Nwosu And June 12: A Call For Social Action

With Professor Nwosu’s ‘timely’ release of the June 12, 1993 election result and the subsequent revelations therein, I have now come to the conclusion that members of the ruling cabal in Nigeria are plain demons. I thank God that those generation of unpatriotic military officers are gradually losing their firm grip on power. Sooner than later, the officers will leave this earth the way others before them had gone and their activities in Nigeria would definitively be dead in the water. They are gradually fading away. We are dead tired of their unremorseful countenance and posturing, arrogant shenanigans and callous impunity. These men are mean!

In my daily random musings, I’d wondered and hypothesized on what would have happened if IBB were an Igboman and he had annulled an election clearly won by a Northerner in which retired General T.Y Danjuma was the Vice-president. Your guess of what would have happened perhaps is as good as mine. However, I’d reckoned that Nwosu should have clapped for himself for that marvellous kindergarten performance. Releasing the result of an election held in 1993, in 2008 { after 15 years} is an historic deed that ought to have placed him in the GUINNESS book of records. It was a feat unheard of in world history. Wonders shall never end in Nigeria. A country were, according to Chinweizu, tribes and ethnic groups survive by hating one another.

In a country of wonders, you can never tell with some of these our Professors. They never cease to amaze and amuse us. I don’t know whether too much acquired knowledge is becoming an anathema to our development. Just look at the mess Professor Maurice Iwu has made of INEC. Nwosu had every opportunity in 1993, after his quiet ‘release’ from a brief ‘incarceration’ to flee to any country from where he should have called a world press conference and release the result to the International Community whose representatives were after all present as observers during that election.

I believed if Nwosu had done that, it would have helped, as some have rightly argued, to give added impetus to the struggle. Europe and America would have held the released result as evidence whilst approaching IBB. Even if the pressure from them might not have had any impart, it would have acted as a boost to those of us who were then at home fighting for the actualization of that election. But the man never did, rather he chose to play the ostrich. On June 12 of this year, while some of us were mourning the demise of Abiola, Kudirat, and other late June 12 activists, Nwosu was being clever by half: he was busy, as a bourgeois intellectual, making quick fortune out of the same June 12 misfortune.

Nevertheless, now that the result has been announced officially, yes, it was announced officially, the courts should now come to the aid of the Nigerian electorates whose “mandate” were desecrated by that annulment – an annulment that virtually eclipse IBB’s performance. My submissions may sound outrageous, but I will still present them. The result as announced by Nwosu, shows that MKO Abiola {SDP} polled 8,323,305 votes, while Bashir Tofa {NRC} polled 6,073,612 votes. According to the professor : “Tofa scored at least one-third of the votes cast in each of 23 states of the federation. While Abiola scored at least one-third of the total votes cast in each of the 28 states.” He then belatedly, declared Abiola the winner of that election.

Based on this calculus, I propose that Babagana Kingibe should be sworn in, to fulfil “our” mandate while Kola Abiola, the late winners son, should take the position of vice president. I would have proposed the reverse but for the fact that OBJ, a Yoruba man, has ruled for eight tortuous and torturous years. Sequel to that, I submit that former members of both the SDP and NRC should re-mobilise and reassemble.

If in this dispensation our courts could rule that a man who did not contest an election should be sworn in as governor {Rotimi Amaechi in Rivers state}, I wonder why the duo of Kola Abiola and Kingibe should not. Afterall, Kingibe campaigned and contested with MKO Abiola. The reassembled SDP members should bring out all in their arsenal to get that hard-won power. That historic election should not end with Nwosu’s belated pronouncement “just like that”. As far as I am concerned, the SDP has a very strong case in the people’s court.

Yes, now that Nwosu has officially announced the result, the present 50 registered political parties should be vaporized. At present, they are “not fit for purpose.” They are a burden to themselves and of no relevance to Nigeria’s political development. Alternatively, they should melt into the resurrected former two political parties – SDP and NRC . Dr. Jonathan Zwingwina, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, Profs. Akinyemi and Jerry Gana, Abubarkar Rimi, Bola Tinubu, Felix Ibru, Rtd General Akinrinade, Lateef Jakande and Shola Adeyeye and others, should come back to re-energised and re-positioned the party preparatory to taking over power from Yaradua.

Yaradua ought to acquiesce because he was a member of the SDP. After all, it would be on record that he was a president for such a short period, but not shorter than the tenure of Chief Alex Shonekon. Besides, with the snail-speed pace of his government, I think he would do better as ambassador extraordinaire.

