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By Shola Adebowale
When President Bola Tinubu signed the clemency documents to pardon some Nigerians in prison or who had been punished for some wrongdoings, four young Nigerians, Richard Ogunderu, Kabir Adenuga, Benneth Oluwadaisi and Kenny Rasaq-Lawal, who thought they were fighting for democracy but landed in trouble and jail, came to mind. These naive young chaps, on October 25, 1993, committed an act so stupid but part of our democratic struggle. They had hijacked Nigeria Airways Flight WT470, an Airbus A310-221 carrying 149 souls from Lagos to Abuja and, in doing so, they screamed into the void of military dictatorship: Democracy must not die.
These “MAD 4” were not hardened criminals or terrorists. They were members of the Movement for the Advancement of Democracy, a name that captured both their mission and the madness of the times. Their demands were clear, uncompromising and rooted in the collective anguish of a nation: recognize Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola as the rightful President of Nigeria, investigate the assassination of journalist Dele Giwa, return embezzled public funds, and restore the stolen mandate of June 12, 1993.
The June 12, 1993, election, widely acknowledged as the freest and fairest in the nation’s history, was annulled by General Ibrahim Babangida’s military regime. MKO Abiola’s victory was snatched away and, with it, the hopes of millions. In the chaos that followed, as protests erupted and blood stained the streets, four young men decided that words were no longer enough.
The hijacked aircraft was meant to reach Frankfurt, Germany, where the world’s attention might finally turn to Nigeria’s democratic crisis. However, fate and fuel had other plans. With tanks running dry, the plane made an emergency landing in Niamey, Niger Republic. What followed was a nine-hour standoff that gripped the nation.
Among the 149 passengers was Rong Yiren, the Vice President of China, a detail that elevated the incident to international significance. The hijackers, understanding the weight of their actions, released 129 passengers in a gesture that revealed their humanity. This was not about bloodshed; it was about being heard. They kept some crew members and government officials as leverage, their voices growing hoarse with demands that echoed the pain of an entire generation.
The Nigerian government, in collaboration with Nigerien authorities, engaged in tense negotiations. The world watched. The minutes crawled. Then came the tragic cost of desperation: during the rescue operation, crew member Ethel Igwe lost her life. Her death became another entry in the ledger of sacrifices made in Nigeria’s tortuous journey toward democracy. The four young men were arrested. Their bold gambit had failed.
The punishment was swift and severe. Richard Ogunderu, Kabir Adenuga, Benneth Oluwadaisi and Kenny Rasaq-Lawal were convicted in Niger and sentenced to prison. They would spend nine years and four months behind bars, over 3,400 days locked away in a foreign land, forgotten by the nation they had risked everything to save.
Nine years, four months. Let that sink in. While they languished in Nigerien prisons, Nigeria’s political landscape transformed. The military eventually relinquished power. Democracy, imperfect and fragile but alive, took root. The very cause they had hijacked a plane for began to materialize. Yet they remained in their cells, their sacrifice unacknowledged, their names unspoken in the halls of power.
Kabir Adenuga would later recall the brutal reality of prison life. To survive, he learned to make jewelry and cut hair for fellow inmates, bartering skills for basic necessities. These were not the lives of heroes; they were the lives of the forgotten. Benneth Oluwadaisi would speak of wanting to “fight for the stability of democracy in Nigeria,” a dream that cost him nearly a decade of freedom.
Release from prison did not mean freedom. It meant re-entering a society that had moved on without them, that barely remembered their names. Richard Ogunderu tried to continue the fight. After his release, he worked with PRONACO, a pan-Nigerian movement initiated by Chief Anthony Enahoro and Professor Wole Soyinka. But in April 2022, Ogunderu was attacked in Badagry, Lagos State, leaving him bedridden and in desperate need of medical attention. His family has appealed for financial assistance, approximately N4.5 million, to address complications from a poorly performed surgery that left one leg longer than the other. He suffers from depression, the weight of his sacrifice crushing him in ways prison bars never could.
Kabir Adenuga still speaks publicly about the hijacking, his voice carrying the weight of regret and pride in equal measure. He misses his fellow hijackers, bonded forever by an act that defined their youth and destroyed their futures. Of Benneth Oluwadaisi and Kenny Rasaq-Lawal little is known. They have faded into obscurity, their stories untold, their struggles invisible.
