Frank Ovie Kòkòri: The June 12 personified, takes final bow

By Adebayo Obajemu

Life has its twists and turns; it’s often like a wager in the dark, no one is sure of its next trajectory. Philosophers have for ages debated whether life is fair and just without any consensus.

Many would argue that this impersonal life has not been fair to Frank Ovie Kòkòri, former secretary general of National Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, Nupeng, who took a final bow last week at the age of 80.

He was a man, who gave so much of his energy and life to the struggle for the actualization of June 12 Presidential election outcome and by extension, a return to civil rule, and yet got nothing of of it, and virtually, even forgotten by those, who inherited the system.

When his efforts and those of others in the trenches against military dictatorship yielded fruits and the country retuned to civil rule, the heroes, like Kòkòri and others, who made it happen were consigned tó the margins of the new era, no one remembers their efforts, and the buccaneers, who are the major beneficiaries of their struggle, have held the country by the jugular since 1999, taking Kòkòri and the rest of Nigerians hostage.

Kokori burst into Nigeria’s consciousness by sheer accident of history, but that history says a lot of the kind of man Kòkòri was, and how he could make a difference in the effort to better his country. But then, many could have chickened out but not him. Kòkòri took on the role prepared for him by destiny in order to shape the destiny of his country on the right course.

General Sani Abacha, who took power by political masterstroke and sleight of hand that verged on duplicity on November 11, 1993, dissolved the parliament and fashioned the country in his own image, reneging on his promise to handover power to Chief Moshood Abiola, Social Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, who was presumed to have won the June 12 election.

In Pinochet style, Abacha consolidated on power, arrested Abiola and other prominent opposition figures, and began a transition to civilianise himself as president.

Kokori, out of call of duty, decided to act on the side of justice. He turned NUPENG, an important stakeholder in oiling the engine of the economy, because of the strategic place of oil, quickly weaponised the union and turned it into a boiling cauldron against Abacha’s dictatorship, calling for the junta to swear in Abiola and return to barracks.

Along side pro-democracy groups led by firebrands like Gani Fawehinmi, Olisa Agbakoba, Ayo Obe and National Democratic Coalition ( NADECO) and the guerilla press among others, they made the country ungovernable for the Abacha junta in spite of the latter’s ruthlessness.

In that way, Kòkòri was a towering figure in the pantheon of courageous characters, who led the famous June 12 struggle and responsible for the democracy we are enjoying today. If the June 12, 1993, presidential election and the following fracas can be regarded as the murky waters where Nigeria’s modern democracy was birthed, then Kokori can be considered one of the midwives responsible for the delivery.

Kokori made giant imprints as a principled, forthright, and courageous man, who had the courage of his conviction unlike what we have today.

Widely regarded as one of the most courageous union leaders since the era of Michael Imoudou, he applied his doggedness and uncompromising stand to fight the Abacha junta, holding Abacha, to ransom over the incarceration of Moshood Abiola in prison.

Kokori’s life seemed to mirror after Lech Wałęsa, former Polish President and union leader. They were both born one year apart from each other, suffered incarcerations for their beliefs only that Kòkòri never became president.

Kokori’s key demand as leader of NUPENG that Abiola be sworn in never happened, Abacha died, and democracy was returned to the country in 1999. For the past 20 years, Kokori, like others, who fought for the return to civil rule, had been struck by depression over what the politicians have turned the country they fought for into.

In one interview with the Nigeria Tribune three years ago, he said during that year’s October celebration of the country’s independence.

“We thank God for His mercy for giving us freedom to rule ourselves. But it’s now clear that Nigerian leaders, by extension most African leaders, are not prepared to bring their people out of poverty and to real political and economic freedom.

“We were expecting an Eldorado during the struggles for freedom, unfortunately, some of us were young students at that time. I was already in secondary when we got independence. I was very abreast with politics at that early age; we read newspapers; listened to radio, followed Azikiwe, Awolowo, Tafewa Balewa, Ahmadu Bello and the rest. We knew them off hand – our own generation. We were very conversant even at the age of 14, 12, we were already involved in knowing everything about politics in this country.

“So, people like us were very confident that Africa will catch up with the Western countries; not even the Asia countries. We didn’t take Asia countries seriously at that time. We didn’t take Indian degrees seriously. That time when somebody came to Nigeria with an Indian degree from an Indian university, they will tell you that it’s like “A” Level.

Even American degrees were not taken seriously. It’s only the UK degrees from Cambridge, from Oxford, from all the serious universities that we took seriously. Then, University of Ibadan, you can’t beat it, it was world class. The teaching hospital was world class. So, we thought by now we should have been flying. But unfortunately, we have African leaders, who have disgraced the continent.

“And today, people like us sit and weep, when we see black people crossing the Mediterranean sea and Sahara to go to Europe to escape poverty.”

Frank Kokori was born on December 7, 1944, in the Warri area of present-day Delta state. He began schooling in his birthplace and attended Urhobo College, Warri, from 1959 to 1962.

