June 12, IBB and the missing persons
As soon as I laid my hands on Gen Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida’s autobiography, ‘A Journey in Service’, there were only two things I was eager to read: the June 12 annulment story and the murder of Dele Giwa, one of the finest journalists out of Nigeria. There were many landmarks that defined the IBB era — he was military president from 1985 to 1993, during which a lot of good, bad and ugly things happened in the economy and polity — but the June 12 annulment and Giwa’s murder were life-defining topics he had never spoken frankly and extensively about, so you can appreciate my curiosity. Within minutes, I had flipped to the relevant pages and devoured them.
Long before Babangida’s version of history, I had a fairly formed narrative on June 12. Some pieces were based on what I read in newspapers and magazines after the presidential election was annulled in 1993 — a mishap that led to a devastating political crisis lasting for five years, worsened under the jackboots of Gen Sani Abacha and his henchmen. Strikes, fuel shortages, riots and economic paralysis stifled the nation. The bloodshed was chilling. As a living witness, I do not wish that we experience anything like that again. It was utterly horrible. It aggravated ethnic and regional tensions, pushed us to the precipice and injured our nation-building trajectory. Nigeria practically came to a standstill.
My initial theory around June 12 was that IBB did not want to leave power. Having overthrown Gen Muhammadu Buhari in August 1985, he had styled himself as “president”, departing from the title of “head of state” that previous military rulers used. The suspicion then was that he wanted to transmute to a civilian president, so he knew what he was doing. As he continued to juggle the transition programme, banning and unbanning politicians and creating political parties that were like government agencies, the suspicion grew stronger that he was working to an answer. When he annulled the presidential primaries in 1992, everything pointed in one direction: “hidden agenda”.
The annulment of an otherwise peaceful and credible June 12 election in 1993 was the final confirmation, for me, that Babangida had a sinister plan up his sleeve. Events preceding the election appeared to have been orchestrated to keep him in power. There were the religious riots and tensions up north. The sentencing of Gen Zamani Lekwot and 15 other Christians from Kaduna state to death for their alleged roles in the Zangon Kataf religious crisis of March 1992 was interpreted as an engineering of political instability to create the perfect excuse to hang on to power. Nigerians also faced a crippling fuel crisis, so I believed we were being deliberately frustrated and weakened.
Ironically, I was not a fan of Bashorun MKO Abiola. As someone who was brought up by a grandmother who had been a staunch supporter of Chief Obafemi Awolowo from the 1950s, I was conditioned to see Abiola as a traitor for not being in the same party with the sage in the second republic. Also, I was a lover of Fela’s music, so I had internalised his “International Thief Thief (ITT)” song against Abiola. To worsen matters, Abiola picked a fellow Muslim as his running mate. For me, a Muslim/Muslim ticket was a no-no. I was not into religionism; rather, I always favour balancing in a diverse society. By default, I started supporting Alhaji Bashir Tofa, who had a Christian running mate.
But my mindset was demolished days to the election when I got into a debate with a Muslim friend who asked me how, on God’s green earth, I would prefer Tofa to Abiola in terms of capacity and competence after watching the presidential debate, particularly with the unearthing of an old article by Tofa calling Christians “infidels”. I looked stupid and petty. I regained my senses, perished my misgivings about the Muslim/Muslim ticket, and began to root for Abiola. Alas, I could not vote because I was registered in Lagos while I was undergoing my youth service in Ogbomoso, Oyo state. On election day, I was in Ilorin, Kwara state, chilling with my cousins. We were all rooting for Abiola.
When the election was annulled, another theory started making the round that the north did not want a southerner as president, and this further exacerbated ethnic tensions. For a long time, I believed the theory — propagated mostly by Yoruba leaders — until I sat down to look at the results again, state by state. I realised Abiola won in nine of the 16 northern states at the time. Mind you, Abiola won in core northern states such as Kano (Tofa’s home base), Jigawa, Borno, Yobe and Kaduna, and got significant chunks in Kebbi, Katsina, Niger and Bauchi. So, how could any reasonable person conclude that the north did not want a southerner? I thereafter terminated that line of reasoning.
When I listened to some principal actors years later, I slightly modified my position by concluding that the military did not want to let go of power — even if Babangida himself was, by chance, sincere about the transition. But I kept asking: why did he not retire Abacha when he was stepping aside in 1993? Was it not part of an overall scheme to compensate Abacha for foiling the Orkar coup of 1990 and saving him? Abacha’s stature in the military had grown exponentially after he helped foil the Orkar coup and thereafter gave a national broadcast. IBB owed him one. Leaving him behind was to allow him to topple the interim government and do his own turn as head of state, I reasoned.
Many of the actors have since given their accounts, most of which still left me asking more questions. I earnestly yearned for IBB, the chief actor himself, to tell his own version. Thankfully, he has finally published his autobiography — three decades after the nation-crippling crisis. He admitted that Chief Arthur Nzeribe, convener of the Association to Better Nigeria (ABN) which secured the court order to stop the election, was well known to him. However, he said he did not support the group which was campaigning for an extension of military rule by four years. He said he was surprised when the injunction was issued despite a decree ousting the jurisdiction of the courts in election matters.
That injunction was issued by Justice Bassey Ikpeme of the federal high court, Abuja, two days to the election. You see, our judiciary has always been a problem. It did not start today. But another high court in Lagos ruled that the election should go on. The intriguing fact here is that Ikpeme, who was a new judge, had previously worked in the law chambers of Mr Clement Akpamgbo, Babangida’s attorney-general and minister of justice. IBB said he was surprised when Akpamgbo insisted at an emergency security council meeting that Ikpeme’s order should be obeyed. Abacha, Lt-Gen Joshua Dogonyaro and some service chiefs also supported Akpamgbo’s position, according to Babangida.
