On June 8, 1998, Francis Ede, a staff member of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), was scheduled to be executed by the military regime of General Sani Abacha. That same day, however, Abacha himself died suddenly—a twist of fate that spared Ede’s life.
Ede, from Ebonyi State, had endured more than five years of detention in 32 different camps across the country. He and others were accused of plotting to bomb the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) depot in Ejigbo, Lagos—an allegation he insists was fabricated.
According to Ede, Abacha’s regime used trumped-up charges and orchestrated bomb scares to silence pro-democracy groups and eliminate figures considered obstacles to the dictator’s ambition.
He recalls being arrested on September 12, 1994, and taken to the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI), where he was stuffed into a sack for hours before being forced to sign a confessional statement. Later, at the Presidential Task Force on Anti-Abacha in Lagos, led by ACP Zakari Biu, he says he and others were subjected to brutal torture.
Ede recounted that security operatives repeatedly pressured him to sign false statements implicating NADECO members, including a claim that Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu had sent him to bomb the Ejigbo depot—a charge he refused to endorse.
By June 1998, he said, more than 290 detainees had been lined up for execution, each dressed in green robes signifying death. At Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison, soldiers had been assembled for the grim task. But before the executions could take place, Abacha died unexpectedly in the early hours of June 8.
“We cheated death by the death of the man who wanted to kill us,” Ede later reflected. “It was a narrow escape.”
Author: Dr Funmi Beckley
fumbeck@gmail.com
Abeokuta, Nigeria
