Eniola Bello: Abacha’s Henchman Showed Me Picture of a Human Being Cut into Pieces

There have been many gory tales about the Sani Abacha regime, including assassinations, bombings and forced disappearances. 

Here is another chilling one.

In his two-volume book due for release on July 23, Eniola Bello, ace columnist and managing director of THISDAY, recalls his encounter with Frank Omenka, commander of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) security group under Abacha.

The encounter, he said, took place shortly after Abacha’s death in June 1998.

The two-volume publication, titled ‘Shadows: Protest Essays on Africa’s Most Consequential Country (1999–2023)’, is published by Cable Books — an imprint of Cable Media & Publishing Ltd, publishers of TheCable.

The author wrote in the prologue: “It was a gory sight, a heap of flesh and bone covered in blood, fresh and dripping until it formed an uneven puddle on the ground. Quite visible was a hand cut from the wrist, a foot severed from the ankle, several other body parts – legs, thighs, arms, torso, etc – all sliced into smaller parts, pieces of which were dumped one on top of another in a heap. It was a human being cut into pieces, the body parts piled up in such a gory manner, a picture of which was taken as either a memento, or evidence of a crime – a picture casually dropped on the dining table for our viewing pain.

“I could only take a hurried look at the picture before pushing it away, my stomach twisting and turning. I had wondered if the head of whoever was in that picture had been buried, wholly or in pieces, under the rubble of flesh and bones. But I couldn’t take another look at the picture; for the first time in my journalism career, my courage failed me.

“Our host Colonel Frank Omenka stood over us in his dangling frame, his thin eyes boring holes in our skulls, his luxurious moustache twitching, and in apparent satisfaction at our reaction, he had excitedly promised in a fluttering stammer, ‘One day, I’d tell you the story behind this photograph.’ That day never came…”

Omenka thereafter escaped to Brazil, said to be his wife’s native country, and has not returned to Nigeria since then.

He recently had a virtual interview with Nigerian journalists, organised by Experiential Leadership in Africa (TEL-Africa) in partnership with Premium Times, the investigative online newspaper.

This was the first sighting of Omenka by the media since 1998.

The retired colonel denied all allegations of torture, rape and other human rights abuses that were levied against him in absentia before the Oputa Panel in 2000.