Why Nigeria’s democracy is not working – Ango Abdullahi NEF chairman

About two weeks ago, the President Muhammadu Buhari administration changed the celebration of Democracy Day from May 29 to June 12, and conferred national honours on the late Chief MKO Abiola and Babagana Kingibe. How do you see this?

Well, I will start by my earlier reaction soon after the decision of the government to revisit the issue of the June 12. A journalist asked me what my opinion was. My opinion has not changed; it is that the change is a classical example of political opportunism taking place almost 25 years after it has occurred. But I did not have the time to expatiate my own understanding and background as related to the June 12 episode. I was myself a presidential flag bearer representing Kaduna State under the Option A-4 transition programme; then each state was supposed to have a presidential flag bearer, this arrangement was under the two political parties at that time. So, I contested to represent Kaduna State and I won the election. We went to the convention with other presidential flag bearers, including the late MKOAbiola, of course, because I was in the inner circle of what the convention threw up. To understand the scenario very well, let me say that from the beginning, General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua contested the primaries under Option A-4 transition programme and he emerged with slight victory over the other contenders like Chief Olu Falae, Alhaji Lateef Jakande and others, this did not include Chief MKO Abiola at that time. After the primaries were cancelled, both for SDP and NRC, and the major contenders in those parties were banned from political participation; then the issue arose on who to fill the vacant spaces they had left behind in SDP and NRC. In the case of SDP, so many interests began to show up since Gen. Yar’Adua was not going to run again and he should be replaced by somebody. In our caucus discussion there were interests shown from within, for example, myself, there was Babagana Kingibe, and Atiku Abubakar, but there was nobody mentioned from South-west. Shehu Yar’Adua had argued that since he was given an opportunity to contest and he was widely supported across the country, it would be wise for us to recommend that somebody should emerge from another part of Nigeria, and since the Yoruba were very strong with Shehu Yar’Adua political platform, they should be considered. Finally, it was suggested that the Yoruba should indicate somebody to run for the presidency from South-west. And that was how eventually Abiola’s name featured. I will like to also emphasize at this point that Abiola, with due respect to his memory and soul, was not part of what we called at that time progressive politics, and this was quite clear. When Abiola started his politics; he joined the NPN. The party that contested power against the Awotists, who were in the UPN. In fact, he created a newspaper called National Concord. It was the media that challenged any newspaper article against NPN or against the presidential ambition of Shehu Shagari, especially at first tenure. So, one could easily say from that point that Abiola did not belong to the progressive politics from his own zone, which has the followers of the Chief Obafemi Awolowo. He was strongly against UPN and supported NPN, which eventually led to the victory of Alhaji Shehu Shagari. So, When the issue of party became narrowed, because in the NPN days it was fully a multiparty arrangement, the contest was on multiparty basis. But later when the military decided that everybody must belong to either the SDP or NRC, many people in the South-west preferred to be in the SDP. Those of us who were under the Peoples Front of Nigeria (PFN) pursued the registration of a political party, but it was subsequently denied us. So, later those who were inclined to be socialists all trooped into the SDP. That was when Shehu Yar’Adua felt that a candidate should be sought from the South-west. The major players in our group at that time were the late S.M. Afolabi , Dafo Sarumi and others. It was decided that they should go and find a candidate for our endorsement and that was how they brought in the name of MKO Abiola. It was endorsed by the Peoples Front of Nigeria, which later collapsed into SDP. This was used under Option A-4 where it required that all states are supposed to bring a presidential flag bearer. I was among the presidential flag bearers and Atiku Abubakar, as well as many others. Eventually we ended up in Jos. It is also important to state here that when Shehu Yar’Adua was disqualified, there were few interest groups in our caucus who preferred their names be included and supported. One of them was Alhaji Babagana Kingibe. When it was decided that a candidate should come from the South-west, he opted out from our group and decided to go and seek for presidency on his own, using another platform other than that of Shehu Musa Yar’Adua. He moved to the South-west and got his support from some governors, so he became a candidate together with Abiola from South-west. Already we had agreed to support a candidate from the South-west under our party, which turned out to be MKO Abiola.

When Babagana left your group, was it on conflict or personal interest?

