Abba MahmoodAbuja
Today, it is exactly 15 old age since Nigerians trooped in their billions to vote for a president in the aborted 3rd republic. A batch of the cardinal personalities involved have got started gap up. Chances are that by the clip you read this article, Professor Humphrey Nwosu's book on his business relationship of that election, as President of the then National Electoral Commission, is either beingness launched or have been launched. Unfortunately, Head MKO Abiola, perhaps the cardinal histrion in that drama, is not here to state his ain side of the story. Suffice it to say, it was a powerfulness game, full of intrigues, conspiracies, manipulations, misrepresentation and a batch of treachery by otherwise fold friends and kinsmen. The narrative necessitates re-telling again.
A twenty-four hours after the Id-El-Kabir Sallah celebration, while people were busy feeding random-access memory meat, precisely on Tuesday, August 27, 1985, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) led a successful military coup d'etat that ousted Gen. Buhari and Gen Tunde Idiagbon, the Head of State and his 2nd in bid respectively, who ruled after overthrowing President Shehu Shagari earlier in 1983. In his maiden computer address that evening, as Nigeria's first Military President, Babangida promised to fundamentally reconstitute the nation's civil order and economy. For our intent here, we shall avoid the economical facet of his administration, of import as it is, for now.
Gen. Babangida's political programme started with the scene up of a Political Agency which took a critical expression at our political fortune and made far reaching recommendations. Thereafter, a Zero- political party election was held at the Local Government level. Then he registered the two political party structures, which were funded by the government. The National Republican Convention (NRC) and the Sociable Democratic Party (SDP) contested elections from the Local to State and even Federal Soldier levels.
It was the Presidential election that subsequently became contentious. The first set of Presidential aspirants, 23 of them, were disqualified. A new electoral system, known as Option A4, was adopted based on the recommendation of Prof. Nwosu. The method saw the outgrowth of Head Abiola as SDP Presidential campaigner and Alhaji Bashir Tofa as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission candidate. Both campaigners happened to be Muslims. In fact, the SDP ticket even had a Moslem running play mate, Ambassador Kingibe, the current Secretary to the Government of the Federation, while the Nuclear Regulatory Commission campaigner had the former Governor of the Biafran Central Depository Financial Institution and a Curate under President Shagari, Dr. Sylvester Ugoh, as running mate.
Voting started peacefully on June 12, 1993, and the two campaigners all expressed their satisfaction. There were a batch of judicial proceedings before the existent vote twenty-four hours which did not halt the election. That election was adjudged the freest and fairest in the history of Nigeria. Thus, the much maligned and much castigated IBB, organised the freest election, but is not being credited with the feat.
On June 12, 1993, ordinary Nigerian electors showed the whole human race that they were more than sophisticated than the elite. The Abiola ticket was a Muslim/Muslim ticket. Yet, they were voted for without any misgiving in most predominant Christian areas. In Kano, the most thickly settled and one of the most politically witting states in Nigeria, the people rejected their son, Bashir Tofa, and voted for Abiola, a Yoruba from Ogun State. Thus, June 12 smashed a batch of myths, but created a batch of legends. It was revolutionary, but for the latter betrayal.
As soon as Abiola's military friends annulled the election, his kinsmen turned unit of ammunition to trivialise and tribalise an otherwise national issue. They said it was Northerners who did not desire a Southerner to rule. If it was true, why did the people of Kano and other parts of the North ballot for Abiola instead of Tofa? They said it was Babangida who did not desire a Yoruba to govern Nigeria. Then why did IBB subsequently put in Shonekan, a non-elected, non-military and non-politician Yoruba as Head of State when he was leaving on August 27, 1993? Indeed, was it not the same IBB that was largely instrumental to the outgrowth of Obasanjo, another Yoruba, as President in 1999?
The true narrative is gradually coming out. The figure of traditional rulers, politicians and sentiment leaders, from Abiola's ain contiguous constituency, who begged the military not to manus over powerfulness to him, are gradually being made public. The fortune and statuses that led to the revocation are also becoming public. The machinations and the betrayals, as well as those who betrayed him, are gradually taking form in the public domain. And British Shilling Marley's song, in 'Who the Cap Fit,' "Your worst enemy could be your best friend, and your best friend, your worst enemy" is also becoming prophetic in the lawsuit of June 12.
The events that led to the outgrowth of Abacha as military ruler and the subsequent "exile" of some "democrats" and the formation of the National Democratic Alliance (NADECO) to struggle the much demonised Abacha cabal is also in the public sphere now. That alliance was anything but national and it was composed of some of the top donees of military regulation in Nigeria. And it was also mostly composed of people who were anything but democratic. They deceived Abiola into rejecting bail bond to come up out of detention. They were enjoying backing from major western working capitals feeding fat from his suffering. Unfortunately, Abiola did not last to state the story.
Relevant Links
They accused Abacha of targeting Southerners, especially Yoruba, for cruel treatment under his government. They conveniently forgot that autocratic regulation is spiritual and ethnical blind. After all, Obasanjo survived and even subsequently became elected President. Gen. Shehu Yar'Adua did not. The peak ranking traditional ruler in the North, and indeed the nation, Sultan Ibrahim Dasuki, was deposed and detained by that government. Former governor of old Kano State, Alhaji Abubakar Rimi, and the current governor of Jigawa, Alh. Sule Lamido, for instance, were all in hold as at the clip Abacha died.
Have the North not shown enough accommodating spirit by consistently voting for others, even against their own? Rich Person Northerners not suffered, even more, under the military? Have the integrity and coherence of the North not suffered most owed to military rule? Would person of Emir Jokolo's standing in society divulge what he said in the last Lord'S Day Sun Newspaper interview if not because of military conspiracy?
Let it be made clear that we have got all suffered under a certain social class of awful powerfulness mongers. Let us all hold that there is the pressing demand to emancipate the people from the bonds of organised maladministration, dishonesty of purpose, condemnable lip service and unscrupulous segregation. Let us also do it abundantly and categorically clear that the additions of June 12, 1993, was betrayed by those Abiola held dear and that the treachery caused us so much as a nation. And above all, allow us do it unequivocally clear that, just as happened on June 12, we must avoid aboriginal sentiments in our mental attitude to national issues if we are to travel forward. May Supreme Being forgive late Gen. Yar'Adua, Gen. Abacha and Head Abiola, the existent casualties of June 12 and grant them residence in the Garden of Eden. Amin.
No comments:
Post a Comment