Daily Independent Online.
*
Friday, June 11, 2004.
Another look at June 12
By
Innocent Oparadike
Perhaps
without meaning to, Chief Tom Ikimi's recent interview with the Sun Newspaper
reopened the June 12 debate. For most Nigerians, June 12 remains an emotive
issue. That is understandable, for June 12 represented a watershed in the life
of this nation. It held up so much hope and broke quite a few myths. It showed
off our military as an occupation force rather than a people’s liberation
army, which is the picture
every coup speech paints.
Presented with the uncertainties and difficulties of the
current dispensation, Nigerians wouldn't be human if they don't sometimes
wonder what might have been. Would Abiola, a chartered accountant, have managed
the economy better? Would his love for the masses have translated to reforms
with a human face? Nostalgia while understandable is hardly helpful.
Nevertheless, a look back is called for to know what really
happened. Until we hear from General- I.B Babangida, we may truly never get the complete picture. Tom Ikimi's
charges against former Works Minister, Chief Tony Anenih aroused my curiosity
and set me on trips to Abuja, Enugu, Lagos, among others, to speak with some of
the principal actors of what has come to be known as the June 12 saga. I did
not have the courage to go to Kano because my faith, tongue, looks and names
are not Kano compliant. Happily, some of the principal actors mentioned who
hail from Kano actually live in Abuja.
The first obvious target for a chat was Chief Tony Anenih accused by his kinsman, Tom
Ikimi, as having not striven hard enough for the revalidation of June 12.
However, Chief Anenih wouldn't talk. Through an aide he told me he doesn't talk
to the press and in any case his book will be out before the end of the year
and all he has to say will be in the book.
But others present as the June 12 drama unfolded were not
so coy. From them I have been able to piece together a picture that suggests
that those we see as villains may have been victims. For most of the civilians
usually mentioned in connection with the June 12 drama were not actors in the
real sense of that word but mostly
passive audiences. They were not
participants, they merely took orders. The military rulers presented them
with a ‘fait
accompli’. Besides, SDP's valiant fight to actualise its mandate was
hampered by NRC's short-sighted willingness to betray democracy because it lost
an election.
Hereunder follow participants' recollection of what
transpired in those nightmarish days. Before the election, it was common
knowledge that Chief MKO Abiola was a close friend, defender and confidant of
military President Ibrahim Babangida. In fact, on different occasions, Abiola
would cut short his campaign trips to go and visit President Babangida in
Abuja.
On his return from one such trips, he complained that his
friend (IBB) was starving him of funds, an obvious reference to the
government's unwillingness to pay him the billions owed him, billions he had
counted on to fight the presidential battle. It is also an undisputed fact that
before joining the presidential race, Chief Abiola sought and obtained the nod
of his friend, the military president. To crown it all, when Senator Arthur
Nzeribe's Association for a Better Nigeria (ABN) went to court to abort
democracy, Chief Abiola went to see Gen. Babangida who assured him he would
make a statement to the effect that the courts lacked the jurisdiction to stop
the elections, that he and his party should go ahead and prepare for the
elections. The president did as promised and on the strength of that statement
from the government, everybody - NRC, SDP, NECON and the candidates - disobeyed
the court order.
It would seem however, that as he was issuing that
disobey-the-court order statement General Babangida had been led to believe by
security reports available to him that Alhaji Bashir Tofa of the NRC was going
to win. The calculation was that nullifying his election would be easy as it
was known to the government that he was not a card-carrying member of his party
at the time he was prevailed upon to run. What the great Maradona of Nigerian governance did not know was
that key SDP operatives influenced the security reports rnade available to the
general.
So, when the results of the presidential results started
coming in, IBB was stunned as the trend flatly contradicted his security
reports. Logistic problems with the delivery of the Taraba results forced a
two-day delay. When those finally came, but collation did not immediately
resume, many saw the hand of government there, the subsequent absence of
Professor Humphrey Nwosu was the only confirmation needed.
Tension mounted. Abiola became restless. The grapevine
buzzed. Through his spy network he got wind of the day and time the hammer was
to fall. He sought to reach IBB on the phone, the president was unavailable,
but Akilu was there to ask him to phone in the next 30 minutes in a
never-ending merry-go-round. In the room with him were Dr. Dele Cole, Kola
Abiola, Alhaji Baba Gana Kingibe, among others. According to the witnesses, a
distraught Abiola finally asked Akilu something along the following lines:
"So I can't speak to him, please tell him we are still friends. Tell him
all the photographs we took are all in my parlour here and he should please
allow me to be president for one day, the following day I will resign."
