By Michael Chibuzo
In the past few days, a raging national debate of whether to immortalise the late Chairman of the defunct National Electoral Commission (NEC), Prof. Humphrey Nwosu or not has taken hold with many individuals taking strong positions on either side of the debate.
It all started when Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe moved a motion to immortalise Prof. Humphrey Nwosu by renaming the INEC headquarters in Abuja after him. The contents of the motion elicited debate on the floor of the Senate with many senators speaking in favour or against the motion. Eventually the motion was rejected and Sen. Abaribe and few other senators from the South East staged a walk out in protest. Thus the debate spilled over to the ‘streets’.
Some notable leaders like Senator Adams Oshiomhole have kicked against immortalising Prof. Nwosu saying that the fact Prof. Humphrey Nwosu failed to announce the results means his courage failed him at the most critical time. He also alleged that before his death, Prof. Humphrey Nwosu did not make attempt to remedy history by publicly announcing who won the June 12, 1993 presidential election.
MY PERSPECTIVES
I disagree with Sen. Adams Oshiomhole and others who said Prof. Humphrey Nwosu does not deserve national honours. My reasons are as follows:
1. Before the June 12 presidential election, the National Electoral Commission headed by Prof. Humphrey Nwosu had already done a tremendous job trying to restore the credibility of the commission following the sacking of Prof. Awa who earlier headed the commission and was seen as hardliner. Prof. Nwosu was viewed by many politicians and democracy activists as someone who was brought by the military to deliver electoral results that the military ordained. However due to the massive engagement of the political class, intellectuals, the media and the civil societies by Prof. Humphrey Nwosu explaining in details the IBB transition programme being implemented by NEC, by 1992, Prof. Humphrey Nwosu-led NEC had already covered itself in considerable glory as they conducted very credible governorship and national assembly elections. These elections were all conclusive and the winners got sworn in and began their official duties. To accomplish this under a military government reluctant to relinquish power is not a mean feat and deserves commendation.
2. The June 12 election itself is rightly the cynosure of all eyes because that would have concluded the IBB transition plan. However, many in the military hierarchy were probably not ready to relinquish power totally and return to the barracks hence the plotting on how to truncate the full transition to civil rule or at best have a sort of diarchy where the Military will share power with civilian elected officials. The annulled presidential primaries were an early pointer to this reluctance.
As a result of this reality, the possibility of going ahead with the already scheduled June 12 election was under real and serious threat from forces operating at the highest level in the military government with their civilian collaborators. Prof. Humphrey Nwosu’s gatecrashing of the June 11, 1993 meeting of the Supreme Military Council most likely made sure that the election was not cancelled or postponed even in the presence of a court order stopping the election. Prof. Humphrey Nwosu, whose commission had earlier delivered elections across the 30 states of the federation wanted to complete the process and assured IBB that they were ready to conduct the election across the country. Forces led by Gen. Abacha then we’re obviously against going ahead with the election. If Prof. Humphrey Nwosu did not arrive at the June 11, 1993 meeting of the ruling military class uninvited alongside with the commissions Director of Legal Services, who was fidgeting, perhaps there won’t be a June 12. Prof. Nwosu on this showed great courage.
3. The June 12 election itself was a huge undertaking and for it to succeed and go smoothly, a lot of logistics and administrative boxes had to be perfectly ticked by the National Electoral Commission. For example, electoral materials must arrive early at polling stations across the country, adhoc poll workers must be adequately trained, a transparent mechanism of collation must be put in place at every level of collation starting with the wards, LGAs, states and the national collation.
The fact that elections held peacefully with winners announced at the polling stations and these results collated transparently at the ward, LGA and state levels reflects positively on the mechanisms put in place by the NEC led by Prof. Humphrey Nwosu.
According to Prof. Nwosu himself in his 2008 book, which was republished in 2017, as at June 16, 1993 when he was served with a Federal High Court order by Justice Aminu Saleh stopping collation of the results, the commission had already collated all states and the FCT remaining only that of Taraba, whose returning officer was already on his way to the commission’s headquarters.
4. Prof. Humphrey’s NEC actually challenged the order of Justice Aminu Saleh halting collation by filing an Appeal before the Court of Appeal sitting in Kaduna to vacate the order. As part of the appeal by NEC, the complete results of the June 12 election were pleaded where it stated that MKO Abiola of the SDP had clearly won the election. MKO Abiola also appealed the federal high court order before the Kaduna Appeal Court Division.
When the military saw that the Appeal Court panel led by Justice Akanbi was unwilling to do its bidding and was likely going to set aside the federal high court order suspending collation of rests, the military government of IBB in a preemptive move dissolved NEC, revoked the decree under which the entire transition programme was based on, effectively nullifying all the results of elections conducted by the NEC.
The only area Prof. Humphrey Nwosu could be accused of lacking sufficient radical courage was accepting to suspend collation of results following receipt of the FHC order which he said was personally served on him by the FCT Police Commissioner. Some other more radical individual would have insisted on going ahead with the collation on the strength of the June 11, 1993 order from a High Court in Lagos which gave NEC go ahead to conduct and conclude the June 12 election.
By pausing collation and trying to legally vacate the order at the Appeal Court, Prof. Humphrey Nwosu gave the Abacha-led hawks the space to strike. From that moment on, it was no longer possible for Prof. Humphrey Nwosu to legitimately make any pronouncement that will carry the weight of law. He was no longer the NEC Chairman/Chief Returning Officer.
This final hour loss of courage notwithstanding, Prof. Humphrey Nwosu and his team at NEC did everything right and according to the legal statutes and deserve great commendation even if it’s not an elaborate Immortalisation. If Kingigbe, who abandoned the June 12 cause at some point could be honoured, I believe it is necessary to honour the head of the electoral commission that delivered the credible election that has become a reference point.
My grouse with Abaribe and South East Political Elites
Even though I support calls for Prof. Nwosu to be immortalised, I frown at the drama South East political elites are making it to be. Sen. Abaribe specialises in this kind of drama. You won’t see Abaribe, Umeh and others staging a walk out over budget padding issues.
Secondly, for the past 30 years after June 12, what prevented South East governors especially Anambra State from honouring Prof. Nwosu all these years. Charity begins at home. South West led the Immortalisation of MKO Abiola and with diplomacy eventually got the country to immortalise him.
I believe Anambra and South East should lead the Immortalisation of Prof. Humphrey Nwosu. FG can then follow suit.