June 12: A history we must never forget

Stephen Adewale

There is a cliché that history is sometimes, whatever the winner decides to write. As far as June 12, 1993 presidential election is concern, the winner in this context is not the late Moshood Kasimawo Olawale Abiola, but those alive telling the June 12 story from whatever perspective.

For generations to come, its complexities will prick consciences and the event of 1993 will continue to remind the nation of an opportunity bungled. No matter who tells the June 12 story, more strands would remain untreated and unexplored. And more questions would pop up, begging for answers.

It is so because June 12 has ceased from being just a historical event to becoming history in itself, which is told to suit the interest of any narrator. When we think the most authentic account of that event has been heard, we find ourselves evaluating all we think we know. Indeed, such is expected, considering the legion of state and non-state actors, who made it what it is.

For reasons still considered self-serving, the dramatis personae brazenly altered the course of Nigeria’s history in a manner that left the country permanently on edge. By so doing, the nation’s survival was perpetually left at the mercy of socio-political and economic connections, instead of an orderly system that guarantees a future for all.

Indeed, the seed of the 1999 democratic inauguration was sown on June 12 1993. This was the day Nigerians rose in unity, in amity, in concord, and tandem to elect billionaire businessman turned politician, Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola as their president.

In an exclusive interview with KAFTAN Post, Chief Olu Falae, the secretary to the military government of Ibrahim Babangida from January 1986 to December 1990, and Finance Minister in 1990, said the June 12, 1993 presidential election was symbolic in many ways.

“First, it was regarded as the most peaceful election ever held in Nigeria since independence. Second, Chief Abiola and his deputy, Babangana Kingibe, a proven diplomat, are both Muslims. Third, it was regarded as the freest and fairest election in Nigeria till date. Fourth, the election was celebrated and extolled by local, national and international observers.

Fifth, for the first time in the history of Nigeria, the citizens jettisoned both ethnic and primordial sentiments to elect leaders of their choice. Sixth, there was no record of violence, intimidation, snatching of ballot boxes, multiple voting and rigging,” he said.

Consequent upon the annulment, Nigeria’s structure changed politically, socially and economically. On Wednesday June 23 1993, the Federal Military Government, through a short, undated and unsigned statement announced the termination of the entire transition process, which began in 1986. The real factor that led to the annulment remains a mystery till today.

General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, himself, offered the country no clear explanation. Although, he had been involved in political and military activities that have had far-reaching effects on Nigeria’s political development, it was not until that black Friday of February 13, 1976, that General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida fully unravelled and hit the nation’s consciousness. Colonel Bukar Zuka Dimka, his close friend, had staged a coup, and had assassinated the then Head of State, General Murtala Ramat Mohammed at Ikoyi, Lagos, at about 8.30 a.m. while he was on his way to the office.

After the gruesome murder that shook Nigeria and Africa, Dimka and his gang had stormed the premises of Radio Nigeria, also in Ikoyi, to make his coup broadcast.

He was on it when Babangida, then a Colonel, invaded the station and convinced his friend to give up the game. Babangida prevented the coup leader from making further broadcasts and the coup was effectively aborted. Since then, Babangida has been a recurring decimal point in Nigeria’s political circuit.

Born on 17 August 1941, in Minna to the family of Muhammad Babangida and Aisha Babangida, IBB joined the Nigerian Army on 10 December 1962, when he attended the Nigerian Military Training College (NMTC) in Kaduna. Babangida received his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant, a regular combatant officer in the Royal Nigerian Army (a month before it became the Nigerian Army); with the personal army number N/438 from the Indian Military Academy on 26 September, 1963.

He furthered his armoury training from January 1966 until April 1966 by enrolling in Course 38 of the Young Officers’ Course (ARMED) in the United Kingdom where he received a four-month course in Saladin and gunnery. From August 1972 to June 1973, he took the Advanced Armoured Officers’ course at Armored school.

He attended the Senior Officers’ Course, Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji, from January 1977 until July 1977 and the Senior International Defence Management Course, Naval Postgraduate School in the United States of America in 1980.

He was Second Lieutenant in 1963, Lieutenant in 1966, Captain in 1968, Major in 1970, Lieutenant Colonel in 1970, Colonel in 1973, Brigadier General in 1983, and General in 1987. Babangida also served as a member of the Supreme Military Council from 1 August 1975 to October 1, 1979.

