Pa Yemi Ogunderu is the father of Richard Ogunderu, one of the teenagers who hijacked a Nigerian Airways plane in 1993 in protest against the annulment of the 1993 presidential widely believed to have been won by the late MKO Abiola. Ogunderu recounts the incident in this interview with TEMITOPE ADETUNJI
Tell us a bit about yourself.
My name is Yemi Ogunderu. I am a man living a quiet life. I am a lover of people; I love meeting people. (I am) a father and a grandfather.
Your son, Richard, along with three other youths, became a public sensation in 1993 after hijacking a plane in protest against the annulment of that year’s presidential election. How old was Richard at the time and was he a student then?
Richard was 19 years old at that time. He was born in August 1974. He is about 48 years now. As of then, he was nursing the ambition of becoming an aeronautic engineer.
Did he ever discuss the plan to hijack a plane with you?
In fact, up to this moment, it is still shocking to me; I had no idea whatsoever.
How did you hear about the incident and what was your immediate reaction?
It was the rudest shock of my life because Richard was never a violent child and I could not have expected such from a child like that. He is an easygoing person; he is a lover of good things.
That means you never knew he was capable of such a daring thing as hijacking a plane.
No. Like I said earlier, he is an easy-going being; he doesn’t fight, he loves to dress fine, he is intelligent and brilliant. But what I can also say about him is that he is strong-willed; he is a person of his mind. He is the kind of person that when he holds to a position, you can hardly make him shift except you come up with a superior argument.
What is Richard’s position among your children?
Richard is the second of my five children and he is the only male. We used to relate like brothers, the bond of the father and son was really strong; I love him so much. I never believed he could engage in anything that he could keep away from me. Except the hijack of a thing, he was always very open to me.
Did he discuss his future ambition or plan with you?
Yes, he discussed with me that he wanted to be an aeronautic engineer. I did my search at that time and I discovered that no tertiary institution in Nigeria offered that course; so I discussed with him on the alternatives, such as joining the Nigerian Air Force. I told him he could use that as leverage and push forward from there. I thought then that he could even be trained as a navigator at the Nigerian Air Force but he turned down the idea; he said he didn’t want to have anything to do with the military.
So, as of the time of the incident, we were actually thinking about or looking for how to get an admission for him in a foreign institution.
Did you know his three other friends prior to the incident?
I never really met any of them except that I had seen one of them, Kabiru Adenuga. I had met him like on one or two occasions before the incident, but there was no interaction at all.
Your son and the other boys were later arrested and jailed for nine years in Niger Republic. How soon after the incident did you set eyes on him?
I came to know about the hijack after I, myself, was arrested. I heard about the incident in the news but I didn’t know my son was involved. I was following the news and heard about the release of the passengers, including women, children and non-government officials by the hijackers. I was following everything until that very day when I heard on the radio that the hijackers had been identified and arrested. It was that very evening that I was picked up.
Who picked you up?
I was actually arrested by the Directorate of Military Intelligence, but I didn’t immediately know the identity of those who arrested me. I was picked up not very far from my residence at Surulere, off Adelabu Street (Lagos) and detained. I didn’t know where I was taken to until after 18 days. I spent a total of 70 days in detention. All I knew was that where I was being detained was near the ocean. I couldn’t see outside but I could feel the impact of the ocean waves behind the window of the room where I was locked up. It was about 18 days later that I discovered that I was being detained on the premises of Bonny Camp and that I was actually arrested by the Directorate of Military Intelligence. I spent about 67 or 68 days at Bonny Camp from where I was moved to Alagbon Close, where I spent another two or three days before I was eventually released.
My only offence was that I am Richard’s father, even though I didn’t do anything wrong. But their investigation later showed that I knew nothing about the incident and they themselves mentioned it that they were convinced that I knew nothing about it.
Were you allowed to communicate with your family after you were arrested?
When I was picked up, no one knew anything about my arrest immediately but they became aware later. You should imagine what the family would have suffered. While in detention, sometimes they would call out me to face a panel for interrogation.
At what point did they tell you the reason for your arrest?
I wasn’t immediately told why I was arrested until much later. I didn’t see my son until January 1994. I visited Niger Republic, and I was the only parent who visited. Other parents knew I was going to visit the guys, but they didn’t come with me. But before I visited the boys, one man, Comrade Shina Odugbemi, had visited them earlier
What kind of conversation did you have with your son during the visit?
Going to Benin Republic to see the boys…