The restlessness on the part of Abiola led to the group relocating to Kola
Abiola's Maryland home and it was here they heard on NTA, the bombshell, and
learnt that Abiola had a fax copy of the president's speech since morning and
that was the reason for his restlessness and urgent need to speak to Gen.
Babangida.
This was the setting for SDP leaders and stakeholders
meeting in Benin. At the commencement
of the meeting, Abiola was not available, he had gone to Abuja to honour
an invitation from his friend and tormentor, Gen. Babangida. He joined the
Benin meeting about 1a.m. To the queries of anxious party leaders, he said
evening was all right. The party ended that meeting with a resolve to stand on
June 12.
After this Benin meeting came the first of several meetings
the leaders of the two parties had with the military president on the June 12
palaver. As recollected by a key
member of the NRC delegation from Eastern Nigeria, "He came accompanied by
Akpamgbo, the then Attorney General, Aikhomu, Shonekan (then head of transition
committee), NECON leaders. He just came in and said: "Gentlemen, I am here
sincerely, committedly, honestly, a problem has been created by the annulment and I want you to
discuss it." He said he was the most misunderstood Nigerian, that Abiola
was his friend and Tofa was his friend, but members of the armed forces would
not accept any of them as their commander-in-chief. He therefore asked the
parties to prepare for fresh presidential elections in six weeks. When he asked
the party leaders to speak, the NRC Chairman, Dr. Kusamotu, said his party was
ready for fresh polls. According to this participant, the general got a
tongue-lashing from the SDP Chairman, Chief Tony Anenih. He reportedly told the
general something along these lines, "Mr. president, I am surprised you
are calling this meeting now, I wonder why you did not call it before annulling
a well-conducted election. You said Abiola is your friend, he actually told me
that apart from getting clearance from the electoral commission, he got
clearance from you as his friend and you gave him the mandate to go and run. Is
it only now you know that he is not a fit and proper person to be the
commander-in-chief ?" IBB reportedly said it was not he; it was the middle
cadre of the armed forces who don't want him. But the chairman of SDP was not
done. He said: "Sorry sir, we are demanding for the release of the June 12
election results. We have no mandate for and we will not accept fresh elections."
He said thank you very much, the chairman of the SDP says he has no mandate, I
give you seven days to go and consult and come back. After seven days we went
back our party NRC expressed a willingness to participate in fresh elections,
SDP stuck to its guns. Then IBB gave the party leaders five days to go and
ponder his two options i.e. fresh election in six weeks or interim government,
which may entail sacking of all democratic structures.
Corroborating the recollections of our first witness, a
second participant from the South-west testified thus: "We had a joint
meeting two days later and at the end we decided that the only way to ease out
the military was through an interim government. So, we signed a joint
communique. Before this joint meeting, we had our NEC meeting with the likes of
Yar'dua, Kingibe, Jakande and all the SDP governors present. We agreed on an
interim government with the proviso that Abiola should head it. The SDP
chairman did not influence the decision in any way. He couldn't have with the
calibre of leaders present.
Even though IBB praised the party leaders as they presented
the joint communique, the subsequent rejection of the interim government option
by senior military and police officers forum at a meeting he convened casts doubt
on the joy he expressed at the occasion. Following that rejection, the party
leaders were once again summoned to the Villa and ordered to go and prepare for
fresh elections.
Another participant, SDP stalwart from Kano. Recollects:
"This time, IBB was absent at a meeting he called. In his place, Admiral
Aikhomu presided. He read the communique of the army/police meeting and ordered
the parties to go for fresh elections. NRC expressed a willingness to do so,
SDP adamantly refused. Chief Tony Anenih gave us a pleasant surprise. He told
Aikhomu to his face, “Admiral, your president has once again shown the
inconsistency for which your government is known. We are going to insist on ING
at the worst, at best we want the results of the June 12 elections released. So
gentleman, let us go. We got up and followed him out.
