@ katsina times
On Saturday, June 12, 1993, the Presidential elections took place as planned. To my surprise, the polls were not just peaceful but very peaceful indeed! Voting took place in all the 110,000 polling stations in the country, and in keeping with the Modified Open Ballot System (MOBS) as stipulated in Decree 13, counting took place flawlessly in the open, followed almost simultaneously with an open collation that allowed for final results to be attained quickly.
Using a giant board in front of its Abuja offices, NEC started, as early as June 13, as stipulated by the Electoral law, to display alreadyreleased results from all 30 State Headquarters of NEC before the Resident Electoral Commissioners brought them to Abuja for final ratification. ‘That process of public display of results, which had now covered 14 states, continued until June 14. And then, on June 16, without my knowledge or prior approval, NEC Chairman, Professor Nwosu, announced the suspension of the June 12 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.
The stoppage of the announcement of results led to a national stalemate and confusion, which was compounded, not surprisingly, by a flurry of protests from different sectors of society, among them the Campaign for Democracy (CD), different Human Rights Organisations, other special interest groups such as the Nigerian
Bar Association (NBA), the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Women in Nigeria (WIN) and the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA). Almost overwhelmed by a looming national crisis of unimaginable dimension, I withdrew to my home in Minna to reflect and hold a series of meetings with various people, within and outside the military, on the situation, oblivious that something even more severe and sinister was about to happen.
On the morning of June 23, i left Abuja for Katsina to commiserate with the Yar'Adua family over the death of their patriarch, Alhaji Musa Yar'Adua. The funeral had taken place, and as I got ready to leave, a report filtered to me that the June 12 elections had been annulled. Even more bizarre was the extent of the annulment because it terminated all court proceedings regarding the June 12 elections, repealed all the decrees governing the Transition and even suspended NEC!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 June 12 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 ‘the devil and the deep blue sea’!! From then on, the June 12 elections took on a painful twist for which, as I will show later, I regrettably take responsibility.
FOLLOWING THE ANNULMENT, the country was engulfed in one
of its worst political crises ever. Like many of us in government, the political class was stunned. For the first time, civil and human rights organisations confronted the government with an unprecedented civil disobedience campaign. The sit-at-home campaign organised by the Campaign for Democracy (CD) led to the shut-down of shops and marketplaces and completely paralysed Lagos and much of the southwest. The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) was joined by the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) in the protests.
Within the military leadership, there was palpable outrage. The best of us, like Lt-General Salihu Ibrahim and Major-General Ishola Williams, were alarmed, and Colonel Abubakar Dangiwa Umar threatened to resign. Even Admiral Aikhomu, whose press secretary, Irabor, had announced the annulment, was horrified. The public vilified me. Instigated, among other things, by elements within the armed forces, the Nigerian press called me all kinds of names and described me as a power-drunk dictator who desperately wanted to cling to power.
Tensions in the country were compounded by baseless conspiracy theories meant to justify the annulment. One such theory was that Abiola had pencilled down a list of top military officers to be dismissed upon assuming office as president. Another conspiracy theory was that the government had let the June 12 elections go ahead in the knowledge, based on security reports, that Tofa would win. However, once Abiola won, the government sought a way to frustrate his mandate.
These were spurious theories circulated by those opposed to an Abiola presidency. Some persons indeed expressed their reservations about an Abiola presidency before the elections. There were times when, deep down inside me, even I feared that Abiola might not be an effective president. However, having allowed the process to go ahead in which Abiola appeared to have emerged victorious in an election deemed the freest and fairest in our country’s history, I was committed to ensuring that the results should stand. To do otherwise would amount to a subversion of the will of the Nigerian people.
But I also knew we were dealing with a delicate situation that could lead to national disintegration. The military was factionalised into rival groups between those opposed to the transition to civil rule, particularly an Abiola presidency, and those who thought the military should keep its word and hand over to a democratically elected government. The military was awash with rumours of plots by those who wanted to depose me to have Abiola installed and those who wanted to take me out violently to ensure that the annulment stayed. There were rumours of a third group, made up of sworn and implacable enemies of Abiola, a hard-line faction, who threatened that Abiola could only be President over their dead bodies! And if it meant taking me out violently to effect their threat, they were willing to do so. It was painful for me to discover later that apart from Abacha, some of my closest colleagues, particularly a Lt-General, were kneedeep in the plot to eliminate me. The only reason those disparate forces did not strike against me was that it was feared, and rightly so, that since I still enjoyed the support of a sizable proportion of the armed forces, any attack on the government or my person would lead to a bloodbath.
The polarisation within the military was so fraught with danger that the best I could do in the circumstance was to project a united front as government in the face of the stiff opposition | faced as President. Although the annulment took all by surprise, as Commander-in-Chief, I took responsibility for it. In my speech on June 26, tepid and disingenuous as it may seem, | attempted to ‘justify’ the annulment in the face of supposed nationwide ‘widespread electoral malpractices’ during the elections! What mattered at the time to me as President and Commander-in-Chief was the unity of the army and my conviction that if the army was united, it could safeguard the country from disintegration.
After several brainstorming sessions with various groups, | contacted M.K.O Abiola to find a way forward. At one of my several
meetings with Abiola, arranged this time by some traditional leaders, I offered Abiola an interim position pending when we could resolve
the situation. Not surprisingly, Abiola turned down my offer. How could anyone blame him? Since he was convinced that he had won the elections that the annulment had denied him, it seemed overtly inappropriate to accept an interim arrangement. For him, it was a matter of once bitten, twice shy! At another meeting, this time a more private meeting of both families, I articulated that our lives were in danger of being snuffed out by lurking forces that wished both of us ill.