Here is where the story becomes not just tragic but unconscionable. In 2018, President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration officially acknowledged the injustice of the June 12 election annulment. He signed the June 12 Democracy Day Act, changing Nigeria’s Democracy Day celebration from May 29 to June 12. The move was hailed as historic, a recognition of the struggles and sacrifices made by Nigerians who fought for democracy. MKO Abiola was posthumously honoured. The date was enshrined.
But where were Richard, Kabir, Benneth, and Kenny in this recognition? General Babangida himself has expressed regret over the annulment. Political leaders across the spectrum have acknowledged June 12 as a pivotal moment in Nigeria’s history. Yet the four young men who literally hijacked a plane to demand recognition of that very mandate have been erased from national memory.
In 2025, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu granted 175 pardons and recognitions as part of efforts to acknowledge those who contributed to Nigeria’s democratic struggle. The list was long and expansive, reaching back through decades of activism and sacrifice. The names Richard Ogunderu, Kabir Adenuga, Benneth Oluwadaisi and Kenny Rasaq-Lawal were not on it.
This is not just an oversight. It is a moral failure. These four men gave nine years of their lives, their youth, their futures, their mental health, to a cause that the Nigerian government now celebrates annually. They acted when others only spoke. They risked death, imprisonment, and international condemnation to demand what Nigeria now officially acknowledges was right all along: that June 12, 1993, represented the will of the Nigerian people.
The Netflix film “Hijack ’93” has brought their story back into public consciousness, revealing to a new generation the audacity and desperation of that October day. The movie captures the raw emotion, the impossible stakes, the youth and passion of four men who believed that one dramatic act could awaken a nation’s conscience. But a film cannot substitute for justice. Recognition on screen cannot replace recognition by the state.
This is a passionate plea for remembrance and redress. Richard Ogunderu, bedridden and broke, deserves more than medical bills he cannot pay. Kabir Adenuga, speaking to anyone who will listen, deserves more than the fading memory of fellow inmates. Benneth Oluwadaisi and Kenny Rasaq-Lawal, wherever they are, deserve more than silence.
They deserve official recognition as fighters for democracy, their names added to the roll of June 12 heroes alongside MKO Abiola, Kudirat Abiola, and all who suffered for that cause. They deserve presidential pardons that acknowledge both their crime and their intent, their punishment and their purpose. They deserve financial compensation and support for the decade they lost and the hardships they now endure, particularly for Richard Ogunderu’s medical needs. They deserve a formal apology from the Nigerian state for forgetting their sacrifice while celebrating the very cause for which they sacrificed.
The irony is unbearable: Nigeria now holds June 12 sacred, but has abandoned the young men who were willing to die for it. Two governments, Buhari’s and Tinubu’s, have validated June 12, enshrined it, celebrated it. Yet they have literally forgotten the four who shouted its name from the cabin of a hijacked plane.
History is not just about what we remember; it is about who we remember. When Nigeria celebrates June 12, when schoolchildren learn about the struggle for democracy, when politicians invoke MKO Abiola’s name, we must ask: What about the four young men of Flight WT470?
Their methods were extreme. Their actions were illegal. But their cause was just, and Nigeria’s current democratic celebration proves it. To honour June 12 without honouring Richard, Kabir, Benneth and Kenny is to engage in selective memory. It is to celebrate the destination while forgetting those who pushed, pulled and yes, even hijacked us toward it.
This is not just about four men. It is about the integrity of Nigeria’s democratic narrative. It is about whether we mean what we say when we honor sacrifice. It is about whether justice delayed, by thirty years, can still become justice delivered.
Hijack ‘93, was a cry for democracy. The cry was heard, eventually. Democracy came, imperfectly but genuinely. Now let there be recognition. Let there be redress. Let there be remembrance. The four young men of Flight WT470 deserve to be written back into the story they helped create. They deserve to see, before the end of their days, that Nigeria remembers. That their sacrifice was not in vain. That we have not forgotten.
• Adebowale wrote in from Pirt Harcourt
