Rice and The Tea: Did the CIA Kill MKO Abiola?

America’s interest in the death of MKO Abiola belongs firmly to the field of conspiracy theorising. It is impossible to think of any reason why the United States would want to take out someone who, after all, was widely alleged, of course with no proof except for being Nigeria’s biggest “capitalist”, to have been a CIA agent.

The death of Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale [MKO] Abiola on July 7, 1998, remains a mystery. And like most modern political mysteries, it has inspired numerous conspiracy theories ranging from assassination by the military junta to neutralization in service of “northern interests”.

But the most lasting of those conspiracies puts Abiola’s blood on the hands of a foreign body: the United States of America’s foremost espionage unit, the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA].

The circumstances surrounding his unofficial victory in the 1993 presidential elections and his refusal to accept General Ibrahim Babangida’s annulment of the elections led to a political crisis which attracted keen attention of foreign governments, including America. This was a time when African dictators feared and African citizens still believed in the self-assigned role of western governments to promote democracy, good governance and human rights in the so-called developing countries.

The rumour mill, per this conspiracy theory, has it that America was intent on ending the crisis by putting a completely permanent end Nigeria’s democratic impasse.

THE KILLING TEA

This particular theory has been brought into the limelight once more, following the release of Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For, the memoirs of Susan Rice, a former US National Security Advisor who served the late Abiola the now infamous cup of tea before he died. At the time, Rice was the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs under the Bill Clinton administration and was visiting Nigeria and late MKO Abiola as part of an American effort to assist Nigeria in negotiating a transition to democracy after General Abacha’s death. She infamously poured Abiola a cup of tea around the time he got into the coughing fit that later led to his death.

Susan Rice has been widely regarded as the person the CIA sent to poison Abiola. In July, former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode took to Twitter to describe her as “an operative and enforcer of the CIA and a dangerous spy her entire career”, following rumors she was going to be Vice President Joe Biden’s running mate. He then went on to castigate her for her perceived “role in the murder of MKO Abiola in 1998”.

SUSAN RICE’S TESTIMONY

Rice aimed to set the records straight with her autobiography. According to her, she met MKO Abiola on that fateful day purely on diplomatic grounds alongside other members of the US delegation including Bill Twaddell, US Ambassador to Nigeria and Thomas Pickering, Secretary of State for Political Affairs.

“About five minutes into the conversation, Abiola started to cough, at first mildly and intermittently, and then rackingly with consistency… Noticing a tea service on the table between us, I offered Abiola, “Would you like some tea to help calm your cough?” “Yes,” he said, with appreciation, and I poured him a cup. He sipped it, but continued coughing,” she wrote in the memoir.

She noted that the coughing intensified after this and a doctor had to be called to tend to him. The doctor then declared that Abiola was having a heart attack. An hour after reaching the hospital, the politician was pronounced dead.

The apparent question then becomes: is there any merit to the conspiracy theory? Did America have sufficient interests in Abiola’s death to warrant such a conclusion? And do the circumstances surrounding his death lend credence to the idea that Rice served MKO Abiola the fatal tea?

While there is no way to know for sure if his death was an American conspiracy or a heart attack caused by pre-existing medical conditions, one can take a look at known assassinations committed by the CIA for possible clues.

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A HISTORY OF CIA ASSASSINATIONS

The CIA’s notoriety for high-profile assassinations spans decades, and even though the agency often denies responsibility for most crimes it is accused of, it remains a named culprit of countless murders and coups all over the world.

In fact, this notoriety led to an expansive investigation by the US Senate in the 1970s, leading then-President Gerald Ford to issue a directive in 1976 stating, “No employee of the United States government shall engage in, or conspire in, political assassination.” Of course, this was mostly to save face and make it look as though the United States government had the CIA on a leash, but the killings did not stop.

The following are people whom the CIA killed or attempted to kill:

Patrice Lumumba of Congo – 1960

The CIA’s plot to kill the just-ousted Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Patrice Lumumba, is one for the books. On September 26, 1960, an American simply known as “Joe” arrived in Leopoldville [now Kinshasa]. Joe was not there to dance to Makossa. He came into the country carrying a kit that contained poison meant to infect a target with a deadly disease similar to the kinds common to the region. The poison was to be slipped in the food [or the toothpaste] of a very important man: Lumumba.

