Kunle Amuwo

Department of Political Science

University of Ibadan

I have suggested, somewhat implicitly, in the foregoing section that the sustained activism of non-state actors made it inevitable for the presidential elections to eventually hold on June 12, 1993. But if this clearly appeared as a necessary condition, it was far from being sufficient.

The point is that as the count-down began, the personal rule agenda became more and more open. To begin with, the hitherto shadowy Association for Better Nigeria (ABN), suspected for long of having secret links with the regime, became more and more audacious. Led by a politically unstable and unpredictable multimillionaire – Arthur Nzeribe, an arms dealer; former presidential aspirant under the aegis of the SDP, who failed on two occasions to honour a pledge to the Northern muslim establishment to convert to Islam - ABN and its officials became more visible in the Presidency. By the same token, Nigerians were stunned to learn that the association was set up and wholly financed by the Babangida regime.

The ABN was not alone. There was a Committee of Elder Statesmen woven around oldbreeds like Sam Ikoku - an ex-Nkrumahist, ex-Awoist, ex-official of both the populist People’s Redemption Party (PRP) and the conservative NPN in the Second Republic - and Margaret Ekpo, amongst others. The Committee was organised by Tola Adeniyi, former enfant terrible of the popular Nigerian Tribune (founded by Obafemi Awolowo in 1949). Adeniyi had served under Babangida as a Director-General responsible for the movement of federal ministries to Abuja, the political capital, as well as Managing Director of the government-owned Daily Times. The Committee had no official status whatsoever, yet it was received in highly publicised audience several times by Babangida.

As late as January and February 1993, the Committee’s memoranda prescribing a French semi- presidential system of government for Nigeria was received by the general who promised to give it due attention. Furthermore, a British source signalled in May that plans were afoot to abort the election, suggesting that principal western diplomatic capitals - in particular London and Washington - were aware of Babangida’s last-minute footworking. For the source, "there are growing doubts that the presidential election will be held on June 12 as scheduled", alerting that both Abiola and Tofa would be disqualified unless "they produce evidence of having paid corporate and personal taxes in full over the past decade". The source concluded rather cynically, "the government’s difficulty will be in dealing with increasing resentment of the further extension of military rule rather than in placating popular sympathy for Tofa or Abiola" (14).

What is more, there was little visible preparation for the election - in terms of the usual polling booths and, more importantly, the display of voters’ register, as demanded by the electoral law. Many Nigerians were genuinely worried. They would be further terrified by an Abuja High Court order, only forty-eight hours to the election, stopping the poll.

More curious was that neither NEC - which was vested with supreme control over elections which no court order could supersede - nor government made a statement, until the director of the United States Information Service (USIS) in Lagos warned government that any postponement of the election would be "unacceptable" to America. Shortly after, NEC reassured Nigerians that the election would hold as scheduled. It did hold, but only after the director had been asked to leave the country within 72 hours and CDS withdrew accreditation to Americans to monitor the election.

Similarly, Mrs Justice Bassey Ikpeme, the Abuja high court judge who gave relief to the ABN and thereby rose from obscurity to notoriety, was rapidly evacuated out of the country. Made a judge barely six months before, she had worked as a lawyer in the chambers of Akpamgbo, the regime’s Justice minister. A senior military officer rewarded her "courage" with 10,000 US dollars while the regime allegedly paid her 5 million naira (15).

There is the suggestion by some informed circles in Nigeria - particularly academic and Press - that Babangida may have, finally, been persuaded to hold the election because he thought Tofa would win. With Tofa, so the argument goes, it would be Babangida in power by proxy; that, at any rate, Tofa would be less dangerous than 15 Abiola with whose somewhat ‘radical’ entourage the regime was uncomfortable. This is a variant of the ethnic thesis discussed below in relation to the reasons for annulment.

Let me just add a footnote here: to all appearances, the regime made a flawed and faulty analysis of the reconstituted political market. For all his public rhetorics, Babangida did not believe in his own elaborate and long transition programme. His professors and other advisers may have, in this sense, been more catholic than the Pope. It would seem that ‘security reports’ comforted him in his belief that Nigerian voters would, once again, vote along the old primordial cleavages of ethnicity, region and religion (16).