No, no, it was on his personal wish. So, when Babagana Kingibe bolted out from our group, we did not bother much because we believed it was possible to get Abiola emerge after the convention, and we were hoping that Abiola would honour an arrangement that when he emerged as presidential candidate he would pick Atiku Abubakar as his running mate. Of course, we went to the Jos Convention under this arrangement, but about what happened, I don’t want to go into too much details. In short, Abiola emerged as the presidential candidate, but instead of honouring that arrangement we had to pick Atiku Abubakar as his running mate, he decided otherwise. I think there was pressure from the South-west caucus, so he dropped Atiku and picked Babagana Kingibe. All the same, we were not upset by his action, we still agreed to support his candidature despite the fact that he disappointed us. We supported his election, and he himself brought his campaign here to the North to Shehu Yar’Adua. I was sitting here when he came with the proposal of campaign arrangement and he handed it over to the Yar’Adua group. I was asked to be the chairman of that subcommittee of planning and strategy of Abiola Sub-Campaign Committee for his election. All these had worked out on my own planned strategy that led to his victory. The only evidence to my effort was his son Kola Abiola who himself could testify how we did all plans and strategies for his father’s election in my house. So, it is important to emphasize that, if you are looking for those who struggled for democracy in Nigeria, you will begin to look at people who spearheaded the struggle, especially against military rule. I don’t know whether there is any one that can fit into number one po- sition of that move than Gen. Shehu Yar’Adua. He was a Chief of Staff in the Murtala-Obasanjo regime. When Murtala was assassinated, he took the position of Obasanjo and became Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters. If we go back to history again, and see what triggered the overthrow of General Gowon, it was the issue of democracy; there were people who strongly believed in democracy, especially after the civil war, and Shehu Yar’Adua was at the forefront of that struggle. He insisted that if 1975 was not attainable, they should overthrow Gen. Gowon and fix an early date for return to civil rule in Nigeria, and that was how 1979 became a reality. This is largely on the insistence of Gen. Shehu Yar’Adua and his clique. These were men who tried to see the return to civil rule and genuine democracy in Nigeria. So, when you are talking about somebody who struggled, though with a military background, Shehu struggled for the actualization of lasting civil and democratic rule in the country; I don’t remember any name in the so-called military circle and even top politicians that did what Gen. Yar’Adua did. And, of course, when Abiola’s election was annulled, I remember we met here in Kaduna under the chairmanship of Shehu Yar’Adua with 75 of us at the National Teachers Institute (NTI), we declared our support that Abiola’s election must be concluded, including counting of votes and the declaration of the results. Though, it was never achieved, but it was a serious resistance to the annulment of the election.

Another incident, which I can mention about Shehu Yar’Adua’s insistence of sustaining civil rule was when Abacha overthrew the interim government of Chief Ernest Shonekan. We were invited for discussion by the then military government. We said we could only agree on the condition that unless Abacha fixed an early date for handing over to a civilian rule in his first broadcast, we will not support the government, which he refused to do. The failure of Abacha to announce a date of handing over to civilian rule made Shehu Yar’Adua to decide to distance himself from that administration. In fact, Abacha asked him to submit names of people he wanted to join his administration, but Yar’Adua refused. I can tell you that I was among the five people that represented the Shehu Yar’Adua group in the discussions. But we all declined to accept any offer from Abacha. But those who rushed to pick up appointments under Abacha administration were the ones that would have spearheaded the struggle for revalidation of their mandate, but instead they ended up compromising it by accepting to join the regime. One of them is Babagana Kingibe, he was a minister in the Abacha cabinet. If I keep talking you will see the lapses glaringly. In other words those who were clamouring for democracy were the ones who rushed to pick appointments in the Abacha administration. Shehu Yar’Adua never did that and those of us who were working with him never did so because of his belief that the country should return to civilian rule and more so when he realized that Abacha wanted to transform from military to civilian and all the parties that he created endorsed him as the only candidate; Shehu never liked that and he stood his ground that the only way or solution was to return to civil rule with all democratic processes that are acceptable to Nigerians. You can see largely because of his insistence, Shehu Yar’Adua was picked up and jailed and because of his uncompromising stand on democracy, he eventually died in detention. So, if there is anyone that gave birth to the struggle against the military, demanding civilian and democratic rule that eventually culminated to elections and annulment of June 12 election, it was Gen. Shehu Musa Yar’Adua.He was the hero of June 12, anything short of this is really a distortion of the correct history of democratic struggle in this country. The honour for June 12; 90 per cent goes to Shehu Yar’Adua because of his contributions and insistence that resulted to what happened that brought Abiola to the mainstream. We know Abiola’s background, he was on the right side while we were on the left side. So, for me, June 12 is a milestone no doubt for the struggle to entrench democracy in Nigeria.