From January 1st 1984 to August 27th 1985, Babangida was the Chief of Army Staff and a member of the Supreme Military Council (SMC) under the military regime of Major General Muhammadu Buhari.

Babangida would later overthrow Buhari’s regime on 27 August 1985 in a military coup that relied on mid-level officers that Babangida had strategically positioned over the years.

The Babangida transition politics with the benefit of hindsight was from the very beginning, programmed to fail or at best produce Alhaji Ibrahim Babangida as civilian President. In this case, it would have still been deemed to have failed since it did not transit to anywhere. The programme still remains the longest, most elaborate, most deceitful and most expensive transition in the country’s chequered history. Some critics maintain that it is the longest and most expensive transition in the whole continent. However, in the absence of a continental data on transitions, this allegation cannot be substantiated.

In an interview with KAFTAN Post, Abimbola Adesoji, a Professor of History at Obafemi Awolowo University said “the duration and manipulations inherent in the programme made Nigerians to accuse Babangida of harbouring a hidden agenda early in the day, which he blatantly denied but which later proved to be true.

“The detailed programme kicked-off in 1986 and was billed to terminate in 1990 but was later shifted to 1992 and subsequently to 1993.

“The ban on party politics was lifted on the 3rd of May 1989, paving the way for people to form political associations that will apply to National Electoral Commission for registration. Since the government had already decided on a two-party structure for the country, politicians were aware that scaling the hurdle will be such an onerous task but they still decided to try. To determine the two parties, NEC imposed very stringent, expensive and almost impossible conditions.

“The parties were expected to establish well equipped offices with at least three paid staff in all the then 435 local government areas in the country. They were to supply 25 membership lists of their parties, comprising the names, photographs and personal details of at least 200 members from each local government in the country to NEC, with a registration fee of N50,000. All these must be done within 3 months. These apparent impossible conditions were put in place to make sure that none of the parties qualified for registration.

“Since Nigerian politicians have a ‘never say die’ spirit, 13 political groups were able to submit their applications before the deadline. The Babangida drama of the absurd began in earnest.

“In a broadcast to the nation on the 6th of October, 1989, Babangida said that all the parties had “failed to comply with key conditions in the guidelines such as documentation on members, declaration of assets and liabilities of individual members of the national executive committees. Most of them (Parties) had operated underground prior to the lifting of the ban on politics on 3rd of May 1989 and had roots in the party politics of the First and Second Republics”.

According to Adesoji, “there were very strong indications of wealthy individuals in the executive committees of the associations that confirm fears that they were being hijacked by money bags.”

Based on the above, all the 13 associations were denied registration. Instead, the military decided to form two parties – the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Republican Convention (NRC). The first (SDP), leaning a little to the left and the other (NRC), a little to the right. According to the government, “All members will now be equal founders of either parties and that no one except government, which is neutral, sponsors the two parties.”

Many discerning Nigerians saw through the farce and raised their voices against this abuse of the philosophy of political parties; a clear negation of what political parties stood for.

It was in this light that Anthony Enahoro, the tireless social fighter said, “My judgment of the two bodies is that they are military government parastatals being paraded as political parties for the benefit of the outside world.”

To General Obasanjo, he believed that “Those who call the two government-created parties, parastatals, are even being generous. Parastatals at least, have effective and accountable chief executives, who can enforce order and discipline. The same cannot be said of the government-created parties. And yet they are the vehicle through which it is hoped that a stable democracy will be nurtured.”

These barrages of criticisms did not in any way deter Babangida and his cohorts from marching on. Instead, the government continued to convince Nigerians that the end would justify the means and that sceptics would be put to shame when the programme would come to the desired conclusion.

The National Electoral Commission (NEC) announced on September 21, 1990 that the open ballot system would be used for the local government elections scheduled for December 8, 1990. The elections were held as scheduled, while due to the creation of additional 136 new local government councils in September 1991 another local government election was held on November 23, 1991.

Gubernatorial elections were equally held nationwide on December 14, 1991 and the elected Governors were sworn in on January 1st 1992. The National Assembly elections were held on 14th July 1992. What remained was the presidential election, which incidentally, many keen watchers of the Babangida transition politics had argued would never come to be, as the country’s self-styled military President was seen as harbouring a secret agenda of self-succession.

The NEC divided the country into six zones for staggered presidential primaries using the option A4 method, which entailed organising the primaries through a series of elections from the ward, local government, and states to the national levels.

