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.
