Comrade Waheed Lawal, a human rights activist and close ally of the late social crusader, Gani Fawehinmi SAN, has revealed why the police accused some activists of killing the former military Head of State, Gen Sani Abacha, shortly after his death.
Lawal, who was one of Fawehinmi’s lieutenants in the struggle for the actualization of the mandate of the late MKO Abiola in the June 12, 1993 presidential election, disclosed that the police accused him and his fellow activists of “killing Abacha because we protested in black clothes four days to his death”.
Speaking with the Nation on the challenges faced by June 12 campaigners in the hands of security operatives, Lawal said, “The main challenges we faced then was the repression by the military and the police. In fact, on June 4, 1998, after we had successfully protested the killing of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola in Osogbo, the police arrested the leadership of the group then, including myself, Comrade Amitolu Shittu, Comrade Goke Butika, the late Comrade Femi Williams and Comrade Sikiru Uzamat. We were detained for three weeks at the State CID, Ayetoro, Osogbo.
“On July 7 when Chief MKO Abiola died in detention and we organized a condolence register for the people of Osun to sign, officers of the Department of State Services (DSS) started chasing us round the state and many innocent citizens in the state were harassed and wounded in the process.
“We were arrested on June 4 and Gen Sani Abacha died on June 8, 1998. The police IPO came and asked us to come and write additional statement that we were the group that killed Gen. Abacha because we wore black clothes the day we protested.”
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