Succession Crisis in History

By 

Dokun Oloyede

After the dust of 1983 general elections, two academics did a careful study of Nigerian politics and drew a far-reaching conclusion on what they believed should be done to stave off electoral crises in Nigeria. Haroun Adamu, journalist, Publisher and Political Science Lecturer at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria and Alaba Ogunsanwo, renowned Political Science Professor at the University of Lagos studied the nation's politics and came up with a rather interesting thesis.

In their observation, it had become clear that the national boat was always rocked each time elections would be held to change the baton from an incumbent civilian administration to another.

Apart from the near endless jaw-jaw between the nationalists and colonialists, there were not many crises during the transition from colonialism to independence. So the initial elections especially as they affected the national government were not marred by violence. Safe the fact that at local levels manipulations such as the hoarding of electoral materials for the purpose of returning favoured candidates as unopposed in the elections were features which invited violence in various parts of the country. Such violence was largely localised and did not make much negative impact on the national politics.

From the colonial co-habitation with indigenous administrations through the first and second republics to the present third republic, succession or the attempt to change power from the incumbent to another set of leaders, has proved to be the nation's foremost harbinger of national instability.

At both party and governmental levels, it would seem that Nigerian politicians seem to have proved incapable of giving what it needs to ensure smooth and violence-free transitions.

Historians have located the genesis of the crisis that finally truncated the first republic and landed the nation in the three-year civil war, from 1967 to 1970, to the succession feud between the late Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola and the late Chief Obafemi Oyeniyi Awolowo.

It is believed that the acrimony that ensued after Chief Akintola succeeded Chief Awolowo as Premier of the Western Region when the latter became leader of Opposition in the Federal Parliament was responsible for the crisis that soon tore apart their party, the Action Group.

It paved the way for rival political parties, particularly the Northern People's Congress (NPC) to win an in-road to the Western Region through its Nigerian National Alliance (NNA) rapport with Chief Akintola's Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) derogatorily referred to as 'Egbe Demo' (Demonic Party) by opponents of Chief Akintola.

The crisis was believed to have influenced the controversial Treasonable Felony Trial of Chief Awolowo and his followers in the AG by the Federal Government.

This selfsame succession crisis degenerated later to the widespread crisis popularly called 'Wet E' that claimed several lives in the Western Region. In its reaction to the Wet E crisis, the federal government, led by the Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa under the control of the NPC, an ally of Chief Akintola, clamped a state of emergency on the Western Region and appointed Chief Majekodunmi as Administrator of the Region.

The succession crisis within AG was probably not as fatal for the nation as the one that resulted from the brouhaha that followed the 1965 general elections.

The United Peoples Grand Alliance (UPGA) which comprised the AG, the National Conference of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) and the United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC) kicked against the insistence of the Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa on respecting the result of the controversial general election. UPGA alleged that the elections were severely rigged by the NNA to ensure the continued control of power by the incumbent party.

By and large, the intra-party (or intra-regional) crisis in the AG and the Western Region as well as the succession crisis that was evident in the general election continued to grow until it consumed the first republic, and with it went the fine politicians of the time and the ideals for which they fought to establish a great and prosperous nation.

In a way, even under military rule, the attempt to put to rout the forces that demanded that General Yakubu Gowon should honour his earlier pledge to ensure the succession of military rule by civilian rule by 1976 led to the crisis that consumed Gowon¡s leadership. By the time Gowon began to prevaricate on 1976, it was clear that he had ceased to enjoy the confidence and support of the political class. So it became a matter of mere formality when he was upstaged in a bloodless coup as he was attending an OAU Conference in Addis Ababa in 1975.

Thus, by the time General Olusegun Obasanjo was handing over power to Alhaji Shehu Usman Aliyu Shagari on October 1, 1979, it was no doubt the first time that Nigeria would witness a crisis-free transition from one government to another, military or civilian. Obasanjo inherited the Murtala/Obasanjo military mandate, which pledged and honoured its commitment to holding elections to return the nation to civil rule in 1979.

Such a feat could not be repeated in 1983 when the administration of President Shagari had to hold elections to determine which party would run the government from 1983 to 1987.

Within the second republic parties, the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN), Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP), Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) and the Great Nigerian Peoples Party (GNPP), succession crisis was as endemic as it was at inter-party contest for power.

Politicians desperately jostled for both party and public positions as if tomorrow would never come. Their desperation was manifested in the mushrooming factions that grew within the parties. Even within the National Assembly, Senators decamped from one party to another; yet insisted on carrying on with the mandate they won through another party from which they defected. At that period though the judiciary was still relatively free and independent thus no National Assembly member was allowed to eat his cake and have it.

