Shaka Momodu
29 January 2001
opinion
Lagos — For those who expected me to have written this piece earlier, I must confess I have been too shocked, too confounded and perhaps, too dazed like many others by some of the revelations that came out of the Oputa Panel which sat in Lagos recently. I am only just trying to gather senses together; for I almost lost all.
Some critics have been quick to dismiss the Panel as a circus show, a theatre of the absurd, a tragi-comedy and all kinds derisive appellation.
However they choose to call it, obviously for its poor conception, one thing is certain, the Oputa Panel is to some extent laying bare before our very eyes the monstrosities of Nigeria's darkest hour. Some of the major actors of our momentary slide into Hobbesian State are taking turns to give testimonies of their roles. The high and mighty men of yesterday who never obeyed court orders are today sitting in the witness box drilled by young lawyers about yesterday they never thought would pass.
I watched as these young turks in the legal profession harass the Generals with questions, I watched the Generals answer "sir"
"my lord." And I tell you it was quite a humbling experience and a somewhat pitiable spectacle.
Something never before seen in this part of our human existence. So these people are human afterall, they feel pain like many other "bloody civilians" do? Particularly pathetic was the case of former number 2 man to Abacha, General or "Mr." Oladipo Diya as General Victor Malu, the current Chief of Army Staff would want Nigerians to address him. His petition on violations of his rights was treated by the panel. Diya went to the Panel thinking he could fool the people all the time. How wrong he was, how very wrong.
Whoever advised Diya to petition the Panel may have thought he was doing him a favour. He probably didn't anticipate the turn of events and the water tight evidence against the man. Diya should not have gone to that panel. He should have saved himself and family the indignities that are now their lot.
The public mockery they have made of themselves.
You see, there is something about life that should bother every human being.
And which should to a large extent moderate our actions at every position we find ourselves. "No condition in life is permanent." One moment you are up there on the high table of life, dinning and wining with kings and mighty men of power. Counted and courted for favours. The one who makes things happen. And in a somewhat curious and stunning twist, one falls. Suddenly found among the lowly, and among prisoners. Obasanjo and Diya's experiences are instructive in this regard. But Diya's case is far more potent.
I remember in the height of Diya's reign, power and glory were his, complemented by all the paraphenalia of high office. Such that in one official function he attended in Lagos, according to reports then, a military truck that was parked carelessly on the road was physically lifted off the road by soldiers just to make way for Diya and his "esteemed entourage" as the driver could not be immediately located. That was Diya in the height of power and glory. The road was always cleared for him. He was immuned to traffic rules and all the chaos that we ordinary people go through everyday. But when he fell, it was those same soldiers who usually cleared the way for him that took turns to mercilessly brutalize him.
They would have been the ones to tie him to the stake, then a senior officer would bark the order, "fire"! And a hail of hot lead would been released to end Diya and others and their remains dumped in a shallow grave just like that. With no rites of passage performed for them as is traditional in our society. Nobody is certain whether Diya would have gone to heaven or hell, but if I may hazard a guess, I am sure the gates of hell were already opened waiting him.
Before Oputa Panel came to town, Diya enjoyed a measure of public sympathy.
He was generally seen as a victim of Abacha's mad ambition to succeed himself at all cost. And probably because of his perceived opposition to the plan, he was penciled down for elimination. First in a failed bomb attack and second in the alleged "Phantom" or "set-up" (according to Diya) coup plot of December 1997. After the failed bomb attack on him, Diya issued or caused a statement to be issued stating that he was a "loyal and dedicated officer" who was doing his work. When he was released from the tight grip of death by the Abdulsalami Abubakar government, a large turn out of Lagosians trooped to welcome him on the erroneous impression that he fell out of favour with Abacha and his hawks for daring to oppose the man whose word was law. But that was before Oputa Panel came to town.
Still savouring his narrow escape and new found freedom, Diya proclaimed himself born-again in the Christian faith. He stated for all who cared to listen that his faith in God had been further strengthened by his experience and deliverance from certain execution by firing squad. Many believed and sympathized with him but few had reservations about his claims. That was before the Oputa Panel came to town.
Ever since its coming to town, things have not been the same and will certainly never be same again for Diya and his family. Whatever little sympathy anybody had for this man called Oladipo Diya simply vaporized into thin air after various testimonies at the Panel sitting in Lagos.
Particularly damning of Diya was Major Fadipe and Adisa's testimonies.
Indeed Diya's so called "set-up" or "phantom" coup for which Abacha was more than determined to execute him and others was real afterall. He not only planned it, he also financed it.
Surprisingly among all those who participated in the 1997 plot to violently overthrow Abacha's government, it was only Mr. Diya, a dismissed Lt. General that did not know that what he was planning was a coup. He probably did not realise the consequence and so when he was caught in the act, he knelt down and wept like a baby begging for his life. His insistence that there was no coup but a Four-point demand on Abacha shows just how silly and na‹ve one can pretend to be. Equally infantile is his claim of a "set-up" plot targeted at him and his ethnic group to get rid of them presumable because of their opposition to the mad one's self succession bid. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence by his own kinsmen to the contrary. It all clearly shows that Diya is an unrepentant liar. An unbeliever - infidel, and a very bad example of the character of a born-again in the Christian faith.
At the Oputa Panel, Diya did not even have the courtesy to be honest, he did not feel the obligation to tell the truth. He just went there and told lies that little kids could see through. With the kind of cowardice, poor judgement and even poor intellectual display that he and others entertained the public with, it is amazing how these men rose to the rank of Generals in the Nigerian Army.
Well, such can only be possible in "an army of anything is possible" like ours. It is very possible for an army like that to produce maggots, ants and cockroaches as Generals. Such is the degenerate level of our military establishment.
Contrary to Diya's claim of being a "loyal and dedicated" officer, Nigerians now know that he was never loyal to his boss. Evidence clearly shows that he was a man driven by a vaunting selfish ambition. And like all over-ambitious people he was almost consumed by his own lust. Contrary to Diya's claim that he never knelt down, wept and pleaded with Abacha, that he was "pushed by the devil" to plot against him, if for nothing else the Oputa Panel has been able to establish beyond all reasonable doubt before Nigerians that Diya actually knelt down, wept and begged Abacha like a baby to forgive him. Contrary to his famous "set-up" statement, nobody set him up, just as nobody masterminded his predicament as he would want the Nigerian public to believe. He was a victim of his own greed and perhaps foolishness. Right before his very eyes he was out plotted in his own plot.
Out schemed in his own schemes and boxed to the wall.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2001 This Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
