Fifteen Years after "June 12"

Last week we wrote on the Abacha phenomenon and its dramatic effects on the evolution of the Nigerian state and reflected on how Nigeria has fared ten years after his death on June 8, 1998. Today we remember the events that led directly to the ascension of General Sani Abacha to the office of Head of State of Nigeria. It is not controversial I believe to assert that Abacha’s rule was a direct consequence of the June 12 1993 election crisis and the events following therefrom.

Soldiers led defacto by General Ibrahjim Babangida and dejure by General Muhammadu Buhari had removed the civilian regime of Alhaji Shehu Shagari from office on December 31, 1983. General Buhari became military head of state with General Babatunde Idiagbon as Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, in effect the military prime minister. The Buhari/Idiagbon regime as it became known was not very politically savvy, alienating virtually every important local and international constituency-the politicians, civil servants, media, business and even important segments of the ruling military. At some point, Babangida, the powerful Chief of Army staff and real power behind the throne was similarly alienated and on August 27, 1985, Babagida struck and took the power for himself.

IBB as Babangida was popularly known did a lot of things differently. He was till then the Nigerian leader who came to office with the best preparation for the office. He had been a member of the Supreme Military Council under the Murtala Muhammed/Obasanjo regime between 1975 and 1979, even as a relatively junior army officer. He had been one of the inner circle of coup planners (along with Joe Garba, Shehu Musa Yar’adua and Anthony Ochefu etc) who decided to displace the Gowon regime and install the triumvirate of Murtala, Obasanjo and Theophilus Danjuma in his place. IBB took the unprecedented action of taking the title of President, signalling that he intended to be an executive rather than a collegial head of state.

He launched an ambitious economic programme, the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), the precursor to NEEDS and other such economic reform programmes based on free market principles and embarked upon a transition to civil rule programme. The former Buhari regime had explicitly ruled out a similar transition programme. IBB announced a very elaborate transition starting with a Political Bureau, then a constituent assembly and thereafter local government elections on zero party basis. He initially announced an exit date of October 1990, but then began to shift the date raising suspicions that IBB was beginning to enjoy the office, and may be reluctant to hand over. Then a series of banning and un-banning of experienced politicians.

The most significant political innovation of the IBB transition was however the decreeing into existence of two government formed political parties-one “a little to the left” (the Social Democratic Party-SDP) and the other “a little to the right” (the National Republican Convention-NRC) after Babangida ordered the dissolution of the authentic parties formed by the political class and forced the politicians to congregate in his government-owned parties. The government actually appointed interim administrators for these parties and everyone was supposed to be a joiner with no founders and owners. Consequently the more conservative elements with their centre of gravity in the North joined the NRC, while the Western political elite and General Yar’adua’s Peoples Front of Nigeria (PFN) joined the SDP.

In the run up to the Presidential elections which had then been shifted from 1990 to 1992, several front runners emerged-Chief Olu Falae and Gen Yarádua in the SDP and Adamu Ciroma and Umaru Shinkafi in the NRC. I recall that those nomination battles were the first time I took a deep interest in politics backing Falae’s campaign and actually attending some of his rallies and political events. But then Yarádua’s PFN faction was in control of the SDP party machinery and had strong allies in Falae’s Yoruba base (Dapo Sarumi, Bola Tinubu, Lamidi Adedibu etc) and Yar’adua was on course to winning the nomination. In the NRC, there was in effect a stalemate between Ciroma and Shinkafi. IBB then stepped in banning all the 23 aspirants in both parties and ordering a fresh nomination contest.

In stepped MKO Abiola, IBB’s friend and financier, and a rich contractor friend of most of the top echelon of the military and the government. Abiola had been a persona non grata in Yoruba politics because of his opposition to Chief Awolowo and membership of the second republic NPN, but in the interim, he had ingratiated himself with communities and constituencies all over the country, and managed to reach accommodation with even his former adversaries in the Yoruba political establishment. Eventually Abiola defeated Abubakar Atiku and Babagana Kingibe to emerge as SDP presidential candidate with a relative lightweight Alhaji Tofa as NRC candidate. There was little doubt who would prevail in that contest!

Abiola’s campaign was better organised, better financed and even had a more national penetration than the Tofa campaign. But it was not clear yet what was going on in IBB’s mind. Arthur Nzeribe alias Dr Atkins had emerged with an “Association for Better Nigeria” that continued to campaign against the transition. Many wondered who was providing the funding for their extensive newspaper advertisements. At some point it was unclear whether the presidential elections would hold as injunctions were obtained seeking to prevent the election from holding. The US government had to take the unprecedented action of publicly warning against the scuttling of the elections. It did appear that IBB eventually only allowed the elections to hold quite reluctantly.

But while IBB may have been scheming to defer the elections in favour of himself, it appears clear that there were several sub-cliques within the military trying to prevent an imminent Abiola take-over, for different reasons. Some may have disliked Abiola as a person; some may have been worried about the geopolitical transfer of power; but there were others whose intent was to elbow Babangida out in order that they may ascend to the office. Abacha who had taken the nickname “Khalifa” was clearly in this category, and there may have been others! Anyway for as long as these various cliques wanted the elections (whose results, which were public knowledge days after the election, showed that Abiola had won a clear victory) annulled, Abiola’s fate was sealed, but once the annulment was announced, Babangida lost the initiative and was pushed aside in favour of a hastily-conceived Interim National Government, headed by Chief Earnest Shonekan. It was only a question of time before Abacha who stayed behind after IBB’s exit as secretary for Defence would shunt Shonekan out of the Presidential Palace. On November 17, 2003, Abacha retired Shonekan and took the office he had eyed for many years.