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The June 12 anniversary was
gradually becoming just another day to remember until last
week when one of the principal players in the 1993 saga,
Prof. Humphrey Nwosu, deemed it fit, fifteen long years
after, to spice it up by making a clean breast of the fact
that Babangida and Abacha juntas, including his scholarly
self, did whimsically void the freest and fairest of
elections in Nigeria's political history, and thereby
presented a cogent reason why the teeming sympathizers of
the cause across the country should hold that the day be
marked yearly as democracy day.
Take it or leave it, Nigeria is a favoured country, and
Prof. Humprey Nwosu is a damned lucky man. In fact, it
wouldn't be an overstatement to say that it is a miracle for
the two to remain intact till this day. Were it not so, how
the heck would the political scientist's pre-publication
stunt have been feasible without the elements of favour and
luck running in their destiny? Definitely, it takes a nation
that is not literally in flames to host a book launch of
Prof. Nwosu's kind; and it takes a living man that has not
been cut down by weapons of raging war to author a memoir of
the Prof's type. And that is why methinks it is pertinent to
put across the million-naira poser at this point that had
Nigeria gone the way of Algeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe and the
rest, and taking into account the country's populous
national head count and her ethnic diversity, what would
have happened to the Professor's dream of turning an author,
talk less of his product's commercial success?
Prof. Nwosu should remain the most gratifying to the
Almighty in that even though by the overwork and dexterously
disingenuous acts of the controllers of instruments of
propaganda in the likes of the Ofonagoros and the
Chukwumerijes at the time, many lives were lost, arrests and
incarcerations were made, yet the Prof. has reappeared from
his hibernation to meet us stunned, brooding and
recuperating from the recurring shocks resulting from the
series of biased election umpiring, but alive to audience
his book.
But while Nwosu has his scholarly eyes fixed on the proceeds
of the book's publication, and true to his stock, there is
the suggestive essence in the emergence of his work. The
book which is the sum total of the author's experience,
involvement, contributions, mistakes and opinions as the
final arbiter then, as far as June 12, 1993 election is
concerned, first has put June 12 beyond mere subject of
controversy to a topic of historical fact; and secondly that
the military in whatever garb and style has bequeathed us
with one enduring legacy: the institutionalization of
fascism in action while engaging in a process that is
supposed to be democratic, but that has only remained so on
the pages of a book.
Now, if the buck could be passed to Prof. Nwosu who with a
broad smile has claimed to the effect that he was gagged
with the nozzle of his despotic bosses' guns stuck to his
head while the annulment was being executed, in the face of
tyrannical circumstance in which he served, what then shall
we not do to an umpire who has remained a major consistent
tool in the hands of experts in the craft of managing
election results in a supposedly democratic atmosphere?
Just this week, this other umpire, the current one at that,
has come up with his own capitulation that the country's
elections (and of course their results) have been anything
but perfect. Mind you, he is not alone in this stance. Chief
Obasanjo is with him. And for a serving umpire to admit his
misdeeds to this extent, we will take his acknowledgement as
a huge understatement!
In one stroke of blatant show of self-glorification, Prof.
Maurice Iwu posited that he preferred to have a non-perfect
election to having an anarchy that, according to him, has
taken its toll or still doing do on countries like Kenya,
Zimbabwe, etc. By this, our umpire does not seem to realize
that a non-perfect election is a means to an end. And that
is to say that anarchy results from a badly conducted
election, or a non-perfect one, as he prefers to put it.
In other words, this goes to say that if Prof. Maurice Iwu
is a true hater of anarchy, then let him choose the path of
perfect, or even near-perfect elections in deed as demanded
by established democratic norms and principles and shun
casting aspersions on other nation's democratic process. It
is high time we decided to get rid of the beam in our eyes
before going for the splinter in the eyes of the likes of
Zimbabwe.  |