Like the current crisis rocking the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) the second republic ruling party, the NPN itself was faced with succession crisis. That was in its bid to hold its elective national convention. The party was factionalised between various groups. One group canvassed for a change of baton from the incumbent Party Chairman, Chief Augustus Meredith Adisa Akinloye to any other person from another part of the country, particularly the North. This was so as to pave the way for the emergence of a southern candidate to bear the party's flag in the 1983 election. That looked like a version of what is today known as power shift in Nigerian politics.

Another group fought to maintain the status quo by sustaining Akinloye as NPN Chairman to ensure that Shagari was fielded for his second term in 1983.

Similar skirmish was to be found in the UPN in which a Joint Action Committee had emerged ostensibly to challenge the existing order within the party. Such a crisis reared its head too in the PRP which was sharply divided between those who remained loyal to the late Mallam Aminu Kano and others who 'rebelled' against his leadership. Neither the GNPP led by the late Alhaji Ibrahim Waziri nor the NPP led by the Owelle of Onitsha, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, was spared of similar stratifying forces.

For the NPP, the greatest challenge came from its members who had benefited from its romance with the NPN in a working accord the two parties had reached in 1979. By the time the accord collapsed, the sweetening allure of ministerial and similar appointments was so strong that the erstwhile NPP stalwarts opted to abandon NPP for NPN when the accord that gave them the carrots ended. Such people provided the NPN the instrument it needed in 1983 to snatch power from the rival NPP in parts of the East.

Obviously, to a large extent the intra-party crisis remained localised. Yet they did not go without making far-reaching effects on national politics and stability. The character of these intra-party crises later became manifest in the crisis that marred the process for selecting party candidates at the elections. Those who were dissatisfied with the process defected to the leading rival party in their states, mostly the NPN.

In Oyo State, for instance, the intra-party crisis within the UPN later opened the way for the NPN which garnered local support within Ibadan and pockets of disaffected areas such as Ogbomosho, Modakeke, Ede, Iwo among others that had had one grouse or the other to pick with the UPN to pose a formidable challenge to the incumbent Chief Bola Ige of the UPN who faced one of the most devastating succession crises in that republic with the NPN's Chief Victor Omololu Olunloyo.

Bola Ige's battle to retain his seat was similar in violent character only to the war which Chief Jim Nwobodo had to do against the combined forces that promoted Chief C.C. Onoh's bid for the governorship of Anambra State ably influenced by the Ikemba Front of Chief Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu who was heralded home on his return from self-exile in Ivory Coast after President Shagari had given him state pardon for his role in the nation¡s civil war. In spite of his spirited fight against the NPN, Jim Nwobodo's NPP lost to the 'gangling' electoral war machine of the NPN.

Ondo State (which in the second republic comprised the present Ekiti and Ondo States) will always be remembered as the greatest boiling cauldron of the second republic. After Chief Akin Omoboriowo, erstwhile Deputy Governor to the late Chief Michael Adekunle Ajasin, had pitched tent with the NPN against Ajasin and the UPN, the NPN, desperate to snatch Ondo State from UPN, pitched Omoboriowo against the incumbent Ajasin.

Of course, Omoboriowo could not gather much support to upset the electoral victory of the popular Ajasin. Yet, the Federal Electoral Commission and the NPN by some mysterious manipulation managed to thrust victory on Omoboriowo¡s NPN. The reaction was instantaneous. The streets burned. Blood flowed.

By the time the courts reversed the 'Verdict 83' in favour of Ajasin, so many properties and so many lives had been lost among them was such a prominent name as Olaiya Fagbamigbe who owned a flourishing publishing business in Ibadan. Even though he had published all Awo's books, he somehow found cause to pitch tent with NPN against the UPN and he lost his life in the process.

In the end, the fire in the streets of Enugu, Ibadan, Akure among others around the country may have lit the way for the military who hid under the cover of darkness in the night of December 31, 1983 to put an end to the nightmare that was the second republic.

That was at no thanks to the unbridled crisis that resulted from the politicians' vaunting ambition either to remain in power despite their seeming unpopularity or to acquire power forcibly by desperately pushing popular incumbents out as if losing and winning without crisis or bloodshed - are not normal features of a sane contest for power.

Indeed, given the rabid fight among the nation's politicians for power with the attendant socio-economic and political instability the crises visit on the nation, single term tenures may appear apt as a solution for conquering the all-consuming succession crisis in Nigeria.

As Haroun Adamu and Alaba Ogunsanwo have pointed out and as recommended by the Political Bureau of 1985, a single term of five years for all public office holders may bring an end to the vicious circle of political crisis in the country.

For, it seems quite palpable that the present crisis in the PDP, the sweeping controversial handling the National Assembly has made of the new Electoral Bill, and the unusual mid-term elongation of the tenure of local government chiefs, all smack of a well-orchestrated design by the incumbents to ensure their victories when the succession struggle come in full bloom in 2003. The drama is just unfolding. To what extent it could make or mar the present third republic can, however, only be determined by Providence.

November 2001