Professor Sylvester Odion Akhaine
In his Concept of History, Walter Benjamin of the Frankfurt School, poses the question: “With whom does the historical writer of historicism actually empathize?”, and he says: The answer is irrefutably with the victor. Those who currently rule are however the heirs of all those who have ever been victorious. Empathy with the victors thus comes to benefit the current rulers every time. This says quite enough to the historical materialist. Whoever until this day emerges victorious, marches in the triumphal procession in which today’s rulers tread over those who are sprawled underfoot. The spoils are, as was ever the case, carried along in the triumphal procession.
Benjamin’s thought underlines the dominant narrative reducing the epic struggle of pro- democracy activists to trivial since the beginning of the Fourth Republic in 1999. In that narrative, the vanquished is cast as the villain. This understanding is the motivation for the NADECO Story, a story that must be told to the present and next generation.
The author highlights the need for an authentic narrative. There are misrepresentations by several writers and observers of the struggle against military rule in Nigeria. Those who presided over a regime of dictatorship have been unable to erase the historical struggle of Nigerians for democracy since the truncation of the Second Republic in December 1983. Also, those who inherited power from the military have been unable to re-write our struggle for democracy despite being the unworthy beneficiaries of the outcome. Pro-democracy activists’ memoirs and testaments of military autocracy have preserved the memory of the historic struggle. Accounts ranging from Wole Soyinka’s The Open Sore of a Continent (1996) to Abdul Oroh’s Demonstration of Craze (2025) have dwarfed those of the traducers.
The NADECO Story comes in that fashion. Ayo Opadokun, the author, provides a detailed account of the “Lugardian architecture”, that is, the Nigerian system nurtured by a veto and conscious erasure of the grains of liberal and progressive society. He reveals in the ‘amalgamation of 1914’ the roots of the national question and Northern exceptionalism. The amalgamation merged the administration of the North and South, but not the people of the regions. This was evident in the Land and Native Rights Proclamation of 1910. It empowered the Northern administration to control immigration from the South and exercise discretion on the grant of a Certificate of Occupancy. In the post-independence era, the practice of domination reared its head in the entrenchment of ethno-religious forces in the military. Therefore, it is easy for a reader to appreciate the Nigerian condition and the path to the annulment of the 12 June 1993 Presidential election won by Chief Moshood Kasmawo Abiola. Opadokun foregrounds the immediate contradictions that fuelled the historic pro-democracy engagement with the military. They include the Babangida regime’s overbureaucratisation of the state; economic mismanagement under the platform of the Structural Adjustment Programme; the initiation of the transition to civil rule programme aptly dubbed by Larry Diamond et al. as “Transition without End”.
Once the regime imposed its two parties on the country, namely, the National Republican Convention (NRC) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), the power game took a new turn. Chief MKO Abiola was not an accidental candidate. The Council for Unity and Understanding (CUU), a product of wide consultation that originated from the East, built a national consensus on the alternation of power to the South in the Third Republic. Elements of the CUU, with the Elders Committee, played a substantive role in the composition of the party, the emergence of Abiola as a presidential candidate, and the choice of his running mate.
The author accounts for the antics of the Babangida regime in the activities of the Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) to scuttle the presidential election by subverting the transition enabling decrees, especially the Basic Constitutional and Transition Provision Decree No. 13 of 1993. Nevertheless, the election was eventually annulled by those who were not only “in government but in power”. A corresponding resistance by local and international forces followed. It was widely condemned, underlining the political and moral weight of the annulment. On the heels of the condemnation and the palpable tension in the polity, the regime installed Chief Ernest Shonekan, a former United African Company (UAC) chairman, as Head of Interim National Government (ING) under the ING (Basic Constitutional Provisions) Decree No 61, 1993. While it paved the way for Babangida’s “Honourable disengagement”, it set the stage for further deepening of military dictatorship. In November 1993, General Sani Abacha, the Secretary of Defence, toppled the ING.
