Lt. Gen. Oladipo Diya served as Chief of General Staff (Deputy Head of State) during the military regime of the late Gen. Sani Abacha from 1994 to 1977, when he was arrested on treason charges following an alleged failed coup. In an interview with the Nigerian Tribune, Lt. Gen. Diya spoke about the other side of General Abacha, his experiences in the Nigerian Army, the bomb that was planted to kill him and the phantom coup that many believe was for him was determined.
According to reports, the so-called coup of 1997 was directed against you as the deputy of the late General Sani Abacha. Do you remember how it all happened?
We thank God that this is an apparent coup, but in the military a coup, whether phantom, real or imagined, has always been taken very seriously. But there has never been a coup where they started recording a video or film before it happened. But many events had already happened before. It is said that the plane I was supposed to fly to Makurdi was about to be bombed, but as fate would have it, I was 10 minutes late, which really didn’t sit well with me. God actually used this delay to save my life. During these 10 minutes, those who prepared the bomb to explode the plane 10 minutes after takeoff were killed by the bomb before I arrived. I did not continue my journey.
Although everyone around me, including the security chief, said that I should continue the journey, I refused because otherwise the same thing would happen again in Makurdi. So I stopped and that saved my life. If those responsible for this bomb knew God, they would stop it. This continued and three weeks later I was arrested for planning a phantom coup but I thank God that God Almighty saved me in every next step. And from the day they failed to destroy me, I was assured that by the grace of God I was beyond all possibility of human destruction.
After my arrest, when I felt that everyone had been arrested, I was asked to speak to the department heads, Bamaiyi and the GOC, Bashir Magashi and his colleagues. I was asked to speak to them because they told me we needed to continue working with the government, but I said no, it wasn’t over yet. I thought I was being honest because I joined the army when I was 18, I was 19 and I couldn’t lie, so I said what I was thinking: “It’s not over yet.” If someone wants to escape, they have to leave the army; he should leave the government and fight as a civilian.
General Abacha
Was that your advice to Abacha?
That was my advice; Get advice from all department heads. I spoke to all the department heads one by one and they told me the same thing; No, he shouldn’t go on without knowing that some of them had tape recorders with them. Like I said, that’s all history now. We left everything behind.I’m just grateful to God that they tried to kill us three times.
When we were detained and I learned that only Yoruba leaders including Adisa and Olanrewaju had been arrested, I was shocked. Then I wondered where Bamaiya, Magashi and the others were. So I said it was a conspiracy. That’s the statement I made, and the whole world repeated it, and that saved my life and set the stage against the whole conspiracy.
Can you tell us what was Abacha’s plan to return power to the civilians when he took power? Did he plan to stay for a year or two before handing over power to civilians?
That was the intention. It wasn’t about staying in power permanently. The army is not permanent, it is an aberration. Come do what you want and then give something back. It is a military regime. If the military regime comes and wants to stay, no one will allow it. It’s not finished yet. Okay, now let’s look at the situation in Egypt.The country’s commander-in-chief just resigned to run for office.
Although I wouldn’t even say it’s good, it’s better than getting there and staying there. He resigned and the vice president was sworn in as the new commander-in-chief of the Egyptian armed forces. If he persists in the election and he wins, and if the elections are judged to be free and fair, they will appreciate that and not the fact that he is clinging to power and declaring he will be a civilian president.
Do you think that some people inside and outside the military pressured General Abacha to stay in power?
I don’t know because I was in prison at the time, and when you’re in prison you don’t have access to newspapers; You don’t have access to news; You can’t chat with anyone. But I knew he would become civilian president because he confided in me and I refused. He asked me to call the department heads individually, but they refused. I don’t know what they told him.
When you were taken into police custody, did you have any hope of surviving the ordeal?
Yes, they did not immediately succeed in detonating the bomb that they wanted to place on my plane, and they both died, as some admit, only I had a certain conviction that there would be no more human destruction for me. I said it with conviction because it was no coincidence that we were 10 minutes late. I believe we would have been executed again on December 14 in Jos, Plateau State.
They took us out of the prison in riot gear, led by Sergeant Barnabas Rogers.They should have taken us to execution. They got us out. Adisa and Olanrewaju were there. While we were driving, the vehicle stopped around midnight. We didn’t know why the vehicle stopped, but it stopped. Was it an engine? Was it a tire? We didn’t know. We stood there and waited and waited. When it was 5:45 p.mIn the morning the driver started the van, turned around and took us back to the prison.