The CIA’s interest in Lumumba’s death was clear—he had a serious chance of returning to power, and if that were to happen, his pro-Soviet stance would harm America’s Cold War agenda. The directive, according to the agent, came from President Dwight D. Eisenhower himself. Though that plan was later abandoned at the last minute, the CIA got its wish when Lumumba died four months later at the hands of a local firing squad as a result of local squabble for power. And even though the CIA denied involvement in his eventual death, John Stockwell [former CIA agent] later admitted that the agency had been in touch with the killers the very night of the murder.

Salvador Allende of Chile – 1973

By the 1960s, the United States had expended resources trying to salvage its imperialistic hold over Chile. However, a certain leftist politician, Salvador Allende, was promoting rhetoric that sought to turn public opinion away from America. The Americans were bent on blocking his presidential aspirations

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When he ran for the presidency in 1964, the CIA funded the campaign against him with a whopping $3 million. He lost but eventually won in 1970. Before he took office, US President Richard Nixon authorized $10 million to fund his overthrow. Nixon ordered the CIA to find military officers in Chile who were willing to organise a coup. The CIA delivered cash, submarine guns and tear gas to the officers. After the coup’s failure, the CIA covered its tracks by denying connection to any of the officers.

However, it continued to track potential coup plotters who could be recruited. Allende was overthrown in 1973, leading to his eventual death. Even though the CIA, as it does, denies involvement, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger revealed in a private conversation that “we helped [the coup plotters to create] the conditions as greatly as possible”.

Fidel Castro of Cuba – 1959, 1960, 1963 and Others

America was not particularly fond of Castro and it made it known. According to the Cuban leader, certainly with some exaggeration, the CIA made a total of 634 assassination attempts on his life. And those attempts give a clear example of the lengths America would go to in the bid to eliminate its perceived enemies.

In 1960, the CIA poisoned a box of his favorite cigars with a botulinum toxin strong enough to kill anyone who as much as put one of the cigars in his mouth. No one knows what happened to the cigars and there was perhaps a mix up because they never got to Castro.

Desperate to eliminate Castro, the CIA moved to work with two gangsters on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, providing them with six lethal pills. It is suspected the person who was to present the pills to Castro got cold feet.

In 1959, the CIA recruited Castro’s lover, Marita Lorenz to assassinate him. She was given two pills to put in his drink. Each pill could kill in 30 seconds. However, Lorenz made an error in judgment by stashing the pills in a cold-cream jar that turned them unusable.

Another CIA plot against Castro came in 1963 when agents planned to use a hypodermic needle concealed within a pen. This pen was to be presented to Castro by a highly placed Cuban official whom he trusted. However, John F. Keneddy’s assassination put the plans on hold, as the CIA directed its attention elsewhere.

General Abd al-Karim Qasim of Iraq in 1963

At the height of the Cold War, the West became very interested in Iraq. It had been a bit relaxed as the country was ruled by a Hashemite monarchy installed by Britain at the end of World War I. However, this monarchy was overthrown in 1958 by General Abd al-Karim Qasim who had little regard for Britain and the US. The Western powers suspected he was aligned with the Iraqi Communist Party and became increasingly agitated. This reached a head when he withdrew from the Baghdad Pact, a clearly anti-Soviet alliance backed by America.

So, the CIA worked covertly with the rival Ba’ath Party to plot against him. With a young Saddam Hussein leading the operation, gunmen ambushed Qasim on a street in Baghdad in 1959. However, Hussein missed and Qasim narrowly escaped. The CIA strengthened its alliance with the Ba’ath Party and agreed to consolidate its support for the coup plotters as long as they committed to murder all the country’s communists and leftist allies. A second attempt to overthrow Qasim succeeded in February 1963. He was executed afterward.

THE ABIOLA FACTOR

What these instances say about the CIA is that while it puts much thought to its assassination plots, the strategies are often executed in ways that allow the agency “plausible deniability” i.e. conducted remotely enough to be able to credibly deny involvement.

Whether it is by sending locals to do their bidding or secretly backing coups, the CIA has a history of hiding behind the scenes. It hardly makes sense, then, that the smartest, most covert plan would be to get three senior members of the United States government to offer Chief MKO Abiola poisoned tea in the presence of witnesses. This is simply not the way the CIA kills. More so, in most CIA assassination plots, the American intent is clear- a determination to stop the expansion of Soviet influence.

America’s interest in the death of MKO Abiola belongs firmly to the field of conspiracy theorising. It is impossible to think of any reason why the United States would want to take out someone who, after all, was widely alleged, of course with no proof except for being Nigeria’s biggest “capitalist”, to have been a CIA agent.