The Nation Newspaper

Tag: 1993

  • That June 12 recognition may not be a hollow ritual

    Beyond the wildest imagination of Nigerians, sans the microscopic few that might have been privy to it, President Muhammadu Buhari, a general of the Nigerian army who, though retired,  still falls within that narcissistic military that  guillotined the historic June 12,  1993 election, as well as a redoubtable, and leading member of the June 12 – loathing Fulani race,  on 6 June, 2018, rose far higher than his 6 foot plus frame, and proclaimed an executive order, recognising both the  election, and  the winner, Chief  MKO Abiola, who was conferred with the highest honour in the land, GCFR, in a bold attempt to put a closure to a very pernicious phase of our country’s history.

    Much has been written about June 12, but hardly would the relevance, and coverage of any national event, before or after that of 6 June, 2018, ever reach that crescendo.

    But lest we get lost in the euphoria of the moment, it is time to let the president understand, and appreciate that, truth be told, rather than June 12 being the closure, it is, indeed, the very beginning of telling truth to ourselves; the starting point of very sincerely, and vigorously, confronting the demons that have been tearing into our whole being. The first of these should be the realisation that the Nigeria of today is nowhere near a federation, and that when we so petulantly describe it, we are repeating a similar lie like the one the extant Nigerian constitution tells against itself when it arrogates its birth to a chimeric: ‘we the people”.

    The question then arises, what is a federation? To answer this million naira question, I will, very respectfully, press my two- time teacher, Professor (Senator) Banji Akintoye, into service.

    Writing, mutatis mutandis, on the topic: What is restructuring, in his column in The Nation of 6 January, 2018, the world reputed historian, and statesman, who we shall quote at great length, opined:

    “The basic idea of a federation is that the various distinct parts of a country (especially a country comprising different ethnic nations) should be made a federating unit (or state). Each state should have the constitutional power to manage its unique problems and concerns, to develop its own resources for its people, to manage its own security, and to make its own kind of contributions to the well-being of the whole country. The central entity (or federal government) should manage common matters like the defence of the country, the relationship of the country with the rest of the world (or international relations), the country’s currency, the relations between the states of the country, and general principles like defence of human rights. That, in his words, was essentially, the federal arrangement which Nigeria’s founding fathers agreed upon in the 1950s.”

    Continuing, he wrote:

    “But, since independence, our leading politicians, and our military leaders have gradually destroyed this structure and replaced it with a structure in which the federal government is the controller of virtually all power and all resources as well as the power to develop all resources, and in which the states have no control over their resources and must depend on federal allocations of funds to exist at all”.” The federal government is (therefore) over-burdened, controls too much money, has become egregiously inefficient and corrupt and, essentially, is destroying Nigeria because the states have become impotent, cannot develop their resources, cannot fight poverty in their domains, and cannot make their contributions to the progress and prosperity of Nigeria. The cumulative effect of all these, he concluded,  is that Nigeria and Nigerians have become horribly poor, most public facilities (roads, electricity, water installations, public administration, etc.) have degraded, and are not working with the result  that most of our  youths are unemployed and hopeless. Inter – ethnic relations has degenerated into enmity and hostility. Crimes have made life very unsafe all over Nigeria. So bad have things become that some sections are asking to secede”.

    Obviously, the patriot who saw the inescapable necessity of revisiting, and righting, the historic wrong of the annulment  of June 12, that is, President Buhari,  just like the Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, said of the obvious contradiction in the same person honouring Abiola and praising Abacha, can certainly not be found endorsing, or encouraging,  the continuation of a status quo that eventuated all the negative consequences of Nigeria not being a proper, well defined federation of equal parts.

    Fortunately, President Buhari is not being called upon here to do the impossible, or re-invent the wheel.  His party, the APC, has effectively done that for him by its setting up of the El Rufai Committee on Power Devolution, a subject to which the party devoted a considerable part of its manifesto. As captured by The Guardian of 26 January, 2018, the committee:”The committee recommended that states should have considerable control on solid and oil resources in their domains, subject to the approval of the National Assembly. It called for policing to be moved to the concurrent list, enabling the creation of state police alongside a federal force with specified areas of jurisdiction. It also proposed more revenue for states and reduction of federal share of revenue.

