By the time Justice Bassey Ikpeme delivered her first pronouncement on the petition of the Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) on June 7, 1993, it was clear that the presidential election scheduled for the following Saturday, June 12, was headed for a debacle
ABN, the shadowy but well-funded and highly-connected organisation that has in recent times emerged as a major vehicle for consummating military president Ibrahim Babangida’s hidden agenda, had gone to court to seek an injunction restraining the National Electoral Commission (NEC) from conducting the presidential election.
Why?
Because, as claimed by the wily and mercurial Arthur Nzeribe who never championed a cause without bringing it into disrepute, 25 million Nigerians do not want the election to hold. They want General Babangida to continue as president for four more years. The petition, Nzeribe claims, is backed by the signatures of those 25 million Nigerians.
Justice Ikpeme, about whom little was known until that day, was impressed enough to order NEC Chairman Professor Humphrey Nwosu, Federal Attorney-General Clement Akpamgbo and President Babangida to appear before her the following Wednesday to show cause “why the election should not be stopped.” She reserves ruling till Thursday, June 10.
That ruling, delivered in the dead of night, follows closely her pronouncement at the first hearing, her language is just as exorbitant, and her conduct just as heedless. The election must not hold, she rules, but NEC is free to ignore her order.
For the next 16 hours or so, there is no clear indication that the election will hold. It is well past lunchtime on Friday, June 11, when NEC finally announces that the election will go on as scheduled, Justice Ikpeme and the ABN notwithstanding.
The Federal Government’s affirmation that the election will hold comes indirectly, in response to a statement by the United States Information Service, in Lagos, to the effect that any postponement of the election would be “unacceptable to the U. S. Government.’’
The elections hold on Saturday, June 12, as scheduled. Minor hitches are reported here and there, the type that can be expected even in the best-ordered poll. For the most part, NEC and everyone connected with the election gets high praise for a job superbly executed.
By late Sunday, intimations of a grand sweep by the Muslim-Muslim ticket of Chief MKO Abiola and Babagana Kingibe, of the Social Democratic Party, are all over the place. By lunchtime on Monday, June 14, victory songs are in the air in the SDP. The NEC has authenticated the returns from 14 states, and returns from the remaining 16 states are being “collated.” It names a chief electoral officer, an indication that it is set to declare a winner. The National Republican Party (NRC) is putting the finishing touches to a statement conceding defeat and pledging to work with the SDP in the country’s best interest.
By the next day, Tuesday, the NRC is singing a different tune, following a telephone call to its candidate, Bashir Tofa, from Aso Rock. The NRC, per Nduka Obaigbena, publisher of the defunct newsmagazine ThisWeek, who had made an unsuccessful run for the Senate from Delta State, the NRC charges that SDP candidate Chief Abiola had gone to vote on election day attired in a dress on which was embroidered a stallion, the party’s symbol, in breach of the electoral rules,.
The penalty for such a breach, they hint darkly, is a huge fine or a two-year jail term, or both fine and imprisonment. They assert that the breach raises questions of “morality;” that the entire poll stood fatally tainted, and should therefore be voided.
Meanwhile, NEC has stopped announcing results, while apparently continuing the “collating.” But the results from all except two of the 30 states are everywhere at home and abroad. For just N200, you could at Oshodi Bus Stop, in Lagos, purchase a set of documents detailing how Nigerians had voted ward by ward and precinct by precinct. They show unequivocally that Abiola has won a decisive sweep.
Unencumbered by NEC’s order forbidding publication of “raw scores,” foreign correspondents covering the election had filed the results with their media back home. Even the national press has all but called the election. So, why all the fuss, especially when the results that had been authenticated tallied in virtually in every aspect with the figures earlier circulated in Nigeria and abroad?
A clearer but more troubling picture emerges as the day progresses. Another high court in Abuja Federal Capital Territory, Justice Dahiru Saleh presiding, grants a petition by the ABN to stop further announcement of election returns. Attorney-General Akpamgbo orders NEC, first, to comply with this order, and second, to show cause why it should not be punished for discountenancing the order of Justice Ikpeme, aforementioned.
