BY MAYOWA SAMUEL
It has been 29 years since the late Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola won the June 12, 1993, presidential election. It was widely acclaimed as the freest, fairest and most credible election in Nigeria’s history. Sadly, the election was annulled by the powers that be.
The election had Bashir Tofa of the defunct National Republican Convention from the North and Abiola of the defunct Social Democratic Party from the South, contesting to be Nigeria’s president.
However, then military head of state, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida annulled the election claiming he did so in the interest of the country. But little did he know the gravity of his infamous decision on the country a few years later and even decades after.
The annulment in 1993 sparked a nationwide protest which forced Babangida to step down from office. He handed over power in August 1993 to Ernest Shonekan to head an Interim National Government.
Fielding questions from a local news media last year, the former army general explained that he annulled the election because some top officials in the Nigerian Army would have staged a violent coup if he didn’t do so.
“If it materialised, there would’ve been a coup d’état which could have been violent. That’s all I can confirm. It didn’t happen thanks to the engineering and the ‘Maradonic’ way we handled you guys in the society with a tinge of disdain. But that could’ve given room for more instability in the country,” he said.
Unfortunately, the coup Babangida claimed to have been avoiding still happened weeks later after he handed over to Shonekan, as late military head of state, General Sani Abacha overthrew the then Interim National Government, a development which seemed to have shown that there was at least, an element of truth to Babangida’s claim of a planned coup if Abiola had become president.
In 1994, Abacha declared the business mogul wanted, accusing him of treason and imprisoned him for declaring himself the lawful president of Nigeria.
Acting on Abacha’s orders, security operatives conveyed in 200 police vehicles, arrested Abiola at his Ikeja home and took him into custody. One of Abiola’s wives, Kudirat Abiola was also assassinated in 1996 for publicly declaring support for her husband.
Abiola was detained in solitary confinement for four years with a Bible, Qur’an and 14 guards. While in prison, he was under immense pressure to renounce his claim for his presidential mandate which was the condition for his release. He refused, despite the military’s offer to refund all his election expenses.
Also, the then United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan and the then Commonwealth Secretary-General, Emeka Anyaoku admonished him to relinquish his mandate, as according to them, they world would fail to recognise his five-year old election.
Not long after Abacha died on June 8, 1998, Abiola also died on July 7, 1998, on the day many believed he was to be released or maybe days after he met with a delegation of the United States State Department who visited the General AbdulSalam Abubakar-led military government to discuss the country’s transition to democracy and the unconditional release of Abiola and other political detainees. Abiola was said to have suffered a cardiac arrest during the meeting which led to his death but his family and medical doctor, however, believed he was murdered.
Had Babangida had any clue of the gravity of the effect his infamous decision was going to have on the country a few years later and even decades after, he might not have done what he did. On the flip side, however, if he didn’t annul the election and handed over power to Abiola, a coup against Abiola may perhaps, have taken place, as he had claimed. So, the dictator must have been left to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea.
The annulment of Abiola’s election and his eventual death seemed to have had an indelible impact on the country’s political space as years after, some governors, mostly in the South declared June 12 of every year as a public holiday in their respective states in recognition of the immeasurable sacrifice of the late political icon.
Eventually, in 2018, the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government in a landmark pronouncement, declared that June 12 of every year would be celebrated in the country as Democracy Day, a national holiday, replacing May 29, the date of the swearing-in of Nigeria’s first elected president in 1999, Olusegun Obasanjo, in the Fourth Republic.
Additionally, Buhari conferred on both the presumed winner of the June 12, 1993 election and his running mate Babagana Kingibe with Nigeria’s highest and second-highest honours – Grand Commander of the Federal Republic and Grand Commander of the Niger, respectively.
But so far, since the annulment in 1993 that dashed the Abeokuta-born democrat’s political aspiration which he tagged ‘Hope ‘93’, one would have expected that the unfortunate incident of almost three decades ago would have by now, translated to economic stability, improved security, job and wealth creation, the entrenchment of justice and more.
This largely hasn’t been the case as corruption, insecurity, killings, poverty, ethno-religious crisis have for years become a norm that most Nigerians across the country have now, unfortunately, grown accustomed to, despite the huge human and natural resources God has endowed the country with.
Thankfully, after the peaceful transmission of power by the military to civilians in 1999, Nigeria experienced an interrupted transition of power from civilian to civilian, from President Olusegun Obasanjo to late President Umaru Yar’Adua (2003), President Goodluck Jonathan to President Muhammadu Buhari (2011). The next transmission of power is expected to be in 2023. But throughout the last 23 years of interrupted civilian rule, have Nigerians been enjoying democracy or enduring it?
