How Abacha Escaped Planned Abduction By Diya – Ex-CSO

Major Seun Fadipe (retd), a former Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the late Lt-Gen Oladipo Diya, has recounted how the late ex-military Head of State, General Sani Abacha, escaped a planned abduction in Enugu State in 1997.

Diya, the then-current vice president of Nigeria under the military administration of Abacha, was Fadipe’s CSO. On Channels Television’s Friday edition of Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, a socio-political program, Fadipe was a guest.

Fadipe recalled Diya and his co-travelers’ plans to kidnap Abacha and force him to resign in Enugu, but the then head of state became aware of it and canceled the trip at the last minute.

He said, “There was a coup, whether it was now a phantom one or it was a setup, it’s immaterial now because that’s the problem I had with my boss until he died. Because I had a lot of seniors ahead of me, if I wanted to be in a coup as a major, it would be a violent coup. I never planned a coup, never intended a coup, but I got involved through my boss.

“As of that time, Abacha was doing well but because he wanted to transmit to a civilian regime, things went haywire”.

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Fadipe claimed that Diya and his coup plotters would have been able to take control of the country’s capital from Abuja, but that he had to have aborted the trip at the last minute because they had “maybe” received some information from all of his advance parties.

“On the 9th of December 1997, we got to the office, and after the pleasantries with my boss, the ADC left. Once the ADC leaves, I will give my boss the security briefing for the period and after, he said: ‘ Are you sure all is well? ‘ That was before the December 13 bombing attempt. For the first time, he directly indicated something was about to happen.

” A day before then, the Chief of Army Training Conference just took off in Enugu, and Abacha, being the C-in-C was supposed to open the event. The man had left the Villa and then on his way to the airport, all of a sudden, the man came back.

“So my boss called me after a while to inform me that the man had aborted the trip and was now back at the villa. My boss was a bit worried. I don’t know what was going on at that time. So I asked my boss to be on standby so that he might still come back, but surprise surprise, that didn’t happen.

” In the evening, Ishaya Bamiyi (then army chief) came to General Diya’s office. So, we were wondering, the chief of army staff, what’s he doing here? He had to travel to Enugu. So when he (Bamiyi) left, my boss called me and asked me to call him General Adisa Adisa.

“By then, Adisa had been removed as the Minister of Works and Housing. General Adisa arrived almost immediately after I called him, and this time, he was almost in mufti. The man then discovered I wasn’t privy to it while he was walking away and started asking me some questions.

” The next morning, my boss told me and a few security people: ‘ If Oga had travelled yesterday, he would have been arrested and there would have been a change of government’. I just knew I was in trouble. He said if he (Abacha) had gone to Enugu, he would have been abducted and forced to resign and there would have been a change of government. “

Fadipe emphasized that he never told the authorities about the coup plans and that he didn’t betray his former boss.

I “no way” would I have betrayed my boss, he said. He tried to denigrate me and all of that, but I just knew he was a man who was struggling to survive, he said after we left the detention.

Source: Channels TV