Unlike the French Bourbon Kings with which the Nigerian political ‘class’ has often been compared, the latter demonstrated on June 12, 1993 that it had learned some democratic lessons and had forgotten a lot of electoral antics of yesteryears. Nigeria recorded her freest and fairest national election since independence was won. Both national and international observers gave the election a pass mark. Neither the two parties nor the electorate was willing to give the General another alibi for prolongation of military rule.

The ABN went back to court; there it got an injunction ordering NEC chairman to halt further announcements of the result. This was days after partial results had been announced, and the President elect (Abiola by 58% to 42% of 14 million votes cast) was now known both within and outside the country. Nwosu had the powers to ignore this court injunction as he did to the earlier one. But by now, he was no more an autonomous agent. Summoned by Babangida while a ‘crucial’ meeting of the National Defence and Security Council (NDSC) was on-going, he was given few minutes, alone in a room, to decide whether or not he would invoke the full powers of the military decrees that gave legal teeth to his actions. Nwosu knew all the decrees by heart and was given to quoting them off-handedly, with great theatrical enthusiasm and grand gesticulations on national television. For instance, he was the only one empowered by sections 15 (1) and 20 of Decree 13 of 1993 to announce the presidential result. But he also knew, at that moment, that the game was up. He told Babangida he would obey the court order. He would tell Nigerians the same thing later, but with the promise that NEC would file an appeal on the judgement (17).

In the midst of the ensuing confusion, a sheet of paper, with no letter head, containing a grave message, but undated and unsigned was faxed to all media houses: it was ostensibly passed round State House correspondents by Nduka Irabor who had virtually, by then, taken over image-making and press relations of the presidency from the general’s Chief Press Secretary, Duro Onabule. The regime’s - or Transition Council’s - Information Secretary, Uche Chukwumerije was not aware of the curious circular; he threatened a journalist who showed him the circular a court action for rumour-mongering. A few hours later, he was defending the annulment at a press conference in Aso Rock (18).

To formally void the election on June 23, 1993, the regime had to repeal two major decrees: Number 52 of November 17, 1992, also known as the Transition to Civil Rule (Political Programme Amendment) decree number 3 of 1992, which had given legal backing to the extended transition and the Presidential Election (Basic Constitutional and Transitional Provision) decree number 13 of 1993. The election was legally voided thus:

NEC was also suspended, while "all acts or omissions done or purported to have been done by itself, its officers or agents under the repealed decree number 13 of 1993" were cancelled. Similarly, government stopped all court proceedings pending or intended to be instituted as well as "appeals thereon in respect of any matter touching, relating or concerning the presidential election...". As in the past, Babangida rationalized this action in national and corporatist terms: "the administration took the painful decision in good faith and the interest of stability and severity of the nation as well as for the enhancement of democracy in Nigeria". By that time in Nigeria, such statements struck hollow chords. In reference to a similar action in the past, an avid commentator had claimed that "there ought not to be any quibbling over credibility. A General’s word must be his bond" (The Guardian (Lagos), October 5, 1992). The mood of the nation had changed, however.

Now, who annulled the election? It seems more difficult to examine the who’s/how’s, than the ‘whys’, an exercise rendered more onerous by what Luckham (1994: 42) calls the lack of "one single empirical study on how African military governments take decisions". Even the autobiographies that we have are not reliable. Luckham believes that they are "self-serving and provide little detailed description of real power struggles behind the official 16 facade". Yet, it is possible to make sense out of little information and petty speculations and rumblings from scanty sources. The country’s ever-restive rumour factory which, by the way is, in terms of vitality and robustness, perhaps second only to the coup industry, is also useful here.

Two hypotheses on the annuller(s) stand out. The first hypothesis articulates an hostage thesis: Babangida was said to have been the hostage of either his own ‘boys’ or Southern and Middle-Belt senior officers (who represent 65% of the officer corps) or both. His ‘boys’ were said to have despatched a delegation of senior officers, led by Lawan Gwadabe, Babangida’s ex-Principal Staff Officer and doyen of his governors (five years in the General’s home state) with a singular message: Abiola was unacceptable to the military. That was said to be the grouse of the second group too.

