha seized government

by Adedayo Ademuwagun

November 17, 1993 is one of the most notable dates in Nigerian history. That day, General Sani Abacha seized the government and became Nigeria’s seventh military dictator.

The incident happened at a time when Nigeria was in free fall. Ibrahim Babangida had just left government having ruled for eight years. The economy was bleeding. Institutions were collapsing. Corruption and fraud had become the backbone of the society.

Mustapha is one of the people who lived through the era. He says, “All the 419, fraud, corruption you see today have their roots in the Babangida era. Those things were not only acceptable, they were the norm. You could defraud anyone as long as you were smart enough. All kinds of wrong things began to happen — smuggling, bunkering, drugs — and Babangida encouraged it. Fraud and corruption became the prevalent ways to really make money. The society descended into utter depravity.”

That year, after Babangida cancelled results of the June presidential election that Abiola won, there were riots in some parts of the country especially the south-west. A lot of Nigerians had looked forward to 1993 as the year they’d be free from dictatorship, and they put their hope in Abiola and the 1993 election. They called it Hope ’93. So they were both furious and gutted when Babangida nullified the election and held on to power.

As the country boiled and support for Babangida faded, he set up an interim government in August and appointed Ernest Shonekan to head it, with Abacha as the vice. Then he left Aso Rock. Some people believe he stepped aside as part of a calculation to tacitly work his way back into Aso Rock.

Anyway, people rejected the interim government, rioting continued and a federal court declared the government illegal. The situation grew more chaotic. In the middle of this, Abiola and his supporters continued to heap pressure on the government in order to force a change in his favour.

Three months later, it happened. That day, Abacha and his soldiers marched into Aso Rock and coerced Shonekan to resign. Then he took over the government.

Timothy says, “Many of us were very happy when Abacha took over. We just wanted Shonekan to go away. His government didn’t get any respect. We didn’t vote for him. Someone just picked him and installed him there. Nobody wanted him. In fact I think if the interim government had lasted some more time, there would been catastrophe, because Shonekan didn’t have the mandate of the people and he couldn’t control the army since he wasn’t the constitutional head of state. So when Abacha kicked him out, I was relieved and hopeful again that we would soon have our man, MKO, in the place.”

But Abacha obviously wasn’t interested in that direction. Soon after he became head of state, he began a bloody tyranny that Nigerians who lived under his rule would never forget.

Mustapha says, “If there’s anything that Abacha would be remembered for, it is that his regime was a regime when blood flowed freely. They imprisoned. They killed. Abacha had people killed either because they were opposition or because he needed them for human sacrifice as his witches wanted. You’ll just see a brand new car park, people would step out and shoot someone and drive away. That was the end. He was merciless.”

“By then, life was tortuous for the common Nigerian,” says Bose. “That time, things were not as costly as now. If you had N100, you could cook a potful of soup with a lot of meat and all that. But how would you get thatN100? You couldn’t even get kerosene. It got to a time, because of the hardship, people invented a stove called Abacha stove (everyone remembers it till today). That stove, you get an empty tin and stuff it with saw dust. Then you add a little kerosene and light it. You’re ready to cook. Such was the poverty that we suffered.”

“I remember that it was around then I lost my bank job because the bank downsized,” Deborah says. “I was a single mother living with my two kids in Lagos. I became so poor that I had to relocate with my children to my home town. At least, my mother would take care of us there and we would live with her. We won’t have to pay rent.”

Nigerians endured all that for five years while Abacha continued his plot to remain in power for as long as he was alive. Then on June 8, 1998, he died.

Deborah says, “I remember my daughter was watching the news and I was sitting outside with neighbours. Then she came to tell us she heard in the news that Abacha was dead. You should see the joy! We danced. we sang. We wept. We had never been that joyful in a long time. Even the Hausas in the kiosk across the street were rejoicing.

“My girl was only nine and didn’t understand what was going on. So she asked me why everyone was so excited to hear that a man died. I told her, ‘Juliana, that man was a bad man who tormented us, and now that he’s dead, we have hope for the future again.”