The yearly commemoration of June 12, the anniversary of the annulled 1993 presidential election, offers renewed opportunities to assess the occasion of Nigeria's truncated stride towards true and representative democracy.
It is equally important because it offers the opportunity to assess the man who has come to singularly symbolise that period of national history –Late Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola.
After the painstaking eight year conduct of a transition programme to return Nigeria to democratic rule after nine years of military rule, the then military government led by General Ibrahim Babangida voided the results of the election. His action added the word "annulment" to the standard Nigerian vocabulary.
Though the election's result was inconclusive before it was annulled, everyone knew that MKO (as Abiola was popularly known) won. Initial figures released by the then National Electoral Commission (NEC), showed that he was already coasting to victory, before the military junta directed it to stop further announcement of results from the remaining few states. This prompted Abiola's insistence that he won the poll although the claim was a subject of debate for years until Prof.
Humphrey Nwosu, who then headed the electoral body, set the record straight 15 years later (June 12, 2008), when he affirmed that the Ogun State-born business mogul won the election. Nwosu, in his book Laying the Foundation for Nigeria's Democracy: My Account of June 12, 1993 Presidential Election and its Annulment, stated that out of the 14, 396,917 votes cast in the election, Abiola, who was the candidate of the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP), scored 8, 323,305 votes while his opponent, Alhaji Bashir Tofa of the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC) had 6, 073, 612 votes.
He further said that Tofa had one-third of the votes in 23 states out of the then 30 states in the country and Abuja, while Abiola had one-third of the votes in 28 states, thereby satisfying the constitutional requirement to be declared winner.
According to results of the election published on pages 296 to 298 of the 392-page book, the states which Abiola won included Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Benue, Borno, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Enugu and Jigawa. Others were Kaduna, Kano, Kwara, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Plateau, Taraba, Yobe and the Federal Capital Territory.
On the other hand, Tofa won Abia, Adamawa, Bauchi, Enugu, Imo, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Niger, Rivers and Sokoto states. Nwosu, however, blamed an order by the Abuja High Court which was served on the commission on June 15, 1993, for the inability of the electoral body to release the entire result of the election at the time. Babangida, on his part, years ago explained that he was compelled to nullify the poll because of security threats to the enthronement of a democratic government at the time.
He pointed out that the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) he headed then knew that Abiola, if installed as president would be toppled through another military coup deta't, which his government did not want.
According to him, his regime decided that it would be the last that would ascend the seat of power through coup, adding that it would make no sense to install a democratic government that would be truncated within another six months.
He admitted that the poll was the best ever conducted in Nigeria's history, saying: "June 12 was accepted by Nigerians as the best of elections in Nigeria. It was free and fair. But unfortunately, we cancelled that election. I used the word unfortunately, for the first time.
We were in government at the time and we knew the possible consequences of handing over to a democratic government. We did well that we wanted ours to be the last military coup deta't. To be honest, the situation was not ripe to hand over at the time.
"The issue of security of the nation was a threat and we would have considered ourselves to have failed, if six months after handover, there was another coup. I went through a coup deta't and I survived it. We knew that there would be another coup deta't. But not many people believed what we said. They could have allowed me to go away and then they (coup plotters) would regroup and stage another coup."
While many still believe that Babangida's reasons are unjustified, others have continued to wonder how Abiola was able to secure the landmark victory on a Muslim/ Muslim ticket in a country where religion plays an important role in its politics. The fact, however, remains that Abiola managed to work his way out of poverty through hard work and symbolised the aspirations of many downtrodden Nigerians.
His "Hope '93" manifesto,' which became a sing-song, also played a significant role. The policy paper was received with optimism by many, especially the downtrodden and the middle class. Unfortunately, he never lived to implement the programme in which he had provided answers to the pervasive poverty and dearth of infrastructure in the country.
Abiola, the man who would have been president between 1993 and 1998 and or beyond, died on July 7, 1998, in the custody of the Federal Government, four years after he was arrested and detained by the late dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha, for daring to declare himself president- elect.
National Mirror
The whole situation just seems like yesterdaY. Make Abiola's soul rest in perfect peace. It was disastrous how he died.