KUDIRAT ABIOLA : STILL ON MY MIND

                      

You know I once took a tour of the famous Abiola mansion in Ikeja. Kudirat’s daughter had turned his expansive master bedroom into an office for her NGO. So a visit to the office offered me the opportunity to go round the huge house imagining the kinds of meetings and discussions that would have taken place during the aftermath of the June 12 debacle.

Today, I am not sure how I feel with the way Nigerians have managed the memory of this titan whose life was cut short by the bullets of bastards sent by the agents of darkness in her prime. She was just a normal housewife who went about her daily chores of husbanding one of the most prolific business men of our time, MKO Abiola. She was really, to the best of my knowledge, not interested in his daily grind which included his massive business empire and his huge appetite for networking globally.

His campaign for reparation sounded like a boring song to her as she shepherded the domestic parts of the family. She never ever used to get to see him and was not really bothered since she was comfortable and her social and religious life as a devoted Muslim wife took much of her time.

All these changed when he announced his intention to vie for the highest office of the land. She became his amazon and joined the campaign trail. I saw her always by his side. Dressed gaily in her Iro and buba with a lovely gele she followed him everywhere. Then, he was arrested and eventually died and we began to see the real Kudirat.

A fire was lit in her soul and the amazon was born. She kept his spirit alive with her campaign for the restitution of his mandate and then to find his killers. Her campaigns were so robust that it began to ruffle the feathers of some very powerful forces and she was eventually silenced with a bullet. The fact that she was just a woman who had no weapons but sheer will and a her tiny voice did not deter the army of armageddon to unleash untold violence on her person. They killed her.

Her purported killers have confessed. Some have been jailed but one particular one has won an appeal court verdict proclaiming his innocence. But the Lagos State Government has just won at the Supreme Court, so the case will be opened again.

I have nothing to say at this juncture but to say that I am very sure that her killers will never find peace for her restless and tormented spirit will continue to haunt them and give them sleepless nights.