Abacha, Sani

Abacha, Sani (1943-1998), general and President of Nigeria (1993-1998). The eighth military dictator to rule Nigeria since independence from Britain in 1960, his regime was perhaps the most ruthless and brutal, infamous for his execution of the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and treatment of the Ogoni delta people.

Born in Kano, Abacha attended the Nigerian Military Training College at Kaduna in 1962. Following his commission in 1963, he trained at the British Army School of Infantry at Warminster, Wiltshire, between 1966 and 1971. Returning to Nigeria, he was steadily promoted, and by 1993 Abacha had become Secretary of Defence in the government of General Ibrahim Babangida. Following a bloodless coup that November, Abacha made himself head of state.

Despite promising to return Nigeria to democratic civilian rule within two years, his first actions were to dissolve the National Assembly and local governments, and abolish the two political parties. His political opponents were subjected to harassment and imprisonment. Chief among them was Mashood Abiola, who was arrested for treason in June 1994 after declaring himself the president of a government of national unity. The previous month, Abacha had called a National Constitutional Conference, again pledging to restore a democracy that never materialized.

In July 1994 a strike by oil-workers was crushed by the army. Opposition within the army was then wiped out when in January 1995 hit squads were sent on the rampage, killing 80 officers. Similarly, a ruthless campaign was mounted against the Ogoni people. The Ogoni live around the Niger river delta. Led by the author Ken Saro-Wiwa, they protested that exploitation by petroleum company Royal Dutch Shell since 1958 had ravaged this environment, polluting their farmland and fisheries. Abacha had protesters shot and many of the Ogoni rounded up into detention camps. Finally, to international condemnation, Abacha had Saro-Wiwa tried on trumped-up charges and hanged in November 1995.

Nigeria was immediately suspended from the Commonwealth of Nations on the grounds of human rights violations, and some sanctions were imposed, although not on oil exports. Despite gaining some credit for brokering a peace agreement in 1996 in Liberia’s civil war, and leading the ECOMOG forces in Sierra Leone in 1998 to reinstall the democratically elected President Ahmad Kabbah, Abacha’s regime became increasingly beleaguered. Surviving a coup attempt in December 1997, Abacha eventually called elections for August 1998 but engineered it so that he was the only candidate. However, he died of heart failure in June. He was succeeded by General Abdulsalam Abubakar. A new civilian constitution came into being in May 1999.