    More importantly, it recommends that: “All minerals, including oil and gas that are onshore, will be vested in the states of the federation. “Minerals, oil, anything in the land, belongs to those that own the land, which is the state governments, adding this clincher: “We think the time has come to make this bold step and move away from over-centralisation of mineral resources.

    “There would be certain constitutional amendments. The Petroleum Act needs to be amended, so that states can issue oil-mining licences. The Nigeria Minerals and Mining Act needs to be amended, to give states the power to do this. The Land Use Act will also need to be amended, to recognise the provisions in the Minerals and Mining Act. The Petroleum Profit Act 2007 will need to be amended. And we have drafted all the bills to give effect to these.”

    Ensuring that power devolution is achieved before the presidential elections scheduled for February, 2019, is therefore, the irreducible, the absolute minimum, President Buhari , and the APC,  must see through for the historic accomplishments of 6 June, 2018 not only  to earn their place in history,  but to launch Nigeria on the path of peace, and rapid social and economic development.

    It is the silver bullet for 4 MORE YEARS of Mr INTEGRITY in office as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria till 2023.

    May the good Lord guide President Buhari aright.

     

     

  • June 12, 1993: Saints and villains

    The declaration and celebration of last Monday June 12 as democracy day by the governments and the people of South-west states to mark the June 12, 1993 annulment of MKO Abiola’s pan-Nigerian mandate by General Babangida and some self-serving politicians offered Nigerians another opportunity to reflect on the heroic exploits of June 12 saints and the baleful legacies of June 12 villains.

    For those below 24 years of age who are too young to understand what June 12, 1993 stands for,  the date according to Joe Igbokwe  “reminds us of the most peaceful, freest and fairest election ever held in Nigeria since independence and celebrated and extolled by local, national and international observers and with the man who won the election and his deputy both Muslims; it was the first time in the history of this country Nigerians jettisoned both ethnic and primordial sentiments to elect leaders of their choice; there was no record of violence, intimidation, snatching of ballot boxes, multiple voting, rigging etc. There was no protest from any part of the country until IBB and his cohorts started brandishing ethnic cards to stop the silent revolution”.(Joe Igbokwe, Sahara Reporters  June, 2013)

    MKO Abiola as custodian of a pan-Nigeria mandate so freely given by enthusiastic Nigerians chose to make the supreme sacrifice rather than succumb to military intimidation. He was egged on by other principled Nigerians such as Abraham Adesanya, Adekunle Ajasin, Dan Suleiman, Commodore Ndubusi Kanu, and Bola Tinubu, Alani Akinrinade; among many others using NADECO as their umbrella body. They along with civil society groups openly challenged the desperate Generals on the streets of Lagos and in the international community. They constituted the forces which according to Senator Shehu Sani, “forced the military out of power and (later) rallied Nigerians to eject the PDP out of power.”

    Lined up against Abiola and his sympathisers were Babangida, Jeremiah Useni, Sani Abacha, David Mark who according to report allegedly threatened to personally shoot MKO Abiola if sworn in as president and General Oladipo Diya who while riding on the leopard’s back as Abacha’s deputy, had described the opposition NADECO as “Agbako”. The desperate Generals also had the support of notable Nigerians such as Obasanjo who said ‘Abiola was not the messiah Nigerians were waiting for’ but went on to become the greatest beneficiary of the June 12 coup He was brought out of prison and imposed as president by the disgraced military to pacify restive Yoruba nation and other determined Nigerians that wanted the military off their back.

    Obasanjo, according to Chief Frank Kokori, former General Secretary of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers who was prominent on the streets with NADECO members and civil society groups over the struggle for June 12 which he claimed “removed the military completely from governance in Nigeria”, unilaterally fixed Democracy Day for May 29 in collaboration with his military clique and former dictators who are still behind the problems of Nigeria” in order to bury June 12 1993.

    We can add Chief Ernest Shonekan who Babangida imposed as head of an illegal contraption called Interim National Government to upstage his fellow Egba man in the same manner Dr. Moses Adekoyejo Majekodunmi, was  used as a stop gap by Tafawa Balewa during his illegal declaration of emergency in the West to allow  Awo settle down in prison before installing S. L. Akintola, his estranged deputy and  the Hausa-Fulani preferred choice for the premiership of western region without election to spite the protesting Yoruba.