During negotiations for an Interim National Government (ING) Babangida was said to have told SDP officials that "some senior military officers were prepared to die rather than accept Abiola as president" (See Africa Confidential, July 30, 1993, p.7; November 5, 1993, p. 2). The two groups were also bound together by self-interest and mutual fear: Abiola, on the strength of information in his possession concerning their fabulous wealth, may have considered probing the military (Africa Confidential, 8-14 July, 1993, p. 14-15).

This hypothesis fails to indicate preferences of the senior officers: did they want Tofa (almost an impossibility) or one of their members, or Babangida to continue? if the latter, as a General or in the Mobutu or Eyadema fashion - namely as a civilianized president?

The second hypothesis is that Babangida-in-Council annulled the election. The ‘Council’ was, to be sure, an informal or "officious" body. Two members often mentioned are Obasanjo (apparently in absentia) and Yar’ Adua who was physically present. The occasion was the burial of Yar’ Adua’s father, to whom, while alive, Babangida had been made to promise he would hand over power, not necessarily to the younger Yar’ Adua, but without prejudice to him. That was during the cancelled primaries of October 1992. As if to respect the dead, the cancellation was decided on the way to Katsina for the funeral. It was to allow Obasanjo’s former deputy to have another go at the presidency. Abiola too attended the funeral to commiserate with his friend and business partner.

On his way home in his private jet, he would hear the annulment (19). Why was the election annulled? A good starting point is to argue, following Sakah Mahmud (1993: 89) that "there seems to be no justifiable reasons for outright cancellation of the presidential elections". Thus, Emeka Nwokedi’s (1994: 1-23) reasonable contention that the transition programme was no more than a means to institutionalize authoritarianism in Nigeria.

Many other arguments have been presented for the annulment, by both the regime and the two parties. One, Babangida claimed in his speech voiding the election that the spate of litigations in various courts was embarrassing to government which had to act decisively in order that the "ridiculous charade" would not snowball into "judicial anarchy". This argument turned facts upside down and stood logic on its head. What Babangida called the "spate of litigations" was in reality four high courts (Lagos, Ibadan, Benin and Jos) ordering NEC to release all the results.

The latter and government refused to obey. In any event, the Chief Justice of the Federation, Mohammed Bello, had already sworn in a Presidential Election Tribunal to hear litigations. The regime did not even allow the latter to take off.

Government also talked about a low turn out of voters - some 35% of registered electorate actually voted - pointing out, like the NRC, that the Ikpeme order must have kept voters away from polling stations. NRC would claim later that millions of its supporters could not actually vote (20).

There was also the ‘Babangida preferred party’ thesis. Though not much voiced out, some pockets of the SDP believed, soon after annulment, that given the General’s preference for NRC, his regime "would not sanction an SDP victory under any candidate" (Africa Confidential, 16 July, 1993 p. 1). This explains their opposition to a new poll. Whatever the utility of the foregoing ‘explanatory schemas’, they are of little use in our search for the ‘whys’ of the annulment. Two broad schemas ought, however, to arrest our attention, namely, the ethnic card and the military factor.

I have already alluded to the regime’s expectations of traditional crude ethnic arithmeticing and religious balancing to drive the election. In its eyes, Abiola had failed ab initio, first, by picking a fellow Muslim from the minority North-Eastern wing, (Kanuri) of Nigeria, and, two, by ignoring the aristocratic Hausa-Fulani ruling caste. 17 Thus, Adamu Danladi’s (1993: 6) contention that if Abiola had lost, "Nigeria’s transition to civil rule would have been on course" in the eyes of the regime. What this suggests is that it was Abiola the regime did not want; that if Tofa had won, there would have been no succession crisis. But given the dirigiste nature of the transition programme and the extensive powers of NEC, could government not have rigged the election in favour of Tofa? Of course, this option would have been difficult, given the use of open voting system rather than secret ballot.

