June 12 Historic election that shook Nigeria

As Nigerians begin a countdown to the 20th Anniversary of the June 12, 1993 elections, JOHN ALECHENU reports that little has been learnt from the catastrophic episode. As Nigerians begin a countdown to the 20th anniversary of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, JOHN ALECHENU reports that little, if any lesson has been learnt from

the catastrophic episode

Wednesday, June 12, 2013 will make it exactly 20 years since Nigerians participated in what has remained arguably the nation’s freest and fairest presidential election.

A decade earlier, precisely on December 31, 1983, the military had brought to an abrupt end what was Nigeria’s second attempt at democratic governance after gaining independence from British colonial masters in 1960.

The military seized power in a bloodless coup and installed Maj.-Gen. Mohammadu Buhari as head of state and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. His administration had no timetable for a return to civilian rule.

He was forced out by his then Chief of Army Staff, Maj.-Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, in a bloodless coup d’état on August 27, 1985. Babangida then began an endless money guzzling transition to civil rule programme.

After several false starts, the Babangida-led military junta buckled under local and international pressure to return the country to civilian rule.

The administration set up a National Electoral Commission and appointed Prof. Humphrey Nwosu as its chairman. It also decreed two political parties into existence.

The progressives found a home in the Social Democratic Party while the conservatives gravitated towards the National Republican Convention.

After fiercely contested primaries held in Jos, Plateau State by the SDP, a renowned multimillionaire businessman, Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, better known as MKO, emerged as the party’s presidential flag bearer.

His opponent was a little known Kano businessman, Alhaji Bashir Tofa, who flew the flag of the NRC.

Abiola took what was then considered a political risk; he picked Ambassador Babagana Kingibe, a northern minority politician and fellow Muslim, as his running mate.

Several events followed in quick succession. The country witnessed the most robust election campaigns and mobilisation of the electorate to participate in the process.

Nwosu and his team set June 12, 1993 as date for the presidential election, which was to bring to an end over a decade of unbroken military rule.

On Thursday, June 10, 1993, he led a team of NEC officials to brief the nation’s military rulers on the commission’s plans to hold the election on that date.

The leadership of the Armed Forces Ruling Council included Babangida, the president; Vice-President Augustus Aikhomu; and the Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Sani Abacha.

Nwosu announced the commission’s readiness to conduct the election, which was to crown the administration’s transition to civil rule programme.

What transpired during the meeting cast doubts over the assurances by the military to leave the political scene.

Various accounts revealed that senior members of the administration asked the NEC team if they were sure that the election would hold.

A section of the military apparently reluctant to leave the scene appeared to have hinged their doubts on a needless legal tussle between the commission and a group of military apologists bent on scuttling the election.

About 24 hours earlier, NEC’s Director of Legal Services was before an Abuja High Court presided over by Justice Bassey Ikpeme.

He was battling to convince the learned judge that her court lacked the jurisdiction to entertain a case brought before it by the Senator Arthur Nzeribe-led Association for Better Nigeria.

ABN had tried to mobilise Nigerians against the transition to civil rule programme. A lot of Nigerians believed that the ABN was doing the bidding of key figures in the IBB administration. The association was in court to seek the stoppage of the June 12 election.

Meanwhile, a Lagos High Court had declared that ABN was not properly registered.

This was the prevailing situation when the administration gave the go-ahead for the election to hold.

For the first time in the nation’s chequered history, Nigerians who had a reputation for clinging to their ethnic and religious identities in previous elections, set aside their ethno-religious differences to vote massively for the MKO/Kingibe ticket.

Abiola beat Tofa in his electoral ward to prove his level of acceptability across the nation. No sooner had NEC began a state-by-state announcement of election results, than Babangida announced the annulment of the election. In a speech on June 26, 1993, he cited electoral malpractices such as rigging and vote buying as reasons for his action.

The world was stunned, Nigerians were enraged. This set the stage for the forced exit of IBB, the self-styled evil genius. Street protests and organised civil disobedience became a daily routine. Babangida eventually “stepped aside” on August 26 and set up the Chief Ernest Shonekan-led Interim National Government with a mandate to run government and organise fresh elections. The protests continued; Abacha, who was left behind to ‘stabilise’ Shonekan’s administration, shoved it aside on November 17 and took over the reins of government. The struggle for the actualisation of the people’s mandate continued unabated. Scores of Nigerians were killed as the military cracked down on protesters, several went on exile, and more were jailed for daring to stand up to the military.