    We also have in the list, Arthur Nzeribe and his ABN (Association for Better Nigeria) who after being barred by the courts from campaigning for extension of military rule went on to secure a midnight judgment from the late Justice Ikpeme to stop the election. The midnight judgment given in spite of a decree precluding the electoral empire from litigation was one of the reasons pathetic Babangida gave during a laborious television broadcast to justify the annulment.

    On the list also was Bashir Tofa, the candidate for the National Republican Convention (NRC) in the 1993 Presidential Election. Tofa who before his endorsement as candidate had been campaigning for  extension of military rule  was Babangida’s last joker to hold on to power. He refused to concede defeat despite having been roundly defeated all over the country including his Kano base. Speaking to reporters during the 21st anniversary of the historic election, he had said “the June 12, 1993 Presidential election was a fiction and its anniversary not worth celebrating”.  For him, “Only those who don’t have anything to offer to this country to move forward can still be talking about June 12 Presidential Elections”.

    We can add to the list, Tony Anenih, the erstwhile PDP ‘Mr. Fixer’ who was recently retired from politics by Adams Oshiomhole, the immediate past governor of Edo State. There was also Tom Ikimi, the chairman of Babangida’s other decreed political party who by refusing to concede defeat as NRC chairman landed the position of a foreign minister under Abacha.

    And finally we can add to the anti-Nigeria list the current members of the military created ‘new breed’ political elite who have not only failed to acknowledge the immense contribution of MKO Abiola and others who laboured for the enthronement of democracy but have in the words of Senator Shehu Sani, gone ahead to “share oil blocks to themselves, share positions to themselves, share national honour to themselves.”

    But our youths must not despair. Abiola has not died in vain despite the institutional conspiracy by military and the new political elite to deny him recognition.  One proof of this was last Monday’s recognition and celebration of his heroic contribution to the enthronement of democracy by his people. That he lives in the heart of his people is all that mattered.  For Shonekan, the impostor and Chief Obasanjo, a former military head of state, a two term Nigerian President and a respected African statesman who craves for recognition by outsiders, Edmund Burke has an advice – charity begins at home. One cannot be a good representative of outsiders if he is not first a good representative of his people. This perhaps explains why for a long time to come, both will live in the shadow of MKO Abiola among the Yoruba people.

    Already Babangida, who prides himself as the evil genius, can read the hand writing on the wall. Today, very few remember his birthday which at the height of his power attracted as many as 200 pages of newspaper congratulatory advertisements. Fewer remember August 27, 1985, the date of his palace coup against Buhari which his palace jesters had placed ahead of October 1, 1960, the date of our independence. And while he held sway as the Maradona of Nigerian politics, traditional rulers from all the over 450 Nigerian nationalities were falling over each other to give him and his wife traditional chieftaincy titles while vice chancellors of Nigerian  universities tried to out stage each other in conferring honorary degrees on him and his wife.

    Unlike MKO Abiola, his victim, who lives in the heart of his people and admired not by a few Nigerians for his supreme sacrifice in the battle for the enthronement  of democracy, Babangida is derided  for institutionalising corruption, abridging our political socialization process and destroying, in the words of Obasanjo, ‘all the values we hold dear’. If he is remembered at all, it is by private jet-owning multi-billionaires he created at the expense of Nigerians who in recent times have been trying to humour him as he ages in solitude inside his 45-room hill-top Minna mansion.

  • The road to June12, 1993

    June 12 1993 was the final nemesis of our military self-proclaiming messiahs and custodians our constitution. Although it lost its innocence when it first came in a trail of blood in 1966, murdering the most talented of its members on behalf of warring coalition partners –Zik’s NCNC and Ahmadu Bello’s NPC, it was June 12, 1993 that finally put an end to its fraudulent claim  that ‘it sacrificed its present for our future’.

