<h4>1997 Coup</h4>
<p><strong><a href="https://openlife.ng/">OpenLife Nigeria</a></strong> reproduces a rare narrative by Barrister Richard Akinnola 11, a Nigerian journalist, author, lawyer, activist and editor of the Vanguard Newspaper at a time.</p>
<p>In the narrative titled “What General Diya Told Me,” Akinnola 11 who is an executive director of the Centre for Free Speech, disclosed a private discussion he had with late General Oladipo Diya who informed him how they were moved out of their cells twice for execution but saved by God</p>
<p><em><strong>Following the death sentences passed on General Oladipo Diya and others over the 1997 coup plot, some of us were involved in the advocacy for the death sentences to be commuted.</strong></em></p>
<p><em><strong>After his release, we met for the first time and became friends, coming to his house a couple of times. </strong></em><br />
<em><strong>In the course of this, he told me how <a href="https://openlife.ng/">God</a> saved him and his condemned colleagues twice from execution.</strong></em></p>
<p><em><strong>The first time, he said they were moved from their Jos prison cells into the Black Maria that would take them to the execution ground. </strong></em></p>
<p><em><strong>However, God used the GOC of the command in Jos to halt the movement, saying he didn’t receive any signal from the C-in-C for their movement. He ordered them back to their cells. Apparently, someone at the Villa wanted them executed without the imprimatur of Head of State, General Sani Abacha.</strong></em></p>
<p><em><strong>He told me the second time was, when apparently, Abacha gave the go ahead and they were moved. It happened that it was the day Abacha died. </strong></em></p>
<p><em><strong>He said while they were in their holding cell at a location in preparation for execution, they eavesdropped from the window, how a junior officer was arguing with his superior, that the execution was no longer necessary, after all, the Head of State was dead. Diya told me that that was how they knew Abacha had died and their lives spared.</strong></em></p>
<p><em><strong>When General Abdulsalami took over, he set up a review panel on the case but neither the report of the panel nor the convicts were released. So, l sued the <a href="https://www.thisdaylive.com/">Head of State,</a> General Abdulsalami at the Federal High court, seeking for an order to release the report of the panel. Shortly after the suit was filed, all the convicts were released and l discontinued the matter.</strong></em></p>
<p><em><strong>If you asked me, l believe there was a coup plot by the officers as confirmed by Major Fadipe, the CSO to General Diya who pleaded guilty at the tribunal , unlike others who pleaded not guilty. According to Diya, General Bamaiyi was planning his own coup but suspected that there was suspicion by the intelligence unit. </strong></em></p>
<p><em><strong>So, he set a decoy by selling the idea to Diya who bought it. Bamaiyi then went to tell Abacha that Diya was planning a coup and Abacha asked him to place along. A dog eat dog syndrome. That was the reason Diya, on the first day of arraignment at the tribunal was asking -“Where is Bamaiyi? This is a set up because he was the originator and master minder of the coup.”</strong></em></p>

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