June 12, 2026
Today, Friday 12th of June 2026, marks the 33rd anniversary of the historic “June 12” phenomenon of Nigerian democracy. On that day in 1993, Nigerians elected a new president under General Ibrahim Babangida’s decreed two-party system. The parties on the presidential ballot were the Social Democratic Party (SDP), with Chief Moshood Abiola as the candidate, and the National Republican Convention (NRC), which had Alhaji Bashir Tofa, as its flagbearer. The Electoral Umpire then was the National Electoral Commission (NEC) with Prof Humphrey Nwosu, as the Chairman.
The NEC had rolled out its “Option A4” open ballot strategy, whereby voters queued in front of the photos/parties of their preferred candidates and were counted. It was a transparent system that left very little room for rancour, ballot snatching and result falsification during collation. What made June 12 a milestone was that for the first time, Nigerians forgot their ethnic, religious and regional biases and voted for the Muslim/Muslim ticket of Abiola and his running mate, Ambassador Babagana Kingibe. It was a power shift that ended regional dominance and witnessed the first ever emergence of a Southerner as president of Nigeria.
