Two deaths of prominent Nigerians in a month could have been an accident.
Few have mourned the death of military ruler Sani Abacha, as few were confident that the promised transition to civilian rule he said he would introduce on October 1 would be any more meaningful than the other twists and turns in Nigeria’s tortured past over the last three decades.
When Tony Lloyd of the British foreign office and later Kofi Annan visited Lagos after Abacha’s death, their demands that successor General Abdulsalam Abubakar move more quickly to restore democracy did not come out of any concern for ordinary Nigerians. They wanted to normalise relationships with the oil rich state, Africa’s most populous country.
The Commonwealth, EU and US had been pressurised into imposing limited sanctions on the Abacha regime after the executions in 1995 of Ken Sara-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni leaders who had protested at the desecration of the country by oil multinationals, especially Shell.
While these limited measures did not meet the demands of the most radical sections of the Nigerian opposition, of international human rights campaigners or of ecologists, they tied the hands of imperialism more tightly than they wished.
As President Clinton’s Africa specialist Susan Rice said after Abacha’s death "…the stakes in Nigeria are enormous. A democratic Nigeria is key to a stable and prosperous West Africa, an invigorated African continent, and thus to US national interests and national security".
Moshood Abiola will be remembered by many Nigerians as a political martyr even though he came to prominence as an opportunist businessman prepared to do deals with soldiers until the end.
Just before his death it was rumoured that he was prepared to give up his claim to the presidency in return for his release from prison. This was greeted with dismay by sections of the opposition movement.
Abiola died on July 7 aged 60, apparently of a heart attack, when he was meeting an American delegation. Though the body was examined by international pathologists who said that poisoning was very unlikely, suspicions have not been quelled.
Lawyers for Abiola are calling for an investigation into the tea he was apparently brought shortly before his cardiac arrest.
Thousands gathered on the streets of Lagos and of Ibadan, Nigeria’s second largest city to protest his death. In Lagos angry youths attacked sympathisers of the military junta who responded by using their machine guns indiscriminately. At least 200 people are thought to have died.
Abiola first came to prominence when he worked for American multinational ITT’s Nigeria. He joined the company in 1968 and became Chief Executive in 1971. He developed a close relationship with the military hierarchy under the 1970s regime of General Murtala Muhammad, which gave him a platform for his political ambitions.
In the late 70s, when the military government lifted the ban on political parties he became Chairman of the Ogun state branch of the National Party of Nigeria during the Second Republic, a period of civilian rule which lasted until the end of 1983.
In 1980 he launched the Concord newspaper group which he hoped would influence his campaign to win the presidential nomination for the then ruling National Party.
When his friend General Ibrahim Babangida took power in 1985 after overthrowing the last civilian ruler, President Shehu Shagari, he was again close to the inner sanctums of power.
When elections were again declared in June 1993 he succeeded in winning the presidential nomination for the Social Democratic Party and won almost 60 per cent of the popular vote.
Despite Abiola’s own limitations – he had no vision of building a representative government but was only interested in his own power – his rule could have provided a breathing space in which more radical forces could have developed. This was why the elections were annulled and a transitional government put in place.
Three months later Sani Abacha came to power following yet another coup. Abiola was imprisoned by Abacha in 1994 on a charge of treason when he declared himself president at a secret ceremony in defiance of the military. Within a year he was in solitary confinement.
Since his death Babangida, one of the closest advisors of the present regime has called for democratic elections to be overseen by the military to take place in between six to nine months. This is his, and probably the regime’s favoured alternative to the proposals for a civilian transitional government.
Recently released political detainee Mr Agbakoba responded to rumours that the international community was eager to re-establish trade with the new regime by commenting that they were being willingly duped.
"They are just hypocrites," he said. " We have seen prisoners being released before. General Babangida released around 1000 prisoners when he came to power in 1985.
Every time, the international community breathes a sigh of relief because it feels it can trade again with a clear conscience".