“Since that landmark peaceful, freest and fairest election in 1993, subsequent elections in the country can’t be spoken of in the same breath, as they have been marred with violence, rigging, vote-buying of delegates and electorates by aspirants, manipulation of election results, theft of election materials, burning of electoral offices and much more”
Since that landmark peaceful, freest and fairest election in 1993, subsequent elections in the country can’t be spoken of in the same breath, as they have been marred with violence, rigging, vote-buying of delegates and electorates by aspirants, manipulation of election results, theft of election materials, burning of electoral offices and much more.
Over the last ten years, Nigeria had been bedeviled with terrorist activities in most parts of the North while in the South, violent secessionist agitations, as well as reprisal attacks, have been rampant. These activities are comprised of suicide bombings, sporadic shooting of unarmed and innocent citizens, burning of police stations and churches, kidnappings even in Army Barracks and raping of school girls and women. All of these are born out of claims of injustice, inequity, imperialism by the government, clamour for state control of resources and a review of revenue sharing.
The Global Terrorism Index ranking for 2022 placed Nigeria in 6th position (among the Very High Impact list), rising from its previous position of 8th.
More so, the International Rescue Committee placed Nigeria 4th in its 2022 Emergency Watch list, a global list of humanitarian crises that are expected to deteriorate the most over the coming year. Also, according to Statistica, the confrontation between terrorist groups in Nigeria from 2011 to 2021 has resulted to over 20,000 deaths.
Insecurity has impacted negatively on food production, wealth creation and economic opportunities. Sadly, efforts to change this trend for the better will not see the light of day if the country continues to helplessly watch insecurity thrive, especially with reports suggesting that some high-ranking security personnel and politicians are morally and financially aiding these terrorist activities. It is important to note that if people are being killed in their farmlands, there will be no one to harvest or sell crops.
Asides from the bad economic policies of the government which have continued to leave many companies with no choice but to fold up or relocate outside the country, where economic policies are more favourable. Others have been forced to run into extinction while new companies are jittery about establishing in Nigeria.
The country has become as uncomfortable for its citizens as it has on a daily basis been losing its best brains who have been emigrating in droves to American, European and Asian countries in search of a better quality of life.
The NoiPolls in the recent poll it conducted revealed that “Almost 9 in 10 respondents (88%) disclosed they are seeking work opportunities abroad”. It also revealed that, “83% of doctors who filled the survey and are based abroad are licensed in Nigeria, indicating that they had completed their medical education in Nigeria before departing beyond the shores of Nigeria”.
It’s a common saying that where there is no justice, there is no peace. The incessant violence in the country has slowed down economic development as well as worsened poverty and hunger in the country.
Owing to the heightening insecurity across the country, foreign investors are gradually losing confidence in investing in Nigeria. Before insecurity in Nigeria deteriorated, data by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, revealed that Foreign Direct Investment flows to Nigeria averaged $5.3 billion annually from 2005-2007. However, UNCTAD data shows FDI to Nigeria reduced to an average $3.3 billion from 2015-2019, a period of heightened and widespread insecurity in the country.
In terms of poverty, the country hasn’t fared any better. In 2012, a report by the National Bureau of Statistics revealed that 60.9 percent of Nigerians in 2010 were living in “absolute poverty”, with the figure rising from 54.7 percent in 2004. Almost 100 million people were living on less than $1 a day despite the country’s economic growth. The NBS added that “Despite the fact that the Nigerian economy is growing, the proportion of Nigerians living in poverty is increasing every year,” predicting that the rising trend of poverty in the country will continue.
In 2020, the NBS, said more than 80 million Nigerians live in extreme poverty (on a dollar per day). Nigeria remained the poverty capital of the world until this year when India surpassed the West-African nation. According to the World Poverty Clock in 2022, Nigeria now has 70 million people living in extreme poverty, representing 33 per cent of Nigeria’s over 200 million people.
The case isn’t any better as regards unemployment. In 1993, Nigeria’s unemployment rate stood at 3.81 percent but a report by the NBS revealed that the country’s unemployment rate had more than quadrupled since 2016. The report also revealed that the unemployment rate rose to 33.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020, representing about 23.2 million people, which was the highest in at least 13 years and the second-highest rate globally. The figure also represents a rise from 27.1 percent recorded in the second quarter. It also added that one in three Nigerians willing and able to work are currently jobless.
Buttressing this point further was World Bank President, Akinwumi Adesina at a lecture in Lagos earlier in the year, when he said about 40 per cent of youths in the country were unemployed, noting that the youths were discouraged, angry and restless.
With the Buhari administration billed to end May 29, 2023, one can only hope that the next administration will come and turn everything around and lead it to the paradise Chief MKO Abiola envisioned it to be some 29 years ago.
