Can you recall your last meeting with M.K.O Abiola. When was it, and what was the state of his health?
It was about two weeks before he died. But the visit before the last
was more remarkable. It was arranged by the military government to
dispel the rumour that Abiola had died in detention. They quickly
arranged a meeting for me to go and see him.
They sent one captain
from Aso Rock to me to tell me that I was needed urgently in Aso Rock.
This was the penultimate meeting to the last meeting with him. I found
the message strange because my previous meetings were arranged by the
commissioner of police in Abuja, under whom Abiola was supposed to be.
Whenever I visited him, I usually returned to Lagos by 6pm, but that
day, it was not possible because immediately I got into the car, they
started driving round Abuja to waste time so that it would be dark and I
won’t recognise where they were taking me to.
When
we got to the place, Abiola was there. It was a new place; I had not
seen him there before. It was a bungalow. As soon as they opened the
door and Abiola saw me, he came towards me and we hugged. We sat and
unlike before, none of the guards waited to listen to our discussion. We
spoke Yoruba all the time. They objected to it at first, later on they
agreed. That day he was behaving like he was in the spirit. I told him
there was a rumour that he had been killed. He said, ‘I know that I’m
dead. They have dug the grave. They have put me in the grave except that
they have not close me up.’ I asked, ‘What happened? Have they injured
you or injected you?’ He said no, but that he just knew.
That means he had the premonition that he was going to die in detention.
Yes. As he was talking, his mood changed. He told me he had forgiven
those who caused his incarceration; that it was left for them to ask for
forgiveness from God. He said he forgave them because he wants God to
forgive him his sins. All these were strange, because in my previous
visits, he was always asking about the things that were happening in the
country. Then he started singing, ‘Nearer my God to thee, nearer to
thee.’ He used to sing Christian songs. After signing the song in
English, he started singing it in Yoruba. Then he got up; hugged me and
we began to cry. It was very emotional. I tried to calm him down,
because I didn’t know what he had seen. All through this period, the
guards did not come to say time was up. I told him I will tell the story
to the people, which was normal after every visit.
But did you observe any sign or symptoms of illness in him?
No. He was neither sick nor injured. You could say his spirit was low,
but his body was good. There were no signs and symptoms of any illness.
He spoke from a very conscious mind. That was the most poignant visit.
The last visit was routine; to change his toiletries and so on.
The
then Commonwealth Secretary-General, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, recently told
us that when he visited Abiola few days to his death, he was in high
spirits, because he was happily awaiting his release. How did he
overcome the depression?
About two weeks
to Abiola’s death, Abdulsalami Abubakar had started to send out word
that Abiola might be released. So, the whole town started to rejoice. I
don’t know how that one was done. They even got to me and said my trips
to Abuja would soon end. I knew the government was not going to try him.
Chief Rotimi Williams had already told us that they did not have any
evidence against him. There was no point going to court. As far as I
knew, Abiola knew that they would not allow him to come out just like
that since they would not take him to court. Every time, they were
asking him to denounce his mandate and prepare himself for another
election, but he refused. During my last visit, I told him I had the
rumour that Abubakar will release him but I did not want him to believe
the rumour until there was concrete evidence.
How did you receive the news of his death?
That day, I was in the sitting room here. A call came from the personal
physician of Abubakar. He said, ‘Doctor, get yourself ready and start
coming to Abuja. The Head of State has sent his personal jet through
Governor Buba Marwa, it would be at the VIP section of the airport.’ Of
course, I was not going to enter that aircraft. But I asked him, ‘Why
are you sending for me? I was given about two weeks appointment to come
and see Abiola, so tell me what has happened that warrants me to come
urgently.’ He didn’t want to tell me that Abiola had died, so that my
reaction would not be, ‘Alright if you have killed him; eat him. I’m not
the doctor for the dead, but for the living.’ That could have been my
reaction, which was exactly my reaction when I finally learnt that he
had died. After that, I called Kola Abiola and told him that something
bad had happened but that I didn’t know the extent. The doctor also told
me not to come alone; that I should bring any of my colleagues. I then
thought, maybe he had not died. I told Kola and he said, ‘Doctor let’s
go to the airport and take the plane to Abuja.’ I didn’t know Kola had
heard. We boarded Kola’s car and he tuned to BBC news. At that time, it
was about 15 minutes to 6pm. Then they announced that Abiola had died. I
asked Kola, ‘Is that true?’ He wasn’t crying, I knew he had heard. I
told him to turn back. And just before we got to Maryland, people had
started rioting. We were lucky to escape without the car being damaged.
Did you eventually go to Abuja that day?
I refused to go. When we got back to the house, Kola asked me: ‘What is
going to happen next?’ I said, ‘Nothing; I’m not going to Abuja.’ Then
he said he must go. I said ‘Yes; go so that you take care of the body.
One thing I want you to tell them is that they must not bury him
because he is a Muslim. There must be a post-mortem.’ They were already
talking to Abiola’s two wives about burying him immediately.
REVELATION!
They
arranged for them [the two wives] to come and see Abiola the day before
he died. That was of course for them to say goodbye. They did all of
these without my knowledge. Up till that time, I was the only one in
five years, who was allowed to see Abiola.
Then
I received another call. This time, the governor of Lagos, Marwa, said I
should come, that the pilot and others were waiting, that he would send
a car to pick me. I declined the offer and asked them to wait. I called
Prof. Oye Adeniran to represent me. I told him to tell Abubakar’s
physician that I want a post-mortem. When the doctor heard my request,
he then called me back and said he would advise Abubakar that there must
be a post-mortem. Then he said, ‘These are two deaths too many.’ He was
referring to the death of Sani Abacha and that of Abiola. You remember
in Abacha’s case, there was no post-mortem. How can a Head of State die
so suddenly and he was hurriedly buried without a post-mortem. I told
him that I would assemble a team of international pathologists to
conduct the post-mortem. So, the body was embalmed and kept in the
morgue waiting for the pathologists to arrive.