He then moved to Eko Boys High School in Lagos until 1964. Kokori grew up during an epochal period of significant landmarks in modern human history. He was born just a few months before the end of the Second World War when the influence of powerful colonial authorities had suffered exertion and the subjugated colonies began struggling for independence. The dying colonial rule and the rise of nationalism among Nigerians instilled political awareness in most children of the period. Kokori was one of the few who grabbed political enlightenment early.

His early exposure to political participation led him to unionism in the 1970s. He went on to get his first degree from the University of Ibadan.

He worked as a tariff clerk at the now-defunct Electricity Corporation of Nigeria and as a district sales representative at Lever Brothers Nigeria Ltd. He sharpened his drive for unionism with workplace reality at those jobs and emerged as a more seasoned leader.

Shortly thereafter, Kokori became the general secretary of the National Union of Nigeria Bank Employees. He held the position for three years before he became the national secretary of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG).

As the powerful general secretary of NUPENG, Kokori was a member of some of the bodies that prepared the blueprint for the experiments embodied in the political transition programme of the military government led by former head of state Ibrahim Babangida.

Kokori was a member of the 1987/1988 Constitution Review Committee and was also included in the 1988/1989 Constituent Assembly headed by Anthony Aniagolu, a former Supreme court Justice. The committee debated the 1989 constitution of Nigeria.

Kokori became a member of the SDP and was elected the party’s national financial secretary. He held the post simultaneously with his office as NUPENG General secretary.

However, three days after the 1993 election, result collation was stopped when the Association for Better Nigeria (ABN), a group headed by Arthur Nzeribe, obtained a court injunction to halt the counting and verification.

Then, eight days later, Babangida announced the annulment of the election.
The protest and riot that followed the pronouncement forced Babaginda to step down from office. Ernest Shonekan was appointed interim president, but he was ousted by Sanni Abacha shortly afterwards.

Leveraging his leadership position at NUPENG, Kokori orchestrated a nine-week strike nationwide by the union of petroleum workers. The industrial action ground the country to a halt.

“Everything in Nigeria moves with petrol and petroleum products, so once there was no petrol, Nigeria was shut down,” Kokori told Punch in 2021.
“That was our strategy, and we controlled the rigs. Though I was a leader in the Nigeria Labour Congress at the time, the NLC betrayed us. So I had to use my industrial union, NUPENG, which had trust in me, and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, the white-collar union.

“We had to mobilise because we controlled the whole system. The Nigerian refineries were working full-blown at that time. We were in control of the terminals that were exporting oil, the refineries, tanker drivers, and everything downstream, upstream, and midstream. So, we shut down the country.”

Kokori was arrested in August of the same year by the military government for masterminding the petroleum workers’ strike and was detained without charges. He was put in solitary confinement in Bama Prison, Maiduguri.

Shortly after Kokori’s arrest, the NUPENG strike ended. The former labour leader believed he was the “spirit of the June 12 struggle,” and his absence extinguished the resistance.

“I was a high-ranking member of the party and the labour movement, so I was the spirit of the June 12 struggle,” he said.

“That was why, immediately after they arrested me, the whole thing ended. I was abducted in the middle of the night, and that was how the struggle ended. Abiola was going to court, but immediately Kokori was arrested, Abacha felt so happy, and they took me to the far end of the country in Bama. So, they broke the resistance, and they were guarding me for 24 hours daily in solitary confinement.

“My union could only stand after I had left; there was no real leader. They resisted for about 10 days after I had been captured, but they could not go further anymore… The entire resistance was eight to 10 weeks. That is what you call a real resistance where we held the country to ransom. I was underground, so I was coordinating. But they got me through tricks and certain other things at midnight, and they stopped bringing Abiola to court, so there was no more resistance. Abacha had his way.”

Kokori was jailed for four years and was released in 1998 after Abacha died by Gen. Abdusalami Abubakar, who replaced Abacha.

Kokori was declared a prisoner of conscience by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and Amnesty International (AI).

Kokori was one of the heroes of Nigerian democracy during the long, bleak years of military dictatorship, and he was never coy about his impact.

“I’ve done my best for my country. When nobody raised their voice against the military, I came out with the unions to fight for the freedom and democracy of my country,” he said in 2019.

“I stood for this country, and I fought for democracy; and all my years in this country, there were temptations to take the biggest bribes. I stood my ground for democracy.”

In an interview with Punch, he also declared that “without me, there would have been no democracy” in Nigeria.

“I was one of those young men who grew up thinking I would be able to salvage my country; I would be a leader, president, and everything I could in my time,” he said.

“But I could not, though I did one thing that I am satisfied with: I fought for democracy in this country, and without me, there would have been no democracy. God gave me the oil unions, which I led for 16 years before the struggle, and we forced the military out of power. But a lot of us paid the price. The military was always changing the goalposts.”