TELL
By 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 Kasimawo 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”.
The NADECO Story has different dimensions that future researchers should critically engage with.
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 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. In this connection, Abiola would move into a friendly foreign embassy, be sworn in, and appoint his cabinet. The third option, namely the Epetedo plan, autonomous and free from the meddlesomeness of a foreign third party, prevailed.
The second incident can be prefaced with a question: Did Abiola surrender his mandate? Amidst diplomatic manoeuvrings spawned by the international community, Mr Kofi Annan and Chief Emeka Anyaoku, Secretaries-General of the United Nations and the Commonwealth, respectively, urged Abiola to sign a statement to the effect that he would not declare himself president after his release, which was a negation of the call for his unconditional release. The visit was spun to mean that MKO had abandoned his mandate. His 5 July 1998 letter to Pa Abraham Adesanya negated the allegation. This is important because it underlined the political sophistication of Abiola and perhaps would have characterised his government had he governed. Here is an excerpt from that letter:
I learnt that a newspaper published disinformation about my meeting with Kofi Annan and Chief Anyaoku. Yes, they asked me for a signed statement that I will not declare myself President again after my release. They believe such a signed statement will enable the Federal Military Government to give me an UNCONDITIONAL release. Firstly, the release, I said, ceases to be unconditional if it can only be brought about by the type of statement they demanded. Secondly, any statement will be worthless, being [having been] obtained by duress. Thirdly, my declaration of 11/6/94 was made at a big rally with thousands present. A private statement of the type they demand will do a discredit to me and to the Federal Military Government. No withdrawal of the earlier declaration can be valid if not made in the same way as the one it wants to negate. Fourthly, I do not need to make another declaration since the 11/6/94 one still subsists and has served and is still serving the purpose for which it was made. It is this last point that must have been twisted as a withdrawal. Tell me, Sir, if I was told to withdraw, was it to the two diplomats that I would withdraw? Something seriously must have been wrong with them.
THE SECOND MAJOR POINT they made was that after 5 years, the mandate has lapsed. Anyaoku was said to have sought a legal opinion which said that! My replies: 1. The lapse was caused by series of illegalities and criminalities perpetrated by IBB and Abacha: IBB’s purported cancellation and Abacha’s determination to usurp my legitimate position by locking me in one room until I pass away. Can a criminal profit from his criminality? They had no answer to that. 2. On legal advice, I told the diplomats that no political crisis is ever settled by “legal advice.” I told them confidently that the logic of events will disprove their theoretic diplomatic fancies, God willing. And by the way, I learnt the “London Times” asked for my recognition in its Friday edition. Enough for their “time-lag” arguments. Both of them behaved as Diplomatic Advisers to the Federal Military Government. God willing, they will have no effect on our progress.
“The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny”, Soyinka echoes in his The Man Died (1972).
The Epetedo Declaration came with its consequences. The Abacha regime chose strong-arm tactics all the way. First, Abiola was arrested and charged with treasonable felony. Many opposition members were put on a watch list and banned from travelling while their homes and property were targeted by arsonists. In one instance, NADECO deputy leader, Chief Anthony Enahoro, was detained on the staircase. Better counsel held sway; many of the key pro-democracy figures fled the country through the famous NADECO route on Nigeria’s southern border.
Professor Soyinka would form the National Liberation Council of Nigeria (NALICON); their activities abroad led to the establishment of Radio Kudirat and the convening of the World Congress of Free Nigerians. These complemented the opposition campaign of defiance at home sustained through the collaboration of the Campaign for Democracy, United Action for Democracy, factions of the labour movement, the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN).
The author references the role of sympathetic state operatives. This needs a bit of accent, as Soyinka has observed in his prison notes, “…no matter how cunning a prisoner, no matter how ingenious—and the definition of a prisoner’s nature is animal cunning—the humanitarian act of courage by the exception among his gaolers plays a key role in his survival”.
