ADE OBISESAN, Lagos | Thursday
LATE Nigerian military ruler Sani Abacha attempted to assassinate his then number two with a bomb blast at Abuja airport in 1997, a packed human rights hearing has heard.
Former lieutenant-general Oladipo Diya told the Nigerian human rights panel Abacha’s agents had planted the car bomb that blew up outside the airport’s presidential lounge moments before he arrived on December 13, 1997.
“That bomb was planned to assassinate me, but as God would have it, the bomb exploded before my arrival,” he said.
Two security agents were killed in the blast and one week later Diya was arrested, accused of plotting a coup against Abacha.
He was sentenced to death but released after Abacha died in still unclear circumstances six months later in June 1998.
Diya told the hearing that the mastermind of his attempted assassination and score of others was Major Hamza al-Mustapha, Abacha’s powerful chief of personal security.
A journalist working for state-run NTA television who covered the bomb blast told the panel that he was ordered by al-Mustapha to cut mentions of Diya from his report.
The then chief of army staff, lieutenant-general Ishaya Bamaiyi, denied a claim by Diya that he had been at Abuja airport and said there was no plot to kill his fellow officer.
“I was never at the airport on December 13, 1997 … and there was no reason whatsoever to get rid of anybody, including Diya,” he said.
In earlier hearings, Bamaiyi and al-Mustapha have levelled a series of accusations against other members of the Abacha regime, including Diya and Abacha’s successor, Abdulsalami Abubakar.
But many of the claims made, most notably by al-Mustapha, have yet to be tested before the panel.
Al-Mustapha and Bamaiyi are both currently on trial, for murder and attempted murder, and as they left the panel to return to jail they were booed by a large crowd. – AFP