Some said Abiola
was beaten to death, others said he was poisoned. As his doctor and
member of the team that conducted the post-mortem, what were your
findings?Abiola was not beaten. He died shortly after the American
delegation got to Aguda House by 3pm. According to the written press
conference given by Ambassador Thomas Pickering, who led the American
delegation, Abiola died between 3:20 and 3:40pm that day. Nobody told
Abiola that he was going to have visitors that day. So, they woke him up
and he just brushed his teeth and came out to meet with them. He had
not had his lunch. These were facts borne out of the autopsy. His
intestine was clear. They exchanged banters, he told Susan Rice, who was
part of the delegation, what she wore the first day he met her.
Pickering said Abiola’s brain must be sharp to remember all that.
According
to them, their mission was to convince Abiola to denounce his mandate
and go for another election. By then Abacha had gone, one of their
problems had been solved. Abiola was left.
They
had brought that suggestion before and Abiola rejected it. So, their
mission was unnecessary because they were not going to get him to say
yes. It must have been for another purpose. When they came in, the chief
guard that usually stayed with Abiola was not there because they didn’t
tell him some people would be visiting. Abiola came unaccompanied to
that meeting. Of course, they had been told he was a tea drinker. They
brought a special flask, which Hamza Al-Mustapha described as
multi-dimensional. They poured themselves tea and poured tea for Abiola.
There was no precedence of a visitor bringing tea for the host. It is
unconventional. It is not done anywhere in the world. Not only did they
bring it, they offered someone in detention tea, with no guard around.
And
Ambassador Pickering said in his press conference that shortly after he
had taken the tea, he complained of pain in the chest and grabbed his
chest. And later, he felt uncomfortable and then, he went to the
convenience to ease himself, but he did not come back as expected. They
called on him and he told them he was coming. By then, he had started
feeling weak. They asked him if they should call the doctor but he said
they should ask the guard to get his pain tablet. But he died before the
pain tablet arrived. By the time the doctor came, Abiola had already
died. They took him to Aso Rock clinic, where they tried to jerk his
heart back to life, but he was gone. That was how he died.
Are you saying that the US had a hand in Abiola’s death?
Yes.
It is necessary to note that death followed Pickering’s missions. A
notable personality usually dies after his mission to any country. You
can go and read about him. The question was: Why did he come? We know
him as Central Intelligence Agency man and he was not the serving
ambassador in the country then.
Abubakar was
the one who gave them the appointment. During a cocktail to celebrate
the US National Day, I asked the US Ambassador why they brought
Pickering and others. I told him that Abacha, who was occupying Abiola’s
position had died and why did they bring another military? We should
also note that after Abiola died, Abubakar went to White House to visit
the sitting American President and he went in military uniform. Can you
recollect anybody who entered White House in military uniform? It is not
done. He was given that exception. Up till now, nobody has repeated the
precedence. What did he do? How long had he been on the throne here
that he was received by the American President? Abacha was gone, Abiola
was gone and they thought Nigeria’s problem was solved. But here we
are.
The current American President has not
found it important enough to come to the same country in which the
previous governments took very big roles in taking those two actors out.
I think it high time US apologised to Nigeria for the roles it played
in the death of Abiola. The US also insisted on sending at least two
pathologists just to protect its image, because there were rumours that
it was the US that killed Abiola. Tony Blair sent a message to me
through the British High Commissioner here that he was nominating Dr.
John Shepherd, one of the top pathologists in England, and we made him
the team captain. Human rights groups from Chicago sent in a
pathologist. America insisted that they wanted to be well represented.
So, they sent one Muslim doctor and one Christian doctor to me. I was
there; Abubakar’s doctor was there; Dr. Coker, the owner of that
hospital on Victoria Island was there and the team.
You
believe Abiola was poisoned, but how come this team of highly qualified
doctors, including yourself conducted the post-mortem and concluded
that Abiola died from natural causes?
No,
what they said was that there was not enough supply of blood to his
heart because there was a collection of fatty materials in the blood
vessels that supply blood to the heart. His heart did not get blood
supply; that was why he died eventually. The question is, why did that
happen? How could that happen to somebody who just woke up, had not done
anything and was not doing any exercise. There are people who have
worse conditions than that and they are still alive. Something must have
engineered the heart to behave the way it did that Abiola could not
survive more than 10 minutes. We took specimen from his intestine, took
his blood and sent it to toxicologists in Canada and in London.
Another
question to ask was where did Pickering type his press statement?
Abiola died around 3:40pm and by 4pm, Pickering read his typed-written
press statement and said he must have died of heart attack. The doctor
that took Abiola’s body to Aso Rock clinic had not come when Pickering
addressed the press. Could something have triggered the heart attack?
The answer is yes. We also know that there are drugs that can affect the
rhythm of the heart. Such drugs can disturb the rhythm of the heart to
an extent that the heart can stop pumping blood. If you give it to
anyone to drink in tablet or liquid form, it can make the heart to stop
within minutes. Does this leave traces in the blood? Yes, because
medical science has perfected all that now. They just conducted the
post-mortem of Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian man that died about five
years ago. When he died, nobody suspected, but now they believe he was
poisoned and they are trying to find out what type of poison it was.
So, you believe medical science can detect the poison now?
Yes, and that is why we are calling for a more detailed investigation
into the cause of Abiola’s death. Why are the human rights activists
here not pushing for further investigation into Abiola’s death? Our
government did not even want to say that the man won the election, until
President Goodluck Jonathan came.
But did Abiola have any health condition that could have resulted to sudden death?