Activists, civil servants, students and the media literally shut the nation down with daily street protests and prolonged strikes by workers in critical sectors of the economy. The presumed winner of the election, Chief MKO Abiola, erroneously believing that Abacha would do the right thing by restoring his mandate, encouraged some of his lieutenants to participate in the Abacha administration. When it became obvious that Abacha was as unwilling to honour the people’s will, Abiola took his destiny in his hands and stepped forward to claim his mandate.

On June 11, 1994, Abiola declared a Government of National Unity at Epetedo in Lagos. In a speech titled ‘Enough is Enough’, he said, “As of now, from this moment, a new Government of National Unity is in power throughout the length and breath of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, led by me, Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola, as President and Commander-in-Chief. The National Assembly is hereby reconvened. All dismissed governors are reinstated. The State Assemblies are reconstituted, as are all local government councils. I urge them to adopt a bi-partisan approach to all the issues that come before them. At the national level, a bi-partisan approach will be our guiding principle. I call upon the usurper, General Sani Abacha, to announce his resignation forthwith, together with the rest of his illegal ruling council. “We are prepared to enter into negotiations with them to work out the mechanics for a smooth transfer of power. I pledge that if they hand over quietIy, they will be retired with all their entitlements, and their positions will be accorded all the respect due to them. For our objective is neither recrimination nor witch-hunting, but an enforcement of the will of the Nigerian people, as expressed in free elections conducted by the duly constituted authority of the time.

“I hereby invoke the mandate bestowed upon me by my victory in the said election, to call on all members of the Armed Forces and the Police, the Civil and Public Services throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria , to obey only the Government of National Unity that is headed by me, your only elected President. My Government of National Unity is the only legitimate, constituted authority in the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as of now.”

Abiola had famously declared, “I cannot surrender (my mandate) unless the people so demand and it is by virtue of this mandate that I say that the decision of the Federal Military Government to cancel the results (of the elections) is unpatriotic and capable of causing undue and unnecessary confusion in the country.”

The move led to his arrest and subsequent death in detention on June 24 at his residence on 5/7 Moshood Abiola Crescent, Ikeja, Lagos.

State-sponsored terror, which became the hallmark of Abacha’s iron fisted rule, led to the death of several prominent Nigerians.

Chief Alfred Rewane, Alhaja Kidirat Abiola, Gen. Shehu Yar’Adua, Bagauda Kalto, Suliat Adedeji and many others lost their lives while the Publisher of Guardian Newspaper, the late Chief Alex Ibru, and a leading member of the Afenifere socio-cultural organisation, Chief Abraham Adesanya, escaped assassination attempts by a whisker.

Abacha’s tyrannical rule came to an abrupt end on June 8, 1998 when he died in controversial circumstances in the Presidential Villa.

A month later, Chief Abiola also died in after drinking a cup of tea in the presence of American diplomats led by Thomas Pickering. When Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar took over and initiated a transition programme which ushered in the current political dispensation in 1999, very few Nigerians believed he was going to keep his word.

Retired military personnel and politicians from different backgrounds and ideological persuasions came together and formed the Peoples Democratic Party, Alliance for Democracy and All Peoples Party.

The PDP, which enjoyed a greater national spread and acceptance, decided that in the interest of reconciliation, the injustice done Chief Abiola needed to be addressed.

This led to the decision by an overwhelming number of northerners to, as Prof. Ango Abdullahi put it: “Bring Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo out of prison, pardon him, give him money to run a successful campaign to become President.”

So much has happened in the political arena since 1993. The outcomes of successive elections, apart from that of 1999, have been subjects of litigation. Several amendments to the Electoral Act have been unable to re-ignite the general feeling of being a Nigerian, which the June 12, 1993 election has come to symbolise.

Malam Shehu Sani, who spent time behind bars for activism during the era, said, “What we see today are pseudo democrats, who have hijacked the process and foisted on us a system which threatens what several went to prison, exile and even died for.”

Ethnic and religious bigots have taken the stage once again, deploying every arsenal at their disposal to force Nigerians back into ethnic and religious cleavages. Armies of unemployed youths have been recruited by politicians and armed to harm political opponents in a bid to have undue political mileage.

These youths have become the scourge of the nation as they metamorphosed into the nucleus of armed conflicts in the Niger Delta and the North-East. The nation has yet to recover from the menace of the Boko Haram insurgency, which experts say is a fallout of the abandonment of these armed youths by their erstwhile political benefactors.

As the 2015 general elections approach, Nigerians are again being treated to a fresh round of political tension as happenings within the polity show little sign that little, if any lesson, has been learnt from the experiences of the past.

Beyond the declaration of June 12 as public holiday as is being done in states in the South-West and the naming of monuments after the acclaimed winner of the election, pundits believe that our leaders need to take a cue from Chief MKO Abiola’s life of sacrifice.