Explosive! Obasanjo, Yar’Adua, others truly planned 1995 Coup against Abacha – Omenka

By Michael Adesina

Thirty years after the controversial 1995 coup trial that shook Nigeria under the late General Sani Abacha’s military regime, retired Colonel Frank Omenka, the former Commander of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) Security Group, has insisted that the alleged coup plot involving former Head of State Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the late General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and others was real and not a phantom, as many critics have long maintained.

Speaking during a virtual conversation organised by The Experiential Leadership in Africa (TEL-Africa) in partnership with PREMIUM TIMES, Omenka broke decades of silence over one of the most contentious episodes in Nigeria’s political history.

The session, themed “The Abacha Years: Obeying the Last Order and the Untold Accounts,” was moderated by PREMIUM TIMES Publisher Dapo Olorunyomi, Managing Editor Idris Akinbajo, Executive Director of TheNEWS/P.M.NEWS Kunle Ajibade and TEL-Africa catalyst Adeolu Adewumi.

Omenka, who served on the Special Investigation Panel that interrogated those accused of plotting to overthrow the Abacha government, firmly rejected the widely held view that the 1995 coup was fabricated to silence political opponents.

“There was a coup,” he declared.

“There was a coup, and there will always remain a coup. People keep saying there was no coup, but I investigated it. I know what I saw.”

He claimed that the alleged conspiracy involved multiple actors and insisted that intelligence gathered at the time supported the military government’s case.

According to him, “General Kazir knew certain things. Col. Bello Fadile was recruiting people. Senior officers had information about what was going on. People may choose not to believe it because they heard the story from another side, but that does not change what happened.”

The 1995 coup allegations led to one of the most controversial military trials in Nigeria’s history. A Special Military Tribunal headed by Major General Patrick Aziza convicted several serving and retired military officers as well as civilians.

Among those convicted were former Head of State Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who was sentenced to life imprisonment; the late General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, who received a death sentence later commuted to life imprisonment before dying in prison in 1997; Colonel Bello Fadile; Major General Tajudeen Olanrewaju; Major Seun Fadipe and several other military officers.

Prominent journalists Kunle Ajibade, Chris Anyanwu, Ben Charles Obi and George Mbah were also convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for alleged involvement through publications the military government claimed supported the coup plot. They were later released following Abacha’s death in June 1998 and the transition to civilian rule under General Abdulsalami Abubakar.

Successive democratic administrations, human rights groups and many of those convicted have maintained that the alleged coup was a phantom designed to eliminate perceived opponents of the Abacha regime. The controversy has remained one of the defining debates of Nigeria’s military era.

However, Omenka maintained that history had wrongly judged those who conducted the investigation.

“I live by the truth. That is the only prayer God hears. I carried out my responsibilities according to my training and my conscience,” he said.

The retired intelligence officer also defended his conduct during the investigations, denying allegations that he authorised torture or physical abuse of detainees.

“There was no physical contact. There was always a table between the person being questioned and us. We talked to people, interviewed them and used different methods to get information, but we never touched anybody,” he said.

Omenka, whose name featured prominently during the Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission, popularly known as the Oputa Panel, said he never appeared before the commission because he was unaware of its proceedings after leaving Nigeria following the end of military rule.

He also dismissed claims that he went into exile, saying he merely travelled abroad to join his children after his retirement from the Nigerian Army.

The former DMI Security Group commander acknowledged that his name became synonymous with the excesses of the Abacha era but insisted that he had become a convenient target because of his role in exposing what he described as a genuine coup plot.

“For decades, others have spoken about me while I remained silent. Now I have spoken. People can listen, investigate, and make their own judgments,” he said.