Maryam Abacha’s Amnesia -By Kene Obiezu

History may appear meek and malleable, but the ferocity with which it singes the fingers of those who attempt to rewrite it is often enough to deter the most spurious of scribes.

The image is as appalling as it is forbidding: The privileged wife of a long-deceased dictator, one who perhaps was Nigeria’s most brutal, sitting regally in her seating room, well-appointed no doubt with Nigeria’s money, on national television, twenty-seven years after his death, to accuse Nigerians of lying, tribalism and religious bigotry over well-founded claims that her husband looted public funds while he was president, and stashed his loot in offshore accounts all over the world.

She is not easily done. She asks for evidence that her husband stole money, for signature. Furthermore, she alleges that the money her husband left for Nigeria vanished without a trace and says she is praying for Nigerians that they may have goodness in their hearts.
If she had any modicum of conscience and not condescension for the country and citizens her husband treated with such murderous indignity, Maryam Abacha would have used the window of the interview to beg Nigerians for forgiveness. Instead, she felt it was a rare opportunity to put Nigerians in their place for falsely accusing her husband of stealing the country blind.

Maryam Abacha is 78. She is the matriarch of the Abacha family. His unexpected death 27 years ago hit hard, especially given the mysterious manner in which he died. The family have had little time to grieve since then because it has been twenty-seven years of dragging his name through the very sticky mud of history.

Indeed, whenever Nigerians who notoriously let things slide easily look like they will forget about Abacha and all those who died at the hands of his minions led by Hamza Al-Mustapha, his loot, somewhere across the world will cry out to Nigerian skies for recovery, unleashing an avalanche of accusations and acrimony. Such is his legacy. Such is the stain to his name that his family must now bear. The least they can do is to show some dignity. After all, they stood by him while he was milking Nigeria dry and stashing away staggering sums of money in offshore accounts. Even after his death, they have continued to enjoy the privileges accorded to a former president’s family.
The money recovered as part of the Abacha loot may have been re-looted by notoriously corrupt Nigerian public officers, but it cannot detract from the heist the late dictator perpetrated against Nigeria.

So, Mrs. Abacha should spare Nigerians her sanctimonious sermons or self-serving prayers about having goodness in their hearts. Nigerians already have goodness in their hearts. This goodness is reflected in the fact that they have largely restrained themselves from speaking ill of the dead in discussing her late husband, despite the unaccountable iniquities he initiated or tolerated after he seized power through a military coup. That is goodness enough. That Nigerians have not called for the prosecution or ostracization of members of his family for his deeds is further evidence of the goodness of their hearts, which goodness he doesn’t deserve.

If Mrs. Abacha must speak at all, if she must comment about the Abacha loot which has drawn scorn for Nigeria on the international stage, then it must be to beg Nigerians for forgiveness — for the terror her late husband put them through for five blood-soaked years. Anything else would paint her as the arrogant, entitled matriarch that many suspect she is.

She concluded her interview by referring to Nigerians as fools. That slight, coming from someone whose husband’s sleight of the hand siphoned billions of dollars out of Nigeria, is a monumental slap in the face — a massive amount of salt poured into a national injury.

It also shows up Mrs. Abacha for who she is, and especially for the contempt and condescension with which she looks upon Nigerians. If her irritability is because her family legacy was ruined by her husband’s predation, there is possibly no redemption from that. She can as well show some dignity.

No, Nigerians are no fools. They have never been. Despite their grit and grace in the face of profound national challenges, and their ability to let things slide, they are no amnesiacs. They remember those who have ruined their country, and they will pass their names to posterity.

History always reserves the rags of shame for those who ignore its warning and still proceed to attempt to rewrite it.

Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com