By Clifford Ndujihe, Politics Editor
THE process was crude but transparent. The organisers called it Option A4. Only two candidates stood for the election. No thumb-printing was required. Voting was done by queuing behind the candidate/party of your choice. Those on the queues were properly counted separately and figures entered into the result sheets against the respective candidates or parties.
It was as clear as daylight who won or lost. Welcome to the June 12,1993 presidential election won by late Business tycoon and politician, Chief MKO Abiola.
Conducted by then National Electoral Commission, NEC, as the electoral umpire was called, led by late Professor Humphrey Nwosu, the June 12 election has, arguably, remained the freest and fairest poll in the history of electioneering in Nigeria, 33 years after.
It was also one of the keenest. Of the over 14 million voters that took part, Chief MKO Abiola of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, got over eight million while his challenger, Bashir Othman Tofa, of the National Republican Convention, NRC, garnered about six million.
Controversial annulment
Results of most the states had been tallied before the military regime of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida annulled the election and flung the nation into bloody political crisis that took another six years to be partially resolved in 1999 with the election of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo also from South-West as Abiola, as president.
Ever since that election, Nigeria has not had another comparable poll in terms of conduct and credibility.
In last month’s primaries, some parties tried to replicate the June 12 model but ended up counting those on the queues geometrically instead of arithmetically as shamefully displayed in an avalanche of trending videos.
That is why today is a unique day in Nigeria’s electioneering history.
It is the 33rd anniversary of the June 12, 1993 presidential poll. Today is also the 8th anniversary of the Federal Government’s recognition of June 12 as Democracy Day, and the third that will be marked by President Bola Tinubu.
While marking June 12 in 2018, President Muhammadu Buhari apologized to the family of Chief M.K.O Abiola, the presumed winner of the 1993 presidential election, and conferred a posthumous award on him as the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, GCFR.
In 2019, President Buhari took a step further by assenting a bill into law and officially recognised the date as the nation’s day for commemorating the return to civil rule.
By the Act, May 29 gave way to June 12 as the country’s Democracy Day.
Cloud of challenges
As the nation marks June 12 amid a cloud of insecurity and a salad of unity-threatening challenges, forthcoming polls beginning with June 20 governorship election in Ekiti and bye-elections in six constituencies in four states, as well January 2027 general polls,, many questions are begging for answers.
Abiola’s aborted welfare programme
Late Chief M.K.O Abiola’s campaign was anchored on welfare of the people with ‘’Farewell to Poverty’’ as the theme. His campaign theme was Hope 93.
Thirty- three years after, has Nigeria waved poverty farewell? If Abiola had been allowed to exercise his mandate would things have been different?
Few months before the 1993 election, according to the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics, NBS, 1992 data, no fewer than 39.2 million Nigerians were living below the poverty line, that is 42.7 percent of the then 91.5 million population.
Following the truncation of the 1993 transition programme, the number of those living below the poverty line (less than $1a day as of then) jumped to 67.1 million, representing 65.6 per cent of the 102.3 million population, NBS data showed.
In 2018, a report by Brooking’s Institution said at the end of May 2018, Nigeria had about 87 million people living in extreme poverty, compared with India’s 73 million. And extreme poverty in Nigeria was growing by six people every minute, while poverty in India continued to fall.
Today, no fewer than 131 million Nigerians are multi-dimensionally poor
Another question is: When will Nigeria have free and fair polls like that of June 12, 1993? It was an election that the results were known to all parties – Social Democratic Party, SDP; and National Republican Convention, NRC’s agents without disputation before being officially announced by the electoral commission.
There were no incidents of ballot box-snatching, and falsification of election results at collation centres among other electoral infringements.
Beginning from the first series of elections on December 5, 1998 when the first local council polls of the Fourth Republic were conducted to the 2023 general elections, balloting has been characterised by ballot snatching, falsification of figures, fielding of unqualified candidates, malfunctioning of card readers, intimidation and harassment of voters, and violence among others.
Consequently, the outcome of many elections have been nullified by the courts, a reason we now have staggered governorship elections in eight states.
So far, transmission of election results is still an issue. Diaspora and electronic voting is far from sight.
Already, future polls and the 2027 general polls are being threatened by insecurity, and voter apathy with youths shunning the ongoing continuous voters registration,CVR, citing lack of faith in the process and saying their votes won’t count despite repeated assurances by INEC officials.
Disputed polls
After the 1999 general elections, outcomes of most polls were decided by the courts as attention shifts to the courts after every poll.Apart from 2015, when out-going President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, refused to challenge the victory of Major General Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress, APC, other presidential polls had been subjects of litigation.
In 1999, Chief Olu Falae, who flew the Alliance for Democracy/All Peoples Party joint ticket challenged former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s victory in 1999 but did not pursue it to the Supreme Court. Buhari and other candidates challenged the victories of Obasanjo, late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and President Goodluck Jonathan in 2003, 2007 and 2011 respectively.
After the 2019 general polls, focus immediately shifted to the judiciary where 77 election tribunals constituted by President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa, addressed 786 petitions.
The 786 petitions were the second highest since the return to democratic rule in 1999. The highest was in 2007 when 1,291 petitions heralded the infamous ‘’do-or-die’’ elections held that year. The winner of the 2007 presidential election, late Dr Umaru Musa Yar’Adua admitted that the election that brought him to power was flawed. Consequently, he set up the Justice Mohammed Uwais Election Reform Committee to hammer out solutions.
Indeed, the Uwais panel made far-reaching recommendations that have been implemented in breach or piece meal hence the country is still mired in controversial elections.
Uwais committee’s work
Following the work of the Uwais’ committee, noticeable improvements were witnessed in the 2011 general elections when the number of petitions went down to 732. More improvements were recorded in 2015 as the figure further went down to 611 petitions.
However, the gains of 2015 appeared to have been eroded in 2019 as the number of petitions rose to 786. And in the “go to court” elections of 2023 1196 petitions were filed.
According to data released by Engr Iro Gambo, director Voter Registry of the Independent National Election Commission, INEC, dated April 19, 2017, the electoral body conducted 167 elections after the 2015 electoral cycle and most of them by the Professor Yakubu Mahmood regime.
Three types of elections conducted since 2015 were: Re-run elections by court order following nullification of 80 elections; End of tenure (four governorship, and 68 Area Council, Abuja), 72; and Bye elections caused by death or resignation of lawmakers, 16. Of this number, 123 were concluded at first ballot and 44 were inconclusive.
And at the law courts, 80 of the 167 elections were nullified of which Rivers State accounted for 37 of the 80 annulled polls. Also, of 44 polls concluded with supplementary elections, two happened in Rivers Of the re-run election ordered by the Court of Appeal in 2015, the North-Central had 14; North-East six, North-West, one; South-East 13; South-South, 46. And upturned elections for which certificates of return were issued by court order were as follows, North-Central, five; North-East, three; North-West, one; South-East, four; South-South, eight; and South-West, two.