Yes, now that the result has been officially released, which Nigerians had hoped for, all former SDP and NRC elected governors should be re-sworn in, to serve out their terms while all the elected senators and House of Rep., members should go back to the National Assembly and assume duties. Chief Felix Odigie Oyegun should go back to Edo state while Felix Ibru should return to Delta state and clear the mess of Ibori and his alter ego, Dr. Uduaghan. All elected {SDP and NRC} state assembly members, elected local government chairmen, and their elected councillors, should go back to their respective locale and assumed their constitutional duties with immediate effect. Members of the {SDP} should effectively move to possess what was criminally and illegally denied them.

All members of IBB’s Armed Forces Ruling Council {AFRC}, who were privy to that criminal decision to annul that election, should be banned from public office and politics with immediate effect. I submit that they should be arrested and tried, if possible, for playing on the intelligence of Nigerians and for that act of sabotage against our collective will.

This will then act as a deterrent to future “pepper-soup-theory” coup plotters. It will send a signal across the board that nobody can just wake up and take this country for a ride any longer. I submit that these actions should be taken other wise history has this very frivolous way of cunningly repeating itself in Nigeria. If we do not act against the perpetrators of that ingenious annulment, the spirits of MKO Abiola, Kudirat Abiola, Alfred Rewane, and others, who died in the course of fighting to actualize “our mandate,” would partly not be happy with us.

The annulment of that election is one of the greatest injustices visited on Nigeria by a select few who were members of Bode Eluyera’s “Federal Republic of Northern Nigeria”. Come to think of it, June 12, 1993 election epitomised nothing but excellence; it portrayed that a united people can change the cause of their history and destiny. That election killed and buried tribalism, regional politics, religious diversity, ethnic bigotry, quota system, Federal character and other inane oddities. The annulment literally killed the evolution of a true Nigeria and whatever vision 2020 entailed.

The SDP legal team therefore, should re-assemble immediately to pursue this worthy course and I call on Femi Falani to lead the team, supported by Festus Keyamo. The SDP and Nigerians should not allow these people ride roughshod ’just li

ke that’ over that historic victory. I beckon on all progressives to support this clarion call for justice. Let it be part of our pedagogy to pursue this cause relentlessly to redress this great injustice that was perpetuated with arrogance and impunity.

Having been sworn in, Alhaji Babagana Kingibe and Kola Abiola would then seek to pursue MKO Abiola’s dream. The “Goodbye to Poverty” which was Abiola’s swan song during his nation wide campaign, should be the arrow-head of their broad based economic policy.

Since a lot of water has seemingly passed under the bridge, new elections should be conducted in areas where former elected office holders have been reported dead. Professor Nwosu, who though acted cowardly in the twilight of June 12, should go back to INEC, with the speed of lightening and take over from Prof. Maurice Iwu and clear the accumulated mess in that body. Fellow Nigerians, these are my submissions. Let us not be deceived by those who will tell us that events and history has overtaken June 12. That is a walking lie. Those history and events were made by man. Man makes history and the same man can unmake that same history.

Yes, now that the learned professor has officially released the results, the laws that were unjustly passed to make June 12 an anomaly should be abrogated. The electoral law that was operational during the period should be reinstated, reformed and reused. Anything, short of all these measures simply means that the result as announced by Nwosu, is “dead on arrival” ala Reuben Abati.

By summation therefore, I propose a three-pronged approach to the court.

First prayer; that now that Professor Nwosu has OFFICIALLY announced and released the results of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, that “we” the SDP members are seeking an injunction suspending the present government in power pending the determination of our substantive suit.

Second prayer; that consequent upon Nwosu’s pronouncement, “we” pray the court to award victory to the SDP and certificate of victory issued by Nwosu; and, that all elected members in that unfortunate dispensation should go back to their former positions and assume duties.

Third prayer; that because of the nature of the crime; its impact on the electorates and the international shame it brought to Nigeria, IBB and all members of the then Armed Forces Ruling Council {AFRC} who were privy to that criminal annulment, should be banned from holding any public office and from participating in politics for life.

I wish I have money, I swear on my honour that I would go back to Nigeria and single-handedly, select and finance the legal team that will fight this noble cause. Never in the cause of our history as a nation has so much been owned by so few to so many {paraphrased Winston Churchill}. I rest my case!