    Massive looting of the nation’s resources started with the military. In 1975 when Murtala Mohammed sacked Gowon’s regime, only two of the 12 military administrators were found worthy of their uniform. By 1986, the military had become ‘an army of anything is possible’ with Generals ferrying money with boxes from CBN vault and military political office holders, leaders renovating government properties with government money before selling same to themselves at give away prices. It institutionalized corruption through its liberalization policy that allowed military officers and their fronts to buy off government interests in banks, hotels and other commercial enterprises at the centre and in the states.

    By 1993, the Nigerian military has been transformed in to a political party by military leaders in uniform. Lamenting the fate of the military, Obasanjo had observed that ‘prolong military rule was a declaration of war against the sovereign right of the people of Nigeria to chose their own leaders and conduct their own affairs’, adding that, under Babangida, “All the value we hold dear are under assault. The nation is racked by tension and despair. Hope has become a scarce commodity and fears a constant companion”.

    With the squandering away of the goodwill of the people, Nigerians on June 12, 1993 overwhelmingly voted for MKO Abiola, a southern Muslim and Babagana Kingibe a northern Muslim President and Vice President, to spite a military that had for 24 years exploited our religious, ethnic and other secret fears.

    Babangida’s ‘transition without end’ which  the Guardian newspapers described as ‘torturous’ and marked  by ‘false steps miss-steps, real, and contrived anxiety and doubt’, started  in 1986 with his inauguration of a19-member committee to search  for what he described as ‘a viable political future’. Fifteen months later, he decreed his two political parties – the National Republican Convention (NRC) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP). The decreed parties described as ‘all joiners without founder’ must have no affiliation with the past and thus denied the lessons of our long history of party formation which started with Herbert Macaulay in 1923. Babangida thereafter embarked on a reckless waste of public funds to build political party headquarters which were later taken over by serpents and rats. Against the better advice of those who knew political culture and political socialisation are not taught in schools, Babangida went on to establish his own ‘university’ of democracy to produce ‘new breed politicians’.

    His decreed two parties on February 6, 1992 presented a total of 215 presidential aspirants for primaries conducted in 6,927 wards through a newly introduced Option A4 voting method. But Babangida and his Armed Forces Ruling Council on November 18, 1992 cancelled the results, claiming, “Stability of the nation cannot be sacrificed on the altar of time”. The date for handing over earlier fixed for January 2, 1993 was again cancelled and a new date for presidential election fixed for June 12, 1993.

    Meanwhile, Arthur Nzeribe’s Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) despite having been restrained by the courts from canvassing for ‘four more years for Babangida’ went on to secure a 9 p.m interlocutory injunction from an Abuja High Court presided over by Justice Bassey Ikpeme to stop the exercise two days to the election. The chairman of the National Electoral Commission (NEC), Professor Humphrey Nwosu, however, appealed to Nigerians to ignore the ruling since there was a Decree 52 of 1993 that protects the election against such court injunctions.

    The election went on as scheduled on June 12. It was acclaimed by local and international observers as peaceful and credible. Celebrating the election, The Guardian in an editorial stated: ‘The presidential election was superbly conducted. Nigerians conducted themselves with unparalleled maturity. The verdict has been unanimously and universally accepted as the best election Nigeria ever had”. But Babangida and his miniosn saw only the pictures in their heads.

    To prepare the ground for what was to follow, Nduka Obaigbena, the Publisher of ThisDay newspapers was the first to appear on CNN, a day after the election, calling for the cancellation of its result. He alleged MKO Abiola breached the electoral law by wearing a dress with an emblem of his party to the polling booth. Okey Uzoho, the National Publicity Secretary of NRC immediately followed with a statement complaining of ‘intimidation of voters, falsification of results in most states and monetary inducement by the rival Social Democratic Party”. Tofa’s campaign Director of Organization, Dr. Walter Ofonagoro took off from where Usoho stopped. He issued a statement calling for “the disqualification of Chief Abiola, and Tofa declared duly elected or in the alternative, the June 12 election cancelled and a fresh poll conducted”, claiming the election was not free and fair.

    Babangida and his perfidious Generals that constituted the National Defence and Security Council (NDSC) usurping the function of Electoral Tribunal, annulled the election claiming in addition to fabrications by their cronies that MKO Abiola who won in all military barracks and formations was not acceptable to the military.