Nonetheless, the author presents the resistance of the opposition with a dose of philosophical reflection on the nature of opposition politics, the corresponding dangers, and inevitable incarceration. Also, the philosophical lens is beamed on the logic of followers’ behaviour and the commitment of opposition actors in times of repression. In this context, the historical betrayals of the “June 12” struggle are treated in what the author calls “the hall of shame”.
Importantly, the author regales us with the endgame and its dynamics. The bugbear of the US-led international community was the would-be domino effect of a Nigerian implosion, an aspect of which Robert Kaplan had foreshadowed in his The Coming Anarchy (1994) that envisioned turbulent West Africa. The West formula, whether it came from the Pakistan experiment with Zia-ul-Haq, as the author had suggested to the diplomats in the US mission in Nigeria, was a surgical operation that removed the two actors from the stage, doused the Nigerian fire, and preserved their existing interests. A few months before the events of June and July 1998, the West had deployed special operatives who posed as diplomats. Both Abacha and Abiola died. Jim Hoagland of the Washington Post, though unconvinced that nothing went wrong, noted:
Fantastic, fatal coincidence? Or transparent plot to do in a troublesome politician who may have been balking at the deal the Americans were underwriting? If you lived in a country split by civil war, cruel dictatorship and intense social and ethnic tensions for three decades, which would you be more likely to believe?
And Thomas Friedman would later note in his “Rattling the Rattler”, New York Times of 19 January 1999, that:
No one quite knows how Nigeria’s evil dictator Sani Abacha died last June at age 54, but the story that has made the rounds goes like this: Several Nigerian officers who finally got fed up with General Abacha’s utterly venal and corrupt rule got together, imported three prostitutes from India, sent them to his villa with a poison, which he somehow ingested (One report says it may have been in his Viagra) and then dropped dead. The three prostitutes were back on a plane to India before General Abacha’s body was cold. Whatever the details, a senior U.S. official privy to the intelligence told me: “Let’s just say Abacha did not die a natural death and he did not die alone.
Nevertheless, the author notes, the demise of the two principal actors in the Nigerian impasse presented new frontiers to resolve it. These were the NADECO’s position, the military position, and the position of the international community. With the emergence of Abdulsalami Abubakar as Head of State, the NADECO delegation met the new regime and presented its position: the formation of a GNU to be headed by Abiola with the sole agenda of convoking an SNC to address the national question.
The Federal Military Government refused the GNU proposal on the basis that there was no grassroots support for it and was disposed to manage a short transition to civil rule. The international community wanted Abiola to drop his claim to the mandate and pave the way for a new transition process. The views filtered through engagement with the diplomatic community were evident in the diplomatic shuttle of Annan and Anyaoku. President Clinton’s press interview in Accra to the effect that the US would support any democratic process erased any doubt.
Despite the contradiction, the author generously acknowledges the salient role of the international community. The role of Canada, which closed its embassy in Nigeria, was particularly notable. Ambassador Walter Carrington stood with the pro-democrats in Nigeria in ways that contradicted the realist position of his home government. The Nordic countries, such as Sweden and Norway, lent their support in immeasurable ways.
It should be emphasised, however, that the struggle of NADECO and the broader prodemocracy movement has unleashed a process of re-configuration of the power equation in Nigeria. 12 June is Nigeria’s Democracy Day. But the scale needs to be tilted in favour of ordinary Nigerians.
Furthermore, and in conclusion, the NADECO Story has different dimensions that future researchers should critically engage with. The work, a harvest of raw data and documentary evidence for present and future chroniclers of Nigeria’s political odyssey, is presented in ways that readers can decipher Nigeria’s power dynamics and easily identify the heroes and villains of our struggle for democracy. The author was right to note in the very last line of this book: “…let Nigeria be blessed with the types and memory of the political saints and martyrs, within and outside NADECO, who joined the godly angels in the struggle to make Nigeria, not just the greatest Black nation in the world, but a shining star in the galaxy of superpowers”.
Odion Akhaine, a notable figure in the then pro-democracy movement,is a professor of political science at the Lagos State University, LASU.
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