Posted by By RAZAQ BAMIDELE on
An appeal has gone to President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua to use his good offices to grant unconditional pardon to the former Chief of General Staff, Oladipo Diya, former Communications Minister, Tajudeen Olanrewaju and the late Abdulkareem Adisa who also served as Works Minister and all others who were convicted in the 1997 celebrated ‘set up coup.'
An appeal has gone to President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua to use his good offices to grant unconditional pardon to the former Chief of General Staff, Oladipo Diya, former Communications Minister, Tajudeen Olanrewaju and the late Abdulkareem Adisa who also served as Works Minister and all others who were convicted in the 1997 celebrated ‘set up coup.'
Pastor Linus Emeka Obi who made the call in a statement said pardoning them and restoring their ranks, would be in line with the spirit of oneness and the remembrance of Armed Forces Day celebration.
'This gesture should also be extended to those who were equally found guilty and sentenced to death in the 1995 phantom coup in which former president, Olusegun Obasanjo was also involved," the cleric further stated while mentioning the late Dr Beko Ransome-Kuti and Colonel Olu Akiode, among those who deserved to benefit from this favour.
'If the present government could be magnanimous enough to give pension to former Biafran soldiers 38 years after the civil war, I believe these set of ‘coupists' too deserve to be granted pardon," he reasoned, just as he expressed hope that 'President Yar'Adua should do it and take the glory to erase the ugly events in the nation's history and heal old wounds for the nation to move forward in this new year."