Why Nigeria Must Never Forget the Repression of Abacha’s Regime

Nigeria must never endure another Sani Abacha-style dictatorship. A former DSS officer’s memoir has renewed attention on the military regime that ruled from November 1993 until Abacha’s death in June 1998. The era was marked by the suspension of democratic institutions, censorship, arbitrary detention and the persecution of journalists, activists, labour leaders and political opponents. MKO Abiola was detained after asserting his mandate from the annulled June 12, 1993 election, while Kudirat Abiola, Alfred Rewane, Ken Saro-Wiwa and other pro-democracy figures became enduring symbols of the period’s violence and repression. Abacha’s government also presided over vast alleged theft of public funds, much of which has been recovered internationally as the Abacha loot. The regime’s failed transition programme, in which five parties adopted him as sole presidential candidate, exposed its attempt to prolong military rule. Nigeria should reject efforts to romanticise that period. The lasting lesson is that state institutions must never again enable torture, unlawful detention, media suppression or government without constitutional limits.

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