of General Ibrahim Babangida. The election had apparently been won by Chief Moshood Abiola. On the day after the annulment, Chief Anyaoku issued a strident statement, saying that the annulment was a "severe setback to the cause of democracy, particularly at a time when all Commonwealth governments have pledged themselves to promote democratic rule in their countries"; he called it "a bitter disappointment" to all those who had been looking forward to the assumption of office of a democratically elected government in Nigeria. Anyaoku had a much tougher case when Babangida ‘stepped aside’ and General Sani Abacha after a few months of the contraption called Interim Government took over the administration of the country in a military coup d'état on 17 November 1993. Abacha instituted much more draconian measures. He arrested and jailed the presumed winner of the 12 June 1993 election, Abiola. And the country was thrown into a great turmoil with labour strikes and public demonstrations raging all over. Abacha exacerbated the crisis further by arresting, detaining and putting on trial Ken Saro-Wiwa and other Ogoni activists on a charge of complicity in the murder of four Ogoni Chiefs who had opposed their campaign methodology. Later in March 1995, the Abacha regime alleged that a coup attempt had been hatched against it. Many observers dismissed this as a phantom coup. The regime, however, embarked on the arrest and detention of many serving and former officers, including erstwhile military Head of State, General Olusegun Obasanjo, and his previous deputy, General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua. The alleged coup plotters were tried by a military tribunal and were sentenced variously, with Obasanjo being given life imprisonment, while Yar’Adua was sentenced to death. Anyaoku continued to campaign for a peaceful resolution of the crisis by sending messages to Abacha and making public statements, to no avail. The matter came to a boiling point when Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight of his fellow accused were also sentenced to death. Anyaoku made a passionate appeal to Abacha soliciting for clemency for the condemned activists. This appeal fell on Abacha's deaf ears and he eventually had Ken Saro-Wiwa and his colleagues executed on the eve of a meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government in Auckland, New Zealand in November 1995.. In reaction, Commonwealth leaders decided to suspend Nigeria from its membership of the association. In the meantime, Anyaoku had sought to engage Abacha in discussions aimed