Prof Humphrey Nwosu, then chairman of the National Electoral Commission (NEC), insisted he had enough powers to go ahead with the election, Babangida said. He was supported by Lt-Gen Salihu Ibrahim, then chief of army staff. Babangida said he gave Nwosu the go-ahead to conduct the election, which he has finally admitted was free and fair. But he said he was in Katsina on a condolence visit to the Yar’Aduas on June 23 when he heard, like other Nigerians, that the election had been annulled. He said he was told that another judge, Justice Dahiru Saleh, had issued an injunction annulling the election. But Babangida completely in the dark? Sorry, I don’t believe that.
“A report filtered to me that the June 12 elections had been annulled,” Babangida wrote. “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.” But Babangida officially announced the annulment on TV the next day.
In his autobiography, Babangida blamed the annulment on fifth columnists, saying the forces were led by Abacha. He wrote: “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 ‘a devil and the deep blue sea’!!” So why did he not retire Abacha when he decided to step aside in August 1993? IBB gave the impression that he was helpless as the military had been polarised and Abacha had an army of loyalists. He even hinted that Abacha’s faction was planning to overthrow and kill him. I recall IBB saying in 1993 that “I am not only in office, I am also in power”. It sounded strange and desperate to me then — and now.
Still, I will not dismiss the entirety of Babangida’s story. I recall that after Abacha became head of state, he retired the “IBB Boys”: Dogonyaro, Brig-Gens David Mark, Anthony Ukpo, John Shagaya, Halilu Akilu and Tunde Ogbeha, among others. There was an obvious friction. Dr Nowa Omoigui, the respected military historian who died in 2021, wrote extensively on the mutual caginess between IBB and Abacha after the Orkar coup. It is, however, instructive that IBB reportedly started referring to Abacha as “Khalifa” (“successor”) after the foiled coup. IBB later removed and retired Lt-Gen Domkat Bali as chairman, joint chiefs of staff, and replaced him with Abacha, who doubled as army chief.
Curiously, Babangida did not blame any living person in his entire annulment story. Some of those who took part in the annulment are still alive. There are too many missing persons in the picture. IBB only named dead military officers such as Abacha and Dogonyaro — who cannot defend themselves. Admiral Augustus Aikhomu, Babangida’s former second-in-command, is also not alive to tell us the story behind THAT statement issued by his media aide. Akpamgbo died in 2006. We can’t ask him why he supported the out-of-order injunction issued by his former employee. Meanwhile, why didn’t IBB fire Akpamgbo, a “bloody civilian”, for supporting the implementation of the illegal court orders?
Overall, I am unable to accept IBB’s fascinating but tenuous narrative that he was powerless. With this book, I have another theory: if indeed it was Abacha that engineered the annulment, IBB was clearly not opposed to it. Towards the end of his regime, Babangida might have become weakened among sections of the military hierarchy, but he knew he owed Abacha one and would not stand in the way of his ally’s ambition. In the final analysis, we remain entitled to our scepticism about IBB’s story — just as it is hard to accept his claim that Giwa was killed by fifth columnists to discredit his regime. No. It looked very much like an assassination typically and clinically executed by the state.
AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…
ADIEU CLARK, ADEBANJO
What are the odds that two accomplished elder statesmen of similar persuasion would die at an identical age one day after the other? That is weird. Chief Ayo Adebanjo, 96, and Chief Edwin Clark, 97, both died last week having lived highly fulfilled lives. Both fought vigorously for their beliefs — which were mostly regional — and robustly spoke their minds fearlessly for decades. Ironically, Adebanjo, unlike Clark, was a politician who never held any public office. Clark was a commissioner and senator. Years ago, Adebanjo and I used to talk regularly but our views on national issues hardly aligned. Nonetheless, I had nothing but utmost respect for him and his comrade, Clark. Legends.
WILD, WILD LAGOS
Talking about politicians not wanting democracy to work, I am appalled by the unending drama in the Lagos house of assembly. Rt Hon Mudashiru Obasa was removed as speaker on January 13, 2025 and replaced with Rt Hon Mojisola Meranda, but he has refused to accept that the party is over. He has declared his removal (after almost 10 years in office) as illegal. One thing he has not done so far is to point to the section of the law that makes his removal unlawful. He can approach a court of law to assert his rights. The heating up of the polity is totally unnecessary and I hope the combatants will soon come to their senses. Obasa will not be the first speaker to be removed in Africa. Irritating.
ROYAL MESS
When we were kids, we used to sing songs about not crowning a thief as king and not appointing liars as chiefs. We seem to all agree today that our values have depreciated. Increasingly in Yoruba land, you are more likely to be made a king if you are a fraudster or a hardened criminal. Oba Joseph Oloyede, a monarch in Osun state, had not been seen for nearly a year until it was reported that the FBI had arrested him for alleged conspiracy, wire fraud, and money laundering. That aside, whoever wrote these lines in Sahara Reporters deserves an award and a pay rise: “Joseph Oloyede, the Apetu of Ipetumodu, who was reported missing in March 2024, has been found in FBI custody.” Amazing.
NO COMMENT
Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan (PDP) caused a stir last week when she vehemently rejected the new seating position allocated to her in the red chamber. She lashed out at Senate President Godswill Akpabio, defying the gavel — contrary to parliamentary practices. Akpabio was once in that position, ironically, and reacted the same way. In a radio interview, Akpoti-Uduaghan said she was fighting because of the klieg lights: “Changing my seat was just a chance of silencing or alienating me from being seen. Sitting position is important. The nearer you sit positions you near the camera and gives you an added advantage to be called upon to contribute to debates,” she said. Wonderful.
