WITHIN NIGERIA highlights one major event that occured on April 28 in the history of this country, Nigeria in an effort to create awareness for education and enlightenment purpose.
Lt. Gen. Oladipo Diya, five others were sentenced to death over alleged coup plot
On this day, April 28 in 1998, a military tribunal sentenced six men to death today for plotting a coup against Nigeria’s military ruler, Gen. Sani Abacha.
Reports showed that the condemned men include Nigeria’s former deputy head of state, Lt. Gen. Oladipo Diya, who maintained he was framed by officers closer to Abacha who fabricated the plot.
According to some Nigerian analysts, Abacha loyalists sought to remove Diya from the political scene because he opposed Abacha’s plan to prolong his rule by transforming himself into a civilian president.
The two-month coup trial, which was held in secret, has been interwoven with a murky political tussle within Nigeria’s military over Abacha’s effort to retain power, Nigerian scholars and diplomats said. The military officer corps, by far the country’s most powerful political force, appears deeply divided over the issue, they said.
The trial has helped increase tension among Yorubas, the main ethnic group of southwestern Nigeria, many Nigerians have said. All six men sentenced to die today — and most of the 24 other defendants in the coup trial — are Yorubas, a group that feels politically marginalized by the elites of Hausa-speaking northern Nigeria, to which Abacha belongs.
At the reading of today’s verdict in a military mess hall, defendants wore handcuffs and leg-irons, news services reported. The senior judge — Maj. Gen. Victor Malu, former commander of the Nigerian-led peacekeeping force in Liberia — pronounced sentences on 30 defendants. Until today, officials had said 26 were facing the tribunal.
Those sentenced to death included two former cabinet officers, Maj. Gen. Tajudeen Olanrewaju and Maj. Gen. Abdulkareem Adisa, and a civilian. Four defendants were sentenced to life in prison, including a newspaper editor, Niran Malaolu.
Malaolu was arrested the day after his newspaper ran an article on divisions in the military arising from the coup trial, according to a Nigerian group, Media Rights Agenda.
The tribunal today supplied no details about specific acts committed by those condemned.
Of the remaining 20, five reportedly were sentenced to jail terms of two to 14 years, and 15 reportedly were released.