"The government was shaken. Five days later, NECON
invited us to a meeting to work out the modalities for a new election. SDP
wrote back to say it will not accept, it will not participate. They wrote again
that in the interest of the corporate existence of Nigeria, we should please
attend. We wrote back to say we won't.
"Aikhomu now wrote observing that while NRC was
prepared for a fresh election, SDP was insisting on the release of JUNE 12
election results. He invited us back for yet another meeting. It was when they
found out that we were not interested in fresh elections that they now
accepted ING."
Choice of Shonekan
Before now, there has been the speculation that the current
President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, put himself forward as head of the interim
government, and failing in that suggested Chief Ernest Shonekan as alternative.
It can now be said for sure that there is no truth to that. In fact, Shonekan
was suggested by an SDP leader at a meeting in Aikhomu's house that had in
attendance the likes of Abacha, lBB and the party leaders.
At the meeting, IBB reportedly said, “well supposing
I resign, who takes over from me? To which Aikhomu cut in to say, it is not
just you that must go, the Nigerian people are fed up with the armed forces, so
all of us must go. It was at this point that this SDP leader reportedly said -
we have Chief Shonekan there who is already part of your government, he is a
Yoruba man from Abeokuta. People
are saying we didn't want a Yoruba man to head the government, why not put him
there?
In any case he has just left UAC, one of the biggest
British companies in Nigeria, the British government will have sympathy for
him. IBB then said, "that is a point, Augustus talk to Shonekan and see if
he agrees, we will meet here again at six o'clock tomorrow." The following
day, Aikhomu reported that Shonekan had accepted.
Shonekan’s pledge
lt can now be disclosed that when Shonekan was sworn in, he
pledged that by the 31st of March
1994, he would quit, nothing would make him stay beyond that point. On the
strength of that pledge, the party leaders resolved that after the February
1994 local government elections, they would find a way to bring Abiola back.
They went to Abiola to present a position paper to him. NRC was agreeable, but
insisted on sharing ministerial positions. Abiola was willing but would not
share secretary to government, defence and internal affairs. The party leaders
then started going round the traditional rulers to start briefing them on the
new plan. One day, coming from the Emir of Zaria, the 4p.m. news was announcing
Abiola calling on General Abacha, the people's general, to come and ease out
Shonekan as he eased out lBB. The party leaders called him to inquire what was
going on and he said, 'you see if you planned going to Kano by road and you
have the chance to go by air as long as you get to Kano, that is right. The
all-party arrangement for him to come in by March was going to Kano by road,
while the arrangement with General Abacha was going by air. He agreed this
arrangement with General Abacha without telling the party. With that understanding in place, when on November 17, 1993, Abacha eased out
Shonekan, Abiola led a high-powered SDP delegation from Lagos to Dodan Barraks
to go and congratulate him. He expected
Abacha to call him the next day or two to take over. He wanted to go to Kano by
air rather than by road, he became airborne but could not land. Abacha made
good propaganda use of that solidarity visit video, which was periodically
shown on NTA network and taken on
all image laundering trips abroad.
When this arrangement with General Abacha to fast-track his
assumption of office as duly elected president fell through, Abiola considered
the military option when he left the country for self-exile, it was generally
assumed he was going for the
Taylor or Museveni option, after all the Ugandan President owed his position to
Chief Abiola.
But he came back from that trip without an army. As he told
this writer in private conversation in his Ikeja residence, he thoroughly
examined the military option but jettisoned it because he was convinced that it
was morally wrong to climb over the bodies of Nigerians who had massively voted
for him to assume office. So he adopted the Mandela option in a society that was
not quite ready for it. The major powers— USA and Britain looked to an
Abiola presidency with apprehension. They feared they might be held to account
for slavery, for economic exploitation and for neocolonialism. So the man died
and Nigerians cast about for scapegoats. SDP leaders became ready scapegoats.
However, the foregoing account shows that they were like the rest of us, the
victims of a few generals' vaulting ambition.
Chief Tom Ikimi went on that familiar road because after
playing a leading role in PDP political theatre, he expected the kind of reward
the leadership felt that, given his antecedents, he did not deserve. In best
scapegoating fashion, he saw his kinsmen as the reason his ambition was not
realized. Not quite fair to all concerned.
•Chief Oparadike is chairman, Governing Board of
the Imo State Orientation Agency.