The following day, Wednesday, June 16, the New Nigerian, wholly owned by the Federal Government, and the Daily Times, in which it holds controlling interest, come out with editorials expressing diametrically opposed views. The Daily Times hails the election results a “people’s triumph.” The New Nigerian denounces the entire poll and calls for its cancellation, even while proclaiming that it had been won by a “third party,” presumably the ABN.
How so?
Because, says the New Nigerian, the 25 million ABN members who did not vote outnumbered 2:1 the 13 million Nigerians who had voted.
That day, NEC chairman Nwosu fails to address a scheduled press conference. Also missing action is NEC’s director of publicity, the voluble Tonnie Iredia. An assistant director, about whom little has been heard previously reads out a convoluted statement saying NEC would seek legal clarification of Justice Saleh’s clarification. It is being bruited that Nwosu has offered his resignation, to no avail.
It comes to light the following day that Yakubu Abdul-Azeez, editor of the New Nigerian, has resigned over the editorial attributed to the paper and by implication to him. He is quoted as saying that he is quitting because he cannot continue to affix his imprint on a newspaper being used to pursue policies that can “lead to Nigeria’s disintegration.”
Throughout all this, there has been no word from the Presidency, save a statement by Chief Press Secretary Onabule, to the effect that the Federal Government had in no way interfered with the election and that NEC had not complained of any difficulties.
Everything stands still until Monday, June 21, when NEC rises from the stupor into which it had been lulled by the events of the previous week and files a petition before the Kaduna High Court against the ruling of Justice Ikpeme, a certified copy of which it has not been provided, and against the ruling of Justice Saleh. None of NEC’s officials is in circulation. Professor Nwosu is reported to be ill, with an undisclosed ailment. The appeal is scheduled to be heard two days later, on Wednesday.
Just as NEC is filing its appeal, Justice Saleh who had barred NEC from announcing further results, swings back into action in Abuja and declares the presidential election of June 12 null and void and of no effect whatsoever, on the ground that it had been conducted in violation of a restraining order.
The order under reference is Justice Ikpeme’s. She had issued it fully acknowledging that NEC was not obliged to heed it, since the court had no jurisdiction in the matter. Justice Saleh now says that since NEC had disregarded that order, the election is null and void.
Two days later, on June 23, the Federal Government strikes a blow that leaves everyone practically breathless. It cancels the presidential election, suspends NEC, and repeals the law governing the final phase of the political transition programme that had been eight years in the making. By that singular move, it also terminates all court cases relating to the presidential election.
The statement announcing these measures is not signed and not dated. Typed on plain paper, it was issued on behalf of the government by Nduka Irabor, press secretary to the Vice President, Admiral Augustus Aikhomu. The statement says the government has taken these sweeping measures to ensure that a judiciary that has been built on a sound and solid foundation is not “tarnished by the insatiable political desire of a few persons.”
This stunning announcement comes a few hours before the National Defence and Security Council is scheduled to meet and deliberate on the crisis. Can it be that the Council had met earlier than scheduled, or is the announcement designed to present the Council with a fait accompli?
The Council disperses only after a brief meeting, ostensibly for what Information Secretary Uche Chukwumerije calls “wider consultations.” It is to convene the next day.
When it finally convenes, it members are reported to have taken far-reaching decisions on a new agenda that could include the appointment of a prime minister to serve along an unelected military president, formation of more political parties, and the un-banning of all those who had been kept in political purgatory during the transition. Field commanders, principal staff officers in military formations, and the police hierarchy, are to be briefed the next day, Friday, followed by a national broadcast by Babangida.
Friday ends without the promised broadcast, which is now rescheduled for Saturday, June 26. But it does not take place at mid-day as the public has been led to believe, nor an hour after mid-day as announced in a revised schedule. It does not take place at 7 p.m. as rescheduled again.
It takes place, finally, two hours later, at 9 p.m. Even more than the benumbing events of the previous 12 days, the content is beyond belief. It provides proof, were any still required, that the “hidden agenda” was not the invention of cynical commentators.
The broadcast, a tissue of self-serving lies and fabrications and evasions and rationalizations, eviscerates the promise emblematized by June 12, that one nation might emerge at long last, from the plethora of nations inhabiting the Nigerian space, and it locks the country even more securely into a debacle.
Its place is assured in Nigeria’s calendar of infamy. So also is the political and judicial debauchery of which it was the culmination.
