allAfrica.com: Nigeria: The Return of June 12 (Page 1 of 2)

JUNE 12 returned to the front burner when Prof Humphrey Nwosu thought he was finally going to lay the ghost of the presidential election held on that day to rest.

By speaking after a deafening silence for a whopping 15 years, he dug Moshood Abiola's body right out of its grave and gave it life to spread its wings and fly. Yes fly, not only within and around that part of the country called the South-West geopolitical zone where the memory of an electoral robbery had been kept alive, but across the one massive constituency, the whole country, that was his ward in the presidential election of June 12, 1993.

What Nwosu said attests to the widened horizon of Moshood's territorial entitlements, even if he cannot have an estate that can claim it in law. So, by Nwosu's clarification, it is heartwarming to know that the set of figures that people have been marketing for15 years to show that the elections were inconclusive were packaged to create the darkness that Nwosu's public declaration has cleared.

So, Abiola won the elections, securing the highest number of votes cast and meeting the commitment of spread in 28 of the then 30 states of the federation. Abiola thereby became president of Nigeria-in-waiting. He had a choice to resign or be impeached if he had assumed office; or die before he took office.

These are ways a president can fail to be in office. But what happened was that he was prevented from taking office. He struggled to fulfill the mandate by getting sworn in at the wrong venue by the wrong set of people.

Why, to prove a point and force the issue. But those who annulled the election did not see the point he was trying to make, nor was the issue being forced allowed to succeed. He was arrested and locked up with charges of treason hanging over his head. If he had been tried, there were laws to do him in.

The series of decrees that were passed to cripple the laws that had been made to legalise the elections were living laws in our books. A decree cancelled the elections and even stopped any courts from looking into any matter to do with the elections that had been cancelled.

rrangements made for an interim government were clear that the elections we all later described as the freest and fairest in the history of Nigeria were neither free nor fair in the eyes of the Interim Government (Basic Constitutional Provisions) Decree 61 of 1993.

The preamble to the decree is instructive. It said there were plans by the Federal Military Government to hand over government to a democratically elected administration in its transition to civil rule programme on January 2, 1993. That could not hold because of the disruption of the presidential primaries of the two political parties, the Social Democratic Party and the National Republican Convention.

The disruption was put at the door of "grave electoral malpractices." The next step taken was the decision of the government on November 17, 1992 that the transition programme be extended to August 27, 1993. The reason given was to "allow time for fresh presidential primaries to be conducted." The storyline was faithful to what the government did.

Wonderful magic wand

It conducted the primaries promised; also the elections but cancelled the election because it "was marred by grave electoral malpractices." Everybody said then and years after that the elections were the freest and fairest; that there was not a single drop of rain anywhere in the country during the voting, implying that even God endorsed the outcome; that it was a muslim-muslim ticket; that the wonderful magic wand of option A4 and an adjustment to the open ballot of lining behind your candidate or his photograph, all made history that Nigeria had never been witness to before.

Hurrah and Hallelujah. But come with me to 1993, to the law I am looking at and quoting directly from. It took effect on August 26, 1996.

And it says, "And whereas the Federal Military Government decided in the interest of national security, law and order, enduring democracy and the provision of effective economic direction for the nation, to annul the whole conduct of the presidential election and consequently nullified the presidential election held on June 12, 1993."

It was after the preamble that the Federal Military Government promulgated Decree 61 which said in clear terms that it is "supreme and its provisions shall have binding force on all authorities and persons through out the Federal Republic of Nigeria."

The Decree was signed by Gen I.B. Babangida, President, Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria at Abuja on 26th August 1993. So, Prof Humphrey Nwosu's claim that anyone but the lawmaking arm of the Federal Military Government (that is the National Defence and Security Council) was responsible for the annulment of the June 12 Presidential election is irresponsible, cheap, and unprofessorial. It is even the greatest disservice a grateful servant can render to a master he had served.

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