If you watch events carefully as they unfold in the country, you would agree with historians that history has a way of repeating itself. One of the teachers I admired most in my undergraduate days, Prof. Innocent (IFA) Uzoechi, usually had this compulsory question for freshers: “The lesson men learn from history is that they do not learn from history – Discuss”. You could, agree or disagree with him, depending on the strength of your argument. But there was always some logic in the assertion. Personalities may change, the environment may differ but there are certain trends that keep recurring. That is why, over time, men repeat same mistake in one way or another.
In 1993, Uche Chukwumerije (later Senator) was the Minister for Information under the infamous Interim National Government, put in place by the departing military administration of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. Babangida, who toppled a fellow coup plotter, General Muhammadu Buhari (current President) in 1985, had taken Nigerians on a senseless circus, promising to conduct a transparent election that would usher in credible democracy. But that never was.
A presidential election which held on 12th June 1993 saw newspaper publisher, MKO Abiola coasting to victory. But Babangida annulled the election, citing frivolous reasons. At that point, it became clear to Nigerians that Babangida had no agenda of handing over power to anybody. Consequent agitations across the land, forced him to constitute the ING headed by late Ernest Shonekan.
It fell on Chukwumerije, as the information minister, to explain to Nigerians and the international community, the true state of affairs in the country. But the minister turned his assignment to declaration of war against the pro-democracy organisations and other Nigerians that demanded the validation of the Abiola mandate. Chukwumerije accused Abiola of treason, for insisting that he be declared the president-elect. Subsequent events led to the arrest of Abiola, who eventually died in detention. Nigeria is yet to recover from the impacts of that thoughtless action by Babangida.
Thirty years after the fiasco, another minister of information, Lai Mohammed is toying with allegation of treason against another politician, Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP) in the 25th February 2023 election. Obi’s offence is insisting that Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who was declared president-elect by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), did not win the election. Obi maintains that he is the winner of the election and has filed petition at the Presidential Election Petition Panel, raising grounds on why Tinubu should not be president.
Mohammed is not taking kindly to the audacity by Obi, hence the treason charge against him and his running mate, Yusuf Datti- Ahmed. The minister had in Washington DC during his official engagements with some international media organisations, accused Obi, and Datti-Ahmed, of inciting people to violence over the outcome of the presidential elections, describing the action as treasonable. “Obi and his Vice, Datti-Ahmed cannot be threatening Nigerians that if the President-elect, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is sworn in on May 29, it will be the end of democracy in Nigeria. This is treason. You cannot be inviting insurrection, and this is what they are doing”, he alleged.
Obi has of course dismissed the allegations, describing them as fictitious and malicious. For emphasis, he stressed: “I have never discussed or encouraged anyone to undermine the Nigerian state; I’ve never sponsored or preached any action against the Nigerian state. Those initiating these actions have increasingly used their official positions and agents to make false allegations against me. I’m on record as always advocating peace and issue-based campaign and not campaigning based on ethnicity or religion. I’m committed to due process and am presently seeking redress in court”. There is nothing further any person can expect from a patriotic Nigerian who feels sufficiently aggrieved on how he and his followers have been treated.
Seeking redress through the court, as Obi is doing, is regarded as an acceptable action in strengthening democracy all over the world. There are even instances of such commendable actions here. In the Second Republic, when the presidential candidate of the Unity Party of Nigeria, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, felt cheated in the 1979 election, he took his grievances to the courts and followed them up to the Supreme Court. From 2003 to 2011, when Buhari repeatedly ran for the presidency and lost, he sought redress in the Courts. In 2019, Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, went to court to argue that the election was rigged in favour of President Buhari. In all these instances, neither Awolowo, Buhari nor Atiku, was accused of treason or intimidated by the government of the day. Obi’s case should not be different.
Mohammed may wish to know that treason is not a word he could drop recklessly. Apart from being a minister, he is a lawyer and should know better. Treason is a weighty offence. The laws of the land describe it as conspiracy at declaration of war against the State. The penalty is punishment by death. This is not what someone in apposition of authority as the minister should wish a fellow citizen that has not committed any offence.
There is danger in the tricky game by Mohammed and the government. Externalising the allegation of treason against Obi, without proofs, is not good for the image of the country. It portrays Nigeria as a system without laws. Everything is not about politics and propaganda. There are times when sobriety and national interest count. This is one of such moments. Nigerians have had enough of stress under the Buhari administration. They should be spared further tension by the likes of Lai Mohammed. By its panicky mode, the government is confirming the suspicion by Nigerians that it acted in cahoots with INEC to rig the election for Tinubu.
The government is also showing that it is working against the interest of Nigerians and confirms the views of Harvard University political scientists, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, in their book, How democracies Die, that “democracies may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders – presidents or prime ministers who subvert the very process that brought them to power”. This is the crux of the Lai Mohammed phantom treason charge against Obi and Yusuf-Datti.