Unfortunately, Abiola turned his back on any form of rapprochement with me and embraced the gimmicks of deceitful ‘friends’ who hid their real intentions from him. I read somewhere, I believe, in one of Abiola’s newspapers that Abiola thought that the moment these ‘friends’ overthrew me, the elections would be deannulled and that he would be installed as President by his ‘coup plotting friends’ As it turned out, Abiola was advised by these same ‘friends’ to leave the country to avoid death threats from fictitious military elements. Abiola’s departure paved the way for his ‘friends’ to consolidate their conspiratorial positions, eventually leading to another military takeover.
Without question, one of my biggest headaches at this time was Sani Abacha. I knew that Abacha was ambivalent about a return to civil rule. But I thought, in retrospect now, naively, that he would support our transition to civil rule programme. As I said earlier, Abacha and I had come a long way. We were good friends, and he had indeed been nice to me. As I have said elsewhere, he saved my life once and also risked his life to ensure that I took over in 1985. I could never forget those details. But it's also correct that he was a complex character. He was capable of bottling up a lot inside without giving a hint of where he was. And then, suddenly, the bottle bursts, and we begin to see a different person. I obviously didn't know everything about him! For instance, I was alarmed to discover that he and a handful of others mobilised negative opinions against me within the military, portraying me as the problem. That campaign was geared towards a violent military coup to remove me as President forcefully.
But even more bizarre for me was my discovery of the loathing that Abacha had for the person of Abiola, whom I thought had a good relationship with him.
ACUTELY AWARE THAT a General could not lead an army in disarray, I went back to the drawing board to devise a new plan, no matter how irresolute it may be. The National Defence and Security Council (NDSC) repeatedly met to map a way out of the dilemma we had found ourselves in. Having failed to sell the idea of fresh presidential elections to the two political parties, SDP and NRC, and faced with the fact that the annulment could not be rescinded because of the scary opposition to it within sections of the topmost hierarchy of the military leadership, the idea of an Interim National Government (ING) gained some traction within and outside the government. Faced with a frighteningly daunting alternative, we were forced on July 31, 1993, to inaugurate a Tripartite Committee headed by Vice-President Augustus Aikhomu, comprising representatives from the Federal government and the two political parties. While the NRC was represented by Adamu Ciroma, Eyo Ita, John Nwodo, Tom Ikimi and Bashir Dalhatu, the SDP team was made up of Major-General Yar'Adua, Dele Cole, Joseph Toba, Olusola Saraki, Jim Nwobodo, Abubakar Rimi and Dapo Sarumi.
Admiral Aikhomu headed the federal government team, which included Lt-General Joshua Dogonyaro, Lt-General Aliyu Mohammed Gusau, Brigadier David Mark, Brigadier Anthony Ukpo, Brigadier John Shagaya, Ernest Shonekan, Clement Akpamgbo, and Abdulrahman Okene. On August 2, Lt-General Ibrahim briefed some senior officers at the Command Mess in Lagos to fully prepare the military.
After several protracted deliberations covering a wide range of topics, the NDSC, in close collaboration with representatives of the two political parties, in March 1994, settled for an Interim National Government (ING). Without question, the idea of an ING was a
contraption, something of a compromise between the fierce Abachaled opposition to the June 12 election results and the position that the election results be allowed to stay, one that will succeed our government after the August 27, 1993, exit date. To legally actualise that decision, the government directed Professor Ben Nwabueze and Clement Akpamgbo to draft an enabling law, Decree 61 of 1993, the legal framework for the ING.
Although the political parties had suggested a few other names for headship of the ING, we, as a government, were okay with letting the Transition Council Chairman, Chief Ernest Shonekan, head the ING. Desirous of not being a stumbling block of any type, and as a personal sacrifice, on August 17, 1993, I announced my desire to ‘step aside’ and go into retirement during my address to a joint sitting of the National Assembly. The outgoing government also felt that it would be proper for the Service Chiefs to retire, namely Lt-General Ibrahim, Air Vice-Marshal Akin Dada, Vice-Admiral Dan Preston Omatsola, and Aliyu Attah.
One didnt need to be a soothsayer or an astute political scientist to see that Chief Shonekan would have a tough time on the job. Although a former Chief Executive of UAC/Unilever, I feared he might lack the political astuteness to handle the impending national challenges. The situation was further complicated because, like Abiola, Shonekan was an Egba-Yoruba, which meant the new Interim government would be unpopular in Abiola’s strongest hold, southwestern Nigeria.
Partly for the reasons stated above, we decided to provide adequate support to the new government by retaining critical top military officers from the outgoing Transitional Council I had headed, essentially as ‘enforcers’ for the new interim government. Accordingly, Lt-Generals Joshua Dogonyaro (as Chief of Detence Staff), Aliya Muhammed Gusau (as Chief of Army Staff), and Brigadier John Shagaya (as GOC First Division) were retained. Problematic as it seemed, General Abacha also retained his position as the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff and, presumably, as
enforcer-in-chief for the new government! But as we all now know, that was a grave mistake. In keeping with the promise I made when I addressed the joint sitting of the National Assembly on the morning of Friday, August 27, 1993, after I signed Decree 61 into Law, exactly eight years after I assumed office on August 27, 1985, I stepped aside as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces and returned home to Minna.
Culled from a book titled .A journey in service An autobiography. IBRAHIM BABANGIDA. Published by Bookcraft ..in 2025.
