Former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida has blamed the annulment of the 12 June 1993 presidential election on his Chief of Defence Staff, General Sani Abacha, who was to die in office as Head of State on 8 June 1998.
In his memoir, A Journey in Service, launched in Abuja on Thursday, Babangida said that he was in Katsina when the annulment of the election, won by Chief Moshood Abiola, was announced by Mr. Nduka Irabor, the then Press Secretary to the then Vice President Augustus Aikhomu without his knowledge or permission.
He said he later discovered that the forces against the 12 June 1993 election were led by Abacha.
In the wake of the crisis, Babangida had stepped down as military president on 26 August 1993 and installed an interim government, led by Chief Ernest Shonekan, which Abacha would remove from power on 17 November 1993.
Abacha later clamped Abiola into detention for declaring himself president. It was in that confinement that Abiola died on 7 July 1998, aged 60 years.
Babangida, who made a national broadcast on 24 June 1993 to officially announce the annulment of the election, now said in his memoirs that Abacha had become a major force in a ‘factionalised’ military and it was difficult to remove him when he stepped down from power.]
The journey to the 12 June 1993 annulment began two days before D-Day when a judge granted an injunction stopping the electoral commission from going ahead with the election. A group known as the Association to Better Nigeria (ABN), led by Chief Arthur Nzeribe, had filed the lawsuit.
Babangida admitted in the memoir that Nzeribe was close to him, but denied supporting the activities of the ABN.
The former military president recollected: ‘From out of nowhere, on 10 June, two days before the presidential election, the same shadowy group, ABN, which had been campaigning for an extension of military rule, approached the Abuja High Court of Justice Bassey Ikpeme for an injunction to stop NEC (National Electoral Commission) from conducting the elections.
‘Unknown to me at the time, Justice Ikpeme, who was relatively young at the Bench, had worked in the chambers of the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Clement Akpamgbo. Strangely, Justice Ikpeme, in the dead of night, in clear violation of Decree 13, which barred any court from interfering with NEC’s conduct or scheduling of the elections, granted the ABN an injunction stopping NEC from conducting the 12 June 1993 elections. There was confusion everywhere’.
He said he quickly convened an emergency meeting of the National Defence and Security Council (NDSC), the country’s highest governing body, to discuss the way forward.
‘On Friday,11 June (1993), as the NDSC meeting was going on, I learned that a Lagos High Court had ruled that NEC should go ahead with the elections. The NDSC meeting on Friday, 11 June, only hours before the scheduled elections, was one of the stormiest meetings I ever conducted as President. Strangely, the Attorney General and Justice Minister, Akpamgbo, who was the nation’s chief law officer and who ought to know that the Justice Ikpeme court order violated an extant law (and was tacitly supported, it turned out by some of my topmost military officers), advised that the elections be postponed in compliance with the Abuja court order. Prof. (Humphrey) Nwosu (NEC Chairman) insisted, to the dismay of my top military colleagues, that he had enough powers under the law to proceed with the elections.
‘The arguments went on for hours in a tense atmosphere, peopled by some who wanted the elections postponed, among them the Chief of Defence Staff, General Sani Abacha, Lt-General Joshua Dogonyaro and a few Service Chiefs. But I had my views bottled inside me! Even before Professor Nwosu presented his compelling argument, I decided that the elections should proceed, backed firmly by the Chief of Army Staff, Lt-General Salihu Ibrahim’.
Babangida said he looked across the room and said to Nwosu: ‘Go ahead with the elections. Go to your office, hold a world press conference and tell everyone the elections will be held tomorrow as planned’.
He said that on 16 June 1993, Nwosu suddenly stopped the announcement of the election results even though the voting was peaceful and orderly.
‘And then, on 16 June, without my knowledge or prior approval, NEC Chairman, Prof. Nwosu, announced the suspension of the 12 June election results “until further notice”. I knew instantly that certain fifth columnists were at work and that there was a need for extra care! And even after that suspension of the announcements of results, ABN obtained another “strange” court order from Justice Saleh’s court in Abuja, stopping the release of the results of the elections”, Babangida wrote.
On 23 June 1993, Babangida left Abuja for Katsina to commiserate with the Yar’Adua family over the death of their patriarch, Alhaji Musa Yar’Adua, former Minister of Lagos Affairs and father of Umaru, the President who died in office in 5 May 2010.
Babangida narrated: ‘The funeral had taken place, and as I got ready to leave, a report filtered to me that the 12 June elections had been annulled. Even more bizarre was the extent of the annulment because it terminated all court proceedings regarding the 12 June elections, repealed all the decrees governing the transition and even suspended NEC! Equally weird was the shabby way the statement was couched and made. Admiral Aikhomu’s Press Secretary, Nduka Irabor, had read out a terse, poorly worded statement from a scrap of paper, which bore neither the presidential seal nor the official letterhead of the government, annulling the 12 June (1993) presidential elections. I was alarmed and horrified.
‘Yes, during the stalemate that followed the termination of the results announcement, the possibility of annulment that could lead to fresh elections was loosely broached in passing. But annulment was only a component of a series of other options. But to suddenly have an announcement made without my authority was, to put it mildly, alarming. I remember saying: “These nefarious ‘inside’ forces opposed to the elections have outflanked me”! I would later find out that the “forces’ led by General Sani Abacha annulled the elections. There and then, I knew I was caught between “a devil and the deep blue sea”!! From then on, the 12 June election took on a painful twist for which, as I will show later, I regrettably take responsibility’.
Credit: TheCable