    Commenting on the military treachery against our nation, Pat Utomi had observed “What is most tragic about all this is that General Babangida was handed a great place in history by the June 12 election, even if undeservedly so. He could have gone in blazing glory…What sense of history we have.”

    A totally discredited Babangida and his army of anything is possible’ handed over power to an interim contraption headed by a usurper called Ernest Shonekan, an Egba man like the President-elect who was himself deposed 83 days later by General Abacha, Babangida’s comrade-in-arms and crime. Following MKO Abiola’s self-declaration as President-elect in 1994, he was clamped into prison by Abacha who was believed to be behind state sponsored assassinations of prominent Nigerians that called for justice in the face of military tyranny including Kudirat Abiola, the President-elect’s wife.

    Abacha who usurped the commonweal of Nigerians died mysteriously inside his treasured Presidential Palace allegedly in the hands of Indian prostitutes according to his political detractors; and Abiola who spent the four years of his presidency in detention died a prisoner, a month later, a victim of military conspiracy according to his supporters who claimed Abdulsalami Abubakar had no excuse to have kept him in prison after Abacha’s death.

    An exhausted military looking for a face-saving exit from politics opted for one of their own, the jailed General Obasanjo, as its 1999 preferred candidate despite his rejection by his Yoruba compatriots. Probably as part of the military conspiracy, neither Obasanjo, nor his imposition-Jonathan one of the military ‘new breed’ creations in all their 14 years in the Presidential Villa acknowledged MKO Abiola’s supreme sacrifice in caging the military to allow democracy flourish.

    This piece is for the 23-25 post-graduate students we are currently grooming in our universities to manage without a sense of history, our tomorrow which is but a summation of yesterday and today. June 12 1993, has become part of our unresolved national question whose ghost will haunt us beyond its 23rd anniversary as long as we play the ostrich.

  • Like June 12, 1993, like February 14, 2015

    Like June 12, 1993, like February 14, 2015

    Comparisons, it has been said, are odious.

    No two situations are ever exactly alike.  Even where that improbable symmetry obtains, symmetrical outcomes are far from guaranteed.

    Still, the parallels between the build-up to June 12, 1993 presidential election and the build-up to presidential election scheduled for February 14 are troubling.

    In the weeks leading up to June 12, 1993, orchestrated demands for the scrubbing of the projected poll filled the air, promoted for the most part by proxies of Military President Ibrahim Babangida.

    The country was not ready, they said; the political class had learned no lessons. Babangida was the only person who could keep the system going, and if he was allowed to vacate power, it would end in violent dissolution.   He must be persuaded to hold on to power.

    Days to the election, Arthur Nzeribe – he who has never embraced a cause without bringing it into disrepute – secured a court ruling in the dead of night restraining Humphrey Nwosu’s National Electoral Commission from conducting the poll.

    Demonstrations were staged in many cities to demand the continuation of military rule.  Nor was the military spared. Ballots were circulated in the barracks, urging enlisted men and women to demand that Babangida continue in office. Advertisements to the same effect, placed by unidentified sponsors, filled the newspapers.

    The culmination of the transition to democratic rule, eight years in the making, became in the hands of the regime and its propagandists, aided by the coercive power of the state, a subject of fear and loathing

    Now, fast forward to the presidential election scheduled for February 14, 2015.

    An aggrieved lawyer, doing a variation on the Nzeribe gambit, has gone to court to seek to disqualify the main challenger, General Muhammadu Buhari, on the grounds that he lacks the basic educational qualification specified in the Constitution.

    The challenger has since shown beyond all reasonable doubt that he meets and even exceeds the required West African School Certificate. Disdaining the rules of evidence and lacking the confidence to pivot on the incumbent’s vaunted record of “transformation,” his opponents have now framed that academic requirement as the central issue in the contest.

    Their chief spokesperson Femi Fani-Kayode, who is fast gaining Nzeribe’s reputation for bringing into disrepute every cause he has ever embraced, thinks he has found a chink in Buhari’s amour and he is tearing away furiously.

    A suborned national army now sits as the final authority on academic certification in general and the West African School Certificate in particular.

