JUNE 12 AND TRAVAILS OF NIGERIA’S DEMOCRACY
June 12, 1993 is etched in our collective psyche because the freest and fairest presidential election in Nigeria’s political annals took place on that date. International and local election observers, who monitored the election, wrote reports that stated that the election was free and fair. But incredibly, and to our utter bewilderment, Nigeria’s political ‘Maradona’, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, annulled that election. Consequently, Nigeria was thrown into a political cul-de-sac, which prevented the birth of the third republic.
Before then, the military boys had truncated the growth and evolution of democratic governance in Nigeria in the first and second republics. We had experienced military interregnums in our country between 1966 and 1979; and between 1983 and 1998. The military rule we experienced in Nigeria disrupted the evolution and growth of our democracy and stalled our national development. Is corruption, which is the cancer asphyxiating life out of our country, not institutionalized in Nigeria by the military?
And it was Ibrahim Babangida, who cancelled the June 12, 1993 presidential election, that installed Chief Ernest Shonekan as the head of the Interim National Government. Shonekan’s government, which was a lame duck, was shoved aside by the dark-goggle wearing Sani Abacha.