The primaries took place between August and September 1992 and as expected were characterised by noticeable irregularities. The President in reaction to these irregularities and calls by the defeated candidates, cancelled the primaries and banned the 23 aspirants who took part in the primaries from taking part in the transition programme. He also went ahead to dissolve the executive committees of the two parties and appointed caretaker committees in their place.

The handover date was also extended to August 27, 1993, and new primaries were to be organised.

In the new primaries, Babangida’s close friends, M.K.O. Abiola (SDP) and Bashir Tofa (NRC) emerged. The presidential elections were finally held on June 12, 1993 after some clandestine attempts by groups like the Association for Better Nigeria, headed by Arthur Nzeribe to stop it. Unfortunately, the election which was adjudged the freest and most peaceful election in Nigeria’s history was annulled by Gen Babangida on the 23rd of June 1993 for sundry reasons ranging from “Judicial anarchy” to security reports about the candidates, but apparently in his self-succession plot. The transition which has gulped billions of naira has failed.

Gen Babangida wanted to organise another presidential election, which apparently would entail yet another postponement of the handover date. This time Nigerians told him in very clear terms that they were not ready for another rigmarole in an endless transition. Even his military constituency told him that his time was up, as they could no longer guarantee his safety. Apparently confused on the way out of this quagmire, which Nigerians labelled the June 12 political impasse, Babangida hurriedly installed an Interim National Government (ING), headed by Chief Ernest Shonekan and left Aso Rock on the 26th of August 1993 in a hurry like a defeated General.

The master dribbler has dribbled himself. He had thus reaped the fruits of eight years of deceit and a dubious transition to nowhere, leaving the flanks open for his long-time friend and fellow ‘coupist’, Gen. Sani Abacha to take over, who presided over the affairs of the country in the regalia of a full-blown dictatorship.

Perhaps, S.E. Finer had prophesied about Babangida and his transition when he wrote in his popular book, The Man on Horseback in 1962 that; “Those armed forces that have tried to disengage from politics have had to hasten back as soon as their quondam political enemies came within sight of regaining power, while those that have elected to remain and rule have been ejected only by popular revolt, or by further military revolts of their own malcontents.

In most cases, the military that have intervened in politics are in a dilemma: whether their rule be indirect or whether it be direct, they cannot withdraw from rulership nor can they fully legitimise it. They can neither stay nor go.”

Between 1993 and July 7 1997, Nigeria was run, not so much as a country but as a personal fiefdom. Billions of dollars were siphoned off into oversea bank accounts controlled by Abacha, his family, or his cronies, while the masses simmered in anger at their deepening poverty.

Literally, millions of Nigerians had fled into economic and political exile. Newspapers were shut down, and trade unions were banned, while human rights activists, journalists, intellectuals, and opponents, imaginary and real were jailed or, in a few cases, eliminated by state-sponsored death squads.

Among the victims were the Ogoni rights activist and playwright, Ken Saro-Wiwa, who had been hanged, and retired General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, a political power broker who had died after receiving a mysterious injection in prison.

The leading political figures of the day were held incommunicado. They included Chief Moshood Abiola who was arrested for treasonable felony on June 11, 1994 over his declaration of a Government of National Unity at Epetedo in Lagos. General Olusegun Obasanjo, the only soldier who had ever handed power to an elected civilian as at that time was also incarcerated. Nigeria, many feared, would explode into a civil war that could spark a humanitarian disaster.

The June 12, 1993 Presidential election remains a watershed in the history of Nigeria. Nearly three decades after the annulment, the Nigerian citizens remember the sad tale of the past.

They remember the crisis, the pains, the agonies, the tears, the killings, the deaths, the chains of events that followed the annulments of that election, and they will never forget the price Nigeria has paid for this mistake in the last 26 years.

June 12, 1993 will continue to remind all of how the Federal Military Government unleashed the full weight of the government on the harmless citizens, and released the instrumentality of State power and machinery to destroy late Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, his wife Kudirat Abiola, his business empire, and nearly 5,000 other Nigerians between 1993 and 1998.

That is the tragedy of June 12, an election many believed could have launched Nigeria on the path of seriousness. While its symbolisms are defining, its place in the nation’s narrative is only disputed by a few. Despite the turbulence and imbalance in the Nigerian democratic system of the previous 27 years, the belief that the worst democratic government is better than a benign military regime has kept the citizens hopeful.