What happened again? It was a miracle from God. It was divine intervention because as you know, a major filed a complaint with the government of the People’s Republic of China.I remember the GOC was one of our students, currently Commandant of the National War School. The major shouted to the government of the People’s Republic of China: “They are going to take these people away to be executed tomorrow morning.” The execution was supposed to have taken place at 7 a.m.
You only said that someone called you in the name of Abacha. Suppose tomorrow – this person denies it – what evidence will you have?
The Chinese government was stunned. We heard this story later when they sent us to prison. The GOC then said “OK” and tried to call Abacha but Abacha accepted.Without Abacha’s instructions, this official could not have done anything. But Abacha had this attitude: he never answered the phone. And that attitude of not answering the phone was another miracle. He didn’t answer the phone and the officer tried until about 5:30 a.m.and since he could not get Abacha back, he had to order us to send us back, saying that he would go to Abacha to get his permission.
He went to receive the order and said that they would now take us to Kano where the execution would now take place. They took us to Kano and put us up in a small house. I don’t know the owner of this house, this bungalow, but we were all crammed there. We arrived in Kano on Sunday evening to watch the performance the next morning.But that was the night Abacha died. We wouldn’t have known this if one of the soldiers, Sergeant Bush, hadn’t bought batteries for his radio: the Hausa always had a radio.
That’s how we learned that Abacha was dead. He then returned to the bungalow where they were keeping us and began chatting with Sergeant Rogers, saying he had heard on a BBC Hausa broadcast that Abacha was dead and that he had no intention of to take part in this firing squad unless another head of state agreed to do so. them an order. Policy.
This was the start of another argument between Sergeant Bush and Sergeant Rogers, as three other men assisted him. Sergeant Rogers commanded the remainder, a camp of four men. We therefore thank God that the Division delayed our execution, for now there were four of us on each side.
Bush’s second camp said that if Rogers’ group tried to kill us, they would shoot themselves in the head. This led to a split and the execution therefore did not take place. Wasn’t this another divine intervention? It wasn’t our power, it was God. All of this was not known to the public, so I have reason to be grateful to God.
What impression do you have of General Abacha given your association with him?
I find it very difficult to actually rank General Abacha because he completed NMT 6 and we completed NDA 1. That made him about nine months or about a year older than us. You see, seniority in the military is not measured in years, someone may only be four months older than you.
When you see a difference in ranking, people think it’s four or five years of experience.I have known General Sani Abacha for a long time. When I was appointed, we were actually part of the 6th Battalion and our supervisor at the time was Major Benjamin Adekunle. I knew Abacha. I know he didn’t play with money. If you bring Abacha a document and ask him to approve it and he sees $1 million, he will scream and ask you what you want to do with it and how you want him to approve that amount of money.
He didn’t agree with that. This gives the impression that he was very strict when it came to money and this impression continued until he became GOC of the 2nd Division in Ibadan and later Chief of Army Staff and then Chief of Defense Staff. As for kindness, if someone went to Abacha and asked him for a favor, it would be difficult to refuse. There was always a feeling in the background. Now when you hear all these stories about stolen money here and there, ask yourself, “Is this the same Abacha? ”And that’s why when someone asked me, I said that I was out of Abacha’s control most of the time. I can’t describe this man.
The newspaper came to me and said Abacha stole this, Abacha stole that. I said, well, if Abacha stole this and that, I tell you with all sincerity and from the bottom of my heart, I don’t know how you can steal money without the consent of the civilian population. Abacha did not want to go to the Ministry of Finance to collect money. It wouldn’t go to the central bank. Then how could he do it without the consent of the people from the Treasury, the security advisor, etc., because I understand that the most fraudulent way to steal money today is through the security vote, and this security vote cannot be verified. We don’t even see them spending their money.
I mean, these are variations that people should look at, especially this ongoing discussion. How did he organize the security vote without the knowledge of the Ministry of Finance and the President of the Central Bank? How was it done?
I’ve been in the system, but I’m telling you, I don’t know anything about it. We had an Armed Forces Leadership Council, and all members of that council held positions subordinate to the President and Commander-in-Chief. And if the commander-in-chief doesn’t like something, he can be corrected in no time. For example, the law at the time required that the Chief of Staff be the only official authorized to sign an arrest warrant. In the case of late leader M.K.O Abiola, overnight the law was changed and the Chief of Staff was replaced by the Inspector General of Police as the officer who can sign the arrest warrant. I don’t know how things suddenly changed. Maybe they thought that because Abiola and I are Yoruba, I would not cooperate with them.