If the regime had preferred Tofa why propel ABN to attempt a total halt of the election? It seems to me that by June 12, the transition programme had become a frankenstein; Babangida had literally become a victim of his own multiple decrees on the programme and innumerable detours of same. Manipulation and fine-tuning had become overbearing, the General had dribbled all key players and himself into a tight-corner, meaning out of power. Furthermore, in the guidelines for a new election unbelievably slated for early August 1993 (the General knew it was humanly impossible to meet such a deadline, but it was meant to further divide the ‘political class’, some members of whom fell into the trap by actually collecting forms) both Tofa and Abiola were disqualified.

The former was no longer eligible on the strength of the requirement that new candidates must be at least 50 years old; a flagrant violation of the 1989 Constitution; the latter by the stipulation that a presidential candidate must have been a partyman for upwards of one year. To underscore Babangida’s manichean designs, all previously disqualified presidential aspirants were now free to try anew. Nothing could have been more fictitious and absurd, untrue and retrogressive as the regime’s crude ethnic equation.

There is strong evidence to show that it was the heavy anti-Yoruba propaganda of the tandem Babangida-Chukuwmerije and their psychosis of war (reference was always made to ex-Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Somalia) that would later polarize and ethnicize the pro-June 12 ‘movement’.

In a BBC ‘Network Africa’ Programme soon after election results had already been known, Adamu Ciroma called for earnest release of results: "The election have (sic) been conducted. The results are actually known state by state and I do not see any reason why the NEC should not announce the results". In a direct response to his NRC colleagues who called for cancellation, Ciroma said "I do not share that opinion at all. I do not think it is right that frivolous excuses should be used in delaying the announcement of the result... It will be very difficult to justify. And I do not think, it is right to do so" (The Guardian, June 18, 1993, p. 4).

In this respect, Adams (1993: 68-69) was right to have observed that the Abiola-Babangida duel which flagged off as a power struggle between military politicians and their civilian homologues "soon aroused old ethnic divisions in one of Africa’s most diverse nations". Initially, Abiola also struck the right chord when he emphasized that the political impasse was not "The South versus The North" but that rather "the problem is that Babangida just does not want to give up power".

Tofa, for one, rapidly ethnicized the stalemate. He had said on the eve of the election that if Abiola won, he would be the first to congratulate him and had hoped that were the reverse the case, Abiola would act similarly. Apparently taking a cue from this stalemate, the Chairman of the NRC, Hamed Kusamotu, a ‘westerner’ called for the release of results. Ofonagoro, Director of Communications of Tofa’s Presidential Campaign Organisation countered that Kusamotu’s view were personal to him. Tofa also condemned the views of some ‘western’ members of the party claiming that their opinions "...do not reflect the thinking of the vast majority of our supporters nation-wide".

There was even a direct accusation: "It is regrettable that these western leaders of the NRC have chosen to introduce ethnicity and tribal sectionalism into the conduct of the affairs of the party at this critical time in our nation’s history" (22).

The refusal of Tofa to accept the election result marked the turning point, for the worse, in the struggle of the Civil Society to recover the ‘stolen mandate’. The ‘political class’ that had impressed voters by its seeming sense of proportion during the election rapidly lost internal cohesion and right bearing. Babangida’s manipulative politics further divided the hierarchies of both parties, more so the SDP. There was a mixture of stick and carrot. On the former, he warned state civilian governors on June 29, 1993, that they would be held responsible for any civil 18 disorder in their states; he even darkly hinted at the possibility of declaring a state of emergency. On the latter, as we have earlier remarked, he promised fresh elections and reiterated his commitment to the August 27 hand-over date.

Babangida succeeded in fractionalising the two parties; factions in both even asked him to participate in "a military-backed Interim National Government" (Africa Confidential, 16 July, 1993, p. 1). Soon after, there was a drove of the AGIP to Abuja, some of them government-sponsored. The popular cliche was that ‘no individual was greater than the nation’, but none specified the individual - Abiola or Babangida.

The ethnic card was rapidly seized on by sundry analysts of the ‘traditional school’ on Nigeria to further draw a wedge between the ‘North’ and the ‘South’. Take the African Confidential as an example. In its July 2, 1993 edition, it noted: "on a 35% turnout, the results which the NEC was forbidden by court order to publish showed Abiola to have the widest spread of support across the country of any presidential candidate since independence".