    Rented crowds are poised to stage protests all over the country calling for a postponement of the presidential election, or for the setting up of an “interim government, to be headed no doubt by the incumbent, because the Independent National Electoral Commission is not ready, or because it would be imprudent to deflect the country from its present glorious course of prosperity and transformation.

    The similarities between June 12, 1993 and February 13, 2015, it is necessary to insist, are sobering, troubling even.

    But there has also been some innovation.

    The leading opposition party says it will form a parallel government if it is persuaded that it was cheated out of victory. Armed militants beholden to the incumbent and warn darkly that it would be the end of Nigeria as we know it if their candidate is not re-elected.

    Unlike 1993, what is shaping up now as Election Day draws closer and closer is the prospect of a grand collision of an immovable object and an irresistible force.

     

    New girl on the block

    In the vast literature on “June 12”, the epic struggle of Nigerians to reclaim their sovereign right to determine who will govern them, it was perhaps inevitable that some individuals and groups who played pivotal roles have passed largely unacknowledged.

    Some of those key figures may well have chosen to remain unsung out of a sound instinct for self preservation.  Others may take the view that the chronicle is necessarily a work in progress, and that they will be accorded their proper due in the fullness of time. Yet others may have chosen out of modesty to keep in the background; they had done what duty and circumstance required, which was what really counted.

    To this latter group belongs Dr Hamidat Doyinsola Abiola, who turned 70 last Sunday.

    In the Abiola household, Kudirat, of revered memory, was the NADECO face of the struggle. Doyin Abiola, operating on a different but complementary plane, was the strategic thinker and discreet mobiliser.

    She saw beyond the crowds and the bombast of the earlier phase and realised, as few did, that the struggle was going to be long and bitter, and that it could not be won on the streets.

    Appeasement was of course out of the question, and surrender was unthinkable. A way had to be found to keep the struggle alive, not merely on the streets, but in the hearts and minds of influential actors spanning the political spectrum in Nigeria, well as in the international community. That was the task Doyin Abiola set herself.

    To its pursuit she deployed many formidable assets: a sharp, analytic mind emblematized by a doctorate in communication research – the first Nigerian woman to acquire that distinction; three decades in journalism from the rank of reporter to managing director, a voracious appetite for reading, versatility in using new communication technology, courage, tenacity, and a considerable portion of her endowment from her husband’s fortune.

    She also applied to it a quality so sadly lacking in public life in Nigeria: judgment, a capacity for comparing and deciding, which was enhanced by her instinctive sense of right and wrong, of what is possible, merely probable, or outright impossible.

    And so, while Kudirat kept alive the support and loyalty of the “June 12” faithful, on the home front, Doyin Abiola reached out discreetly to those who had abandoned the camp, those who were sitting on the fence, and those who were viscerally opposed to the project.  I can bear witness because I accompanied her on some of the missions.

    To reach the attentive and influential audience abroad, Doyin Abiola hit upon the idea  of a monthly newsletter that would provide analysis and perspective on the struggle for democracy in Nigeria, and a status report on the central figure in that struggle, her husband Bashorun Abiola.

    It had to be scrupulously factual, from cover to cover.  It had to reflect accurately and in proportion the acts and utterances of the major factions, their motivations as well as their fears. It must contain no hint of self-pity or bitterness. It must foist no judgments or conclusions on the recipients.

    I was privileged to assist her in preparing the newsletter until I left Nigeria late in 1996. Its recipients included key leaders of the Commonwealth, the Organisation of African Unity, the United Nations, the European Community, senior officials of the Clinton White House, and leaders of influential NGOs.

    If the effort did not produce dramatic results, the feedback indicated that it certainly provided a sober and credible counterpoint to Sani Abacha’s lying propaganda. And it helped generate empathy for the struggle, and for Bashorun Abiola.

    Nothing, not even serious illness, could move Doyin Abiola to seek rest and respite abroad. She learned to live with danger and continued quietly and tirelessly to mobilise support for “June 12”.

    In the fullness of time, Dr Hamidat Doyin Abiola will get her proper due as a pivotal figure in the struggle for democracy in Nigeria. For now, I am sure she will be content to be celebrated as the new girl on the block.

    Welcome to the Club, and to the neighbourhood, HDA.