Yar’Adua May Pardon Coup Plotters

A very interesting story. Will this apply to ALL convicted coup plotters in Nigeria’s history? If this is true, then this will wipe the slate clean for ex-convicted coup plotters like Vatsa, Orkar and Bissalla. I wonder how those plotted against will feel about this? e.g. IBB, the family of Murtala Muhammed etc.

UPDATE: What is being proposed is actually a more watered down amnesty applying only to the 1995 an 1997 coups against Abacha. http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2009/june/25/national-25-06-2009-01.htm

The coup plotters at their trial in 1990: L to R - Capt Harley Empere, Major Gideon Orkar, Capt Perebo Dakolo, Lt Cyril Ozoalor, Lt Nicholas Odeh

Yar’Adua may pardon coup plotters on Thursday

Submitted by admin on Wed, 06/24/2009 – 21:37
From: Source: http://zumarockreports.com/node/79
There are strong indications that President Umaru Yar’Adua will on Thursday exercise his constitutional prerogative of mercy when he announces the state pardon for all those who had committed acts of treason against the Nigerian state and had been convicted for coup plotting.

Most prominent among those who will receive the state pardon is dismissed Lieutenant General Oladipo Diya who was arrested in December 1997 alongside other generals and put on trial for allegedly plotting to overthrow the regime of General Sani Abacha in which administration he had served as the second in command.

Diya who had been in detention at the Jos Prison at the sudden death of General Abacha on June 8 1998 was set free alongside other high profile accused felons by the intervening government of General Abdulsalami Abubakar, but had never been pardoned. The short-lived Abubakar regime also released all those who had implicated in 1995 along with Obasanjo and were serving different terms of imprisonment in different prisons across the country.

Notably, the only person in Nigeria who had been pardoned for plotting a coup in the history of country was General Olusegun Obasanjo who was implicated in an abortive coup of 1995, arrested, tried and jailed for life but later had his term commuted to 25 years. He was at the Yola Prisons when Abacha died.

The special pardon which he received in 1998 was to enable him contest for the presidential election of 1999. He, however, failed to pardon those who were convicted and jailed along with him all through his eight years in office.

Zumarockreports.com reliably learnt that the wholesale pardon that would be extended to all those who had been found guilty of coup making was being made as part of the amnesty exercise for the Niger Delta militants which President Yar’Adua is expected to announce and bring into effect on the same Thursday.

It was also learnt that the pardon to be granted to coup plotters is in reaction to what our correspondent learnt is the complaint among the military high command that the activities of militants are tantamount to waging wars against the state of Nigeria and were said to have argued that they should be treated more severely than coup plotters.

Observers, therefore, believe that the government is extending the amnesty to former coup plotters at the same time as the militants, in the recognition of the spirit de corps feeling of the military.