SIR: What am I hearing? Sack Mahmood Yakubu, for Interim Government? Does anybody remember this?
One night after the June, 1993 General Election, some people under the aegis of a hurried contraption called Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) went to court, and that prepared the ground for the annulment of the election that would have produced Moshood Kasimawo Abiola as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, citing electoral irregularities. Pronto, the them military Head of State annulled the election and set up and interim government. Of course, the government never lasted. The peculiarity and difference of that election from the current one was that: it was organized under military rule; and, the election process was not allowed to be complete and a winner was never announced. We were however to know much later that the election was actually won by MKO Abiola. What followed was a national serious political unrest followed by the resignation of the military Head of State, the setting up of an interim government, and the reappearance of the military under Gen. Sani Abacha until 1999.
Fast-forward to 2023, exactly 30 years later. The Presidential Election was conducted on February 25,. While the collation was ongoing, agent of two of the frontlines parties stormed out the collation centre citing election irregularities and asking that collation be stopped and election cancelled for non-compliance with the extant electoral laws. The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, however continued the collation of the Presidential Election and announced the result, declaring Senator Ahmed Bola Tinubu, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) elected. Since then, election petitions have been filed by at least three parties, with two of the frontline parties asking the Presidential Election Tribunal to annul the election and ordering a rerun. But before the tribunal can hear the petition, demonstrations are rocking the federal capital with calls on the President Muhammadu Buhari to remove the chairman of INEC, cancel the election which had been concluded, and set up an interim Government.
If the election was brazenly and massively rigged as the opposition has been making us believe, and the agents are armed with copies of Form EC8A, proving it should be an easy task. One is then left to ask why they are eagerly pushing a short-cut of dismantling the INEC, annulment of the election, and interim government. Some are even asking for military take-over! Can anyone miss the similarities between what the opposition is clamouring for now and that of 1993?
Peaceful demonstration is accepted as part of democracy, but calling for an end to it by asking election to be cancelled and an illegitimate government set up is not part of it. It is more worrying that after attempting to discredit the INEC, some elements sympathetic to the complainant have attempted to discredit the Chief Justice of Nigeria, and by extension, the Supreme Court of Nigeria, knowing fully well that the petition is likely to end at the Supreme Court.
All peace-loving Nigerians should not fail to notice the similarity between the new call and the events of June, 1993. The opposition should be advised to concern itself with proving the allegations of rigging at the election before the tribunal, instead of seeking to plunge Nigeria into another crisis akin to June 12 confusion. Even if the tribunal appears not to have done justice, there is a recourse to appeal. Those who claim to be democrats must believe in the constitution and the rule of law. Recourse to intimidation, blackmail, and seeking to shame Nigeria before the international community cannot be patriotic. Nigeria has managed to stay the course of democracy sing 1999, no matter how imperfect. There is no better alternative.
•Prof P. O. Olatunji,
Dept of Haematology,
LASUCOM, Lagos.