Abiola, Moshood

views updated

Moshood Abiola

1937-1998

Business executive, political leader

Moshood Abiola's name is near the top of Nigeria's long list of tragic, politically related deaths that have blighted the history of this West African nation since it achieved independence in 1960. A telecommunications tycoon who made a bid for the presidency in 1993 in the first democratic elections held in Nigeria in nearly three decades, Abiola appeared to have won by a landslide but was prevented from taking office. Defying the military rulers—one of several juntas that had ruled the country with a firm hand for nearly thirty years—Abiola rallied his supporters to oust the regime, but he was arrested on charges of treason in 1994. Four years later he died in custody from an apparent heart attack.

Abiola was born in 1937 in Abeokuta, a medium-sized city in the southwestern part of Nigeria. He was the first child born to his parents that survived infancy. The Abiolas were of the Yoruba ethnicity, but were Muslim—this combination was unusual for the area, because southern Nigeria was predominantly Christian and animist. The northern part of the country, by contrast, was dominated by those of Hausa ethnicity who practiced Islam. As a teenager, Abiola attended a high school set up by Baptist missionaries, where his excellent grades earned him a scholarship to the University of Glasgow in Scotland. He left to began his studies in 1960, the same year that Nigeria earned its independence from Britain.

Grew Wealthy from Investments

Returning a few years later with an economics degree and certification as an accountant, Abiola settled in the then-capital, Lagos, where he was hired as the deputy chief accountant at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital in 1965. He went on to a job with the multinational pharmaceutical giant Pfizer two years later, and by 1969 was serving as the comptroller of International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) of Nigeria. This division of the much larger telecommunications powerhouse ran the country's wire-based communications systems, and the position gave Abiola access to top military officials, with whom he cultivated friendships that would later aid him in his political career. In 1972 he was promoted to the posts of chair and chief executive officer of ITT Nigeria, which he held for the next sixteen years.

Abiola's first foray into politics came during Nigeria's so-called Second Republic between 1979 and 1983, when he chaired the Ogun State branch of the National Party of Nigeria. He also founded a small media empire, Concord Press, which effectively functioned as the public-relations arm of his emerging political brand name. Noted Richard Synge in the Guardian, "It was in that brief phase of democratic government between 1979 and 1983 that Abiola became a truly public figure, known for his extraordinary generosity in building schools, as much as for his penchant for marrying more than the usual numbers of wives allowed by Islamic custom." Abiola fathered an estimated sixty children in all, including many by women who were not his wives.

Nigeria's troubled, corrupt Second Republic lasted just four years and ended with a military coup on the last day of 1983. Two years later a major general in Nigeria's armed forces came to power—Ibrahim Babangida, whom Abiola had known for some years. Babangida eventually announced a timeline for the restoration of the democratic political process, and after long delays elections were scheduled for June 12, 1993. In March of 1993 Abiola had been chosen as the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), a newly created center-left party. His main opponent in the June election was the candidate of the National Republican Convention (NRC) party, Bashir Othma Tofa. On election day Abiola bested Tofa with majority wins in nineteen out of Nigeria's thirty states. Babangida, however, delayed the announcement of the official results. As unrest mounted, news of Abiola's win leaked out anyway via a grassroots political group called Campaign for Democracy. Babangida's transitional government voided the election results, prompting widespread international outcry. Campaign for Democracy urged Nigerians to mount an opposition campaign of civil disobedience, and Abiola took part in the protests.

Jailed for Treason

Babangida stepped down in July of 1993, after having resisted calls to hand over power to Abiola, who was widely perceived to be the legitimate victor. An interim head of government was himself ousted by another military effort led by General Sani Abacha. Unrest continued, and at last on June 11, 1994—the anniversary of the eve of the thwarted election—Abiola asserted he was the rightful president. He then went into hiding, but was located twelve days later, arrested, and charged with sedition. Major rallies were organized in defiance of Abacha's regime and brutal treatment of the lawful winner of the election. Among Abiola's most prominent supporters was Nigerian novelist Wole Soyinka, the first African to win the Nobel Prize in literature, who was forced to leave the country for a time to avoid Abacha's secret police.

Following Abiola's arrest, the civil strife spread to Nigeria's main source of income, its rich oil fields in the north, where a workers' strike that lasted two months was met with a brutal crackdown on all political dissidence. "Within a year it was reported that Abiola was in solitary confinement, and had lost more than six stone [approximately eighty-five pounds]," reported Synge in the Guardian. "His physician reported that he had been cut off from the news, that he was no longer aware of the time, or whether it was day or night." His sole contact with family members came in early 1995. As his daughter Hafsat Abiola wrote in Newsweek, "My siblings and I were allowed only ten minutes with him. Usually a fit man, he was limping, suffering from a pinched nerve that resulted from being beaten by a soldier. He was disheveled and had lost a great deal of weight. I spent my ten minutes trying to assure him that he had not been forgotten."

At a Glance …

Born Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola on August 24, 1937, in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria; died on July 7, 1998, in Abuja, Nigeria; first wife, Simibiat Atinuke Shoaga, 1960; married second wife, Kudirat Olayinki Adeyemi, 1973 (assassinated, 1996); married third wife, Adebisi Olawunmi Oshin, 1974; married Doyinsola (Doyin) Abiola Aboaba, 1981; children: estimated at sixty, including daughter Hafsat Abiola. Politics: Social Democratic Party of Nigeria. Religion: Muslim. Education: Attended University of Glasgow, Scotland.

Career: Lagos University Teaching Hospital, deputy chief accountant, 1965-67; Pfizer Products Ltd., comptroller, 1967-68; International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) of Nigeria Ltd., began as comptroller, 1969, became vice president for Africa and Middle East; ITT Nigeria Ltd., chair and chief executive officer, 1972-88; Concord Press of Nigeria Ltd., founder, 1980, and chair; Radio Communications Nigeria, chief executive officer; National Party of Nigeria, chair of Ogun State branch of the party, 1979(?)-83; elected president of Nigeria in June of 1993 as the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), but never sworn in.

Abiola remained jailed, and the situation was at an apparent stalemate, until early June of 1998, when General Abacha died suddenly from a heart attack. His successor was another general, Abdulsalam Abubakar, who reportedly favored a return to democratic rule. Almost immediately scores of political prisoners were released. A few weeks later United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan visited Abiola, and reported from Nigeria on July 3 that Abubakar's government had agreed to release Abiola in exchange for him giving up his claim to the presidency. Family members believed he would be freed in a matter of days, but on July 7 he collapsed in front of a delegation of high-ranking U.S. diplomats who had come to visit him. Abubakar permitted an independent autopsy by foreign physicians, and the cause of death was ruled to be a heart attack. His family members, supporters, and even Soyinka voiced their doubts nevertheless. "They either poisoned him or killed him from neglect," Hafsat Abiola told journalists Obi Nwakanma and Marcus Mabry in Newsweek. "Either way, they killed him."

Abiola's death was a terrible setback for Nigerians, the majority of whom had anticipated a long-awaited return to democracy with the successful business mogul at the helm of the nation. News of the loss prompted widespread rioting, and crowds in Lagos, shouting "Won fiku sere! O won fiku sere!" ("They play with death! Oh, they play with death!"), were fired upon by government forces, according to Nwakanma and Mabry's report. Elections were held once again in 1999, but they were viewed as fraudulent by international observers, as were elections in 2003 and 2007.