Whatever reason the military has for coup-making, Ruth First, in her The Barrel of a Gun, moderated it to say the army takes over for army reasons. Expectedly, the author beams his searchlight on the intrigues surrounding the coming of the “child of necessity”. In the incubation period, the pro-democracy movement was seen as a possible obstacle. First, there was the ambush provision in Section 5 (48) of the ING Decree 61 of 1993 that states: “the most senior minister shall hold the office of the Interim National Government if the office of the Head of the Interim Government (ING) becomes vacant by reason of death or resignation”. Intrigues belong to the substance of politics. Opadokun uncovers a red herring in Abacha’s scheme for power.
He and his acolytes reached out to the political class and the pro-democracy movement and sold the idea to convene a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) and release Abiola to form a Government of National Unity (GNU). The “child of necessity” was born, and the game of opportunism ensued. The elite scramble for political positions in Abacha’s government undermined the 12 June mandate. Abacha consolidated his hold on power, spawning the emergence of a “Borno power bloc”. The subsequent convening of the national conference was an exercise to secure legitimacy and was soon undermined by the shifting agenda of whether the conference would be sovereign or not, whether there would be no-go areas or not. Social forces in society were driven into a frenzy, articulating positions that would have no effect on the conference.
However, the conference revealed sectional opportunism in terms of participation. The Igbo’s
participation raised the spectre of ancient mistrust, while late General Oladipo Diya employed a
divide-and-rule tactic through the Oni of Ife, which created discontent among the Yoruba.
On account of these, the Yoruba delegation withdrew. The conference neglected fundamental issues
to focus on the tenure limit that required Abacha to exit in 1996 and the institutionalisation of rotational presidency. These were rejected by Abacha, resulting in the imposition of a twisted French governmental model. The conference ended with two controversial reports, one engrossed by Justice Adolphus Karibi-Whyte, the conference chairman, and another cooked by Alhaji Aminu Saleh, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.
The conference outcome made it obvious that Abacha was here to stay, and for the opposition, it was time for confrontation. Logically, the author gives a vivid account of the various processes leading to the formation of NADECO. It rose from a pre-occupation with the handling of Abacha’s constitutional conference and the need for a back-up. Several meetings were held. First was the handshake across the Niger (East and West) to form a southern front. Second was regional consultations with the Middle Belt, the East, and the North. These culminated in a formal meeting of CUU with Abiola, who bought the GNU idea and the convening of an SNC.
For the record, Usman Katsina took an early initiative to build a northern bloc to support the realisation of “June 12.” However, this effort was upset by Adebayo’s unilateral press briefing, which introduced an ethnic tone and alienated the Arewa-North. Subsequently, on 16 May 1994, the idea of a national coalition was made public, with affirmation from the East, West, and Middle Belt. The author also notes the firm stance of Middle Belt elements in the CUU, which proved instrumental in forming the coalition, as well as prior coalition-building attempts in 1993 and 1994, initiated by Babagana Kingibe, Abiola’s running mate, and Tunji Otegbeye, a veteran labour leader.
In the NADECO Story, Opadokun shows, in an unstructured way, the strength of character of the symbol of “June 12”, Chief Abiola. He was quintessential E.M Foster’s round character. It comes in bold relief in the Epetedo Declaration of 11 June 1994, where Abiola claimed his mandate and his encounter with the agents of international organisations. The former was an unprecedented show of courage. With the declaration, Abiola proved the substance of his chieftaincy title as the Are Ona Kankanfo (the Generalissimo) of Yoruba land, and in this case, of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. This was affirmed in the following lines:
Our patience has come to an end. As of now, from this moment, a new government of National Unity is in power throughout the length and breadth of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, led by me, Bashorun M.K.O Abiola, as President and Commander-in-Chief. The National Assembly is hereby reconvened. All dismissed governors are reinstated.
To be sure, the Epetedo Declaration was a craft in power politics. There were three options contemplated before the declaration for Abiola to reclaim his mandate. One involved getting the President-Elect into a ship flying a foreign flag in Nigerian waters, and a judge to administer the oath of office on board, or secure the location of a friendly embassy and do the same. The grounding is that under extant UN conventions and protocols, ships and embassies, and the flying of foreign flags were inviolable. This would be followed by an intense lobbying of foreign governments to confer de facto recognition on Abiola’s government. The second option lay in the suit filed by Abiola against ING Decree No. 61 pending before Justice Dolapo Akinsanya, in which a favourable ruling would create a power vacuum to be filled by Abiola.
TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW
