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June 12 without Nwosu: The hollow ritual called Democracy Day!
What is June 12 without Option A4? Who created that unique model of voting that led to the classic electoral outcome which not only shook the nation, but shocked the world? Would there have been June 12 without that that cryptic but unmatched electoral creation?
That eclectic electoral construct was the outcome of creative thinking exclusive only to geniuses. So, why was the name of Professor Humphrey Nwosu, the political genius who created it missing in the hall of fame announced by President Bola Tinubu on June 12, 2024 edition of Democracy Day, when Nigeria rolled out the drums to celebrate?
For obvious reasons, it could be understandable that under the regime of Muhammadu Buhari, who, in 2018, acceded to the idea of making June 12 a significant event in the country, as a political masterstroke to win the votes of the South West in the 2019 presidential election, rather than any personal taste for democratic ethos, that no mention would be made of Nwosu.
One Buhari, though pretended to be a democrat, purely for the purposes of pleasing certain interests, he never pretended about his place with the Igbo or even about his nepotistic credentials. His aversion for the Igbo, was not only real, it stuck out like a sore thumb. He not only stated from the outset that he would run his strange permutation of 97-5 per cent structure against Ndigbo, he followed it to the letter. So, it would not only be unfair to him but a bogus expectation to believe that he would agree to anything that would celebrate the Igbo, which Nwosu, unfortunately, was.
But what about Tinubu? Could the same be said of him? Was he not supposed to be the broad-minded, open-personality democrat? It might even be difficult to see anyone who could bet that Buhari, was not part of the supposed Northern oligarchy which stopped the June 12 election from being consummated.
After all, at the time Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola was languishing in gulag of the late General Sani Abacha, the despotic Head of State, who arrested him for claiming his mandate, the selfsame Buhari was holding court like a Czar at the prestigious Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) under the same regime.
So, any reasonable person, ought to count him out of the equation of the June 12 idea without feeling any sort of guilt. He never presented himself as a June 12 advocate and never pretended about being one. He was never in the trenches or was exiled from the country as a result like Tinubu and his group. On the contrary, he was on the other side, enjoying all the perks that came from the annulment of the historic election and the subsequent incarceration of Abiola, and must have missed the end of that era to boot. So, nobody should blame him.
But certainly not Tinubu! He not only saw from close quarters, the June 12 saga as a politician and Senator under the banner of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) like Abiola, during the period but lived the harrowing impact as a prominent member of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), the alter ego of the June 12 struggle.
So, in this context, he should know and therefore could neither be excused nor extricated of blame for any manifest gaffe or omission thereof, because his motive for either punctuating or defacing history can only be deliberate. Tinubu cannot pretend not to know the contribution of Nwosu to June 12. He cannot pretend not to know that without Nwosu, there would not have been that history. So, why?
O! The argument in some quarters is that Nwosu should have completed the process and having not done so, he was as guilty as the collaborators. Really? Complete the process with a gun on his head? Complete the process and probably risk the threat of having his entire family wiped out, as only a murderous and despotic military government could do?
In that case nobody should have the right to stand on the podium to receive accolades as a June 12 hero, outsides the likes of Abraham Adesanya, who remained in the country to face the naked danger. Why should a Tinubu, expect Nwosu to announce the results and face sure death, at the same time he was plotting to escape the country through the uncharted routes of Benin Republic.
Nwosu’s sin could only be attributed to cowardice and not willingness or intent. If he lacked the two, he would not have gone the extent he went to create the Option A4 template that produced the freest and fairest election in the Nigeria’s history. Were this to be so, then virtually everyone was guilty.
There is a limit to courage. It is only a mad man would stand against a man with a gun, Nnamdi Azikiwe, the late Owelle of Onitsha, once said. Nwosu was not a mad man. Tinubu and his NADECO colleagues, who had to flee into exile to continue the fight, were not mad either. So, if Tinubu and the rest could not stand at the rail-track to stop the moving train that was the military government at the time, why should they expect Nwosu to? Why should they demand if?
If they ran away from Nigeria in order to preserve their lives, so as to live to fight another day, why would they expect Nwosu to remain on the same rail-track and lose his own life, so that he would never live to see the next day? That will be wicked.
So, that event of June 12, 2024, elaborate as it was, with all its kaleidoscope of colours and concepts, lost the zest and shine it ought to have when the planners deliberately left out Nwosu one of the true heroes of that historic event.
What is more? Its light, was not only dimmed by this act of deliberate omission, but the entire essence was shredded to smithereens on the slaughter-slab of nepotistic, if not egoistic outcome of replacing Abiola as the true hero with Tinubu, as depicted by the mounting of that giant painting of the President at the Eagle Square at that event.
Surely, the whole world knows that much as he played a significant role in the June 12 history, Tinubu was never the main protagonist of June 12. MKO was. Even Nwosu has a better place in the podium of honour. Maybe that is what the gods were reminding the world by that Great Fall! Time is now to make amends, perhaps to avoid more dobales and rulees. Enough said!
The kids bulldozed into the room at exactly 12 midnight today, April 21st, with the birthday song dancing and thanking God for the gift of another year for the Mummy General of the House.
A woman who holds my breadth and who has changed my life for good. She is organised, creative and a manager of repute. She has kept the House on course throughout this last 25 years of our union and seven years after my mum decided to travel.
I respect her intelligence and commitment to the growth of the union. I can’t thank God enough for the privilege to have her as my soul mate. In my several times of crisis of direction and choice, she has come handy with rich counsel and worthy advice.
Not once, not twice, has she saved the House from disgrace and ridicule. I salute her commitment to a flourishing marital life, her love for my children and relations, and her leadership qualities. A viteous woman, prayer warrior, and counsellor.
On behalf of the House of Louis of Umuozoke, Umufele, Ibute Amaeke Ngwo of Enugu State which I presently head, I pray that God will continue to bless and honour this woman of inestimable value, the support base and motivating spirit behind our success story.
Ebuka, Dera, Chigo, Chinwe, Ebube and I celebrate and honour you today and always. Rise and shine for your God is alive and will continue to be there for you. Pls spare a prayer for her and thank God for her life.
As you are reading this, the undertakers would either be lowering their bodies into the six feet under the ground or must have finished their job and be heading home to allow the grief-stricken families, friends and well-wishers to bewail their ugly fate and bear the indelible mark of such a telling loss.
For what remains of Dozie Okoye, a staff of Zenith Bank, Ladipo branch in Lagos and Joan Gusiora, his beautiful wife, a nurse with a promising career in the United States would have been closed finally in the bowels of the red earth, a final story that awaits all mortals.
Just a month ago, on Saturday, February 22, the atmosphere at the Momoh Gardens, 18, Wole Olateju Crescent, Lekki Phase 1, was virtually on fire with celebration as the same families, friends and well-wishers gathered to add colour to their wedding reception, shortly after exchanging rings and marriage vows at the Saint Jude’s Anglican Church on Ademola Ajasa Street, Omole Phase 1, Ikeja.
But now, on this same Saturday, March 22, it would be another kind of music at the Okoye family, Agulu Village, Anaocha Local Government Area of Anambra State where both hailed. That where the two bodies would be sealed, after that of the young lady, who would have returned to her duty post in the US last week Friday, would have visited her own home in her father’s compound at Enugu-Ukwu, Njikoka Local Government.
How did this happen? Only the couple who are no more could have given the full details. But from what could be pieced together by family members and friends, it indicate that they were two out of the four fatal victims of the Otedola Bridge gas explosion and subsequent fire of March 11.
They were said to be returning home when they were caught in the inferno, having been completely trapped as the car in which they were travelling was right behind the tanker that exploded and therefore had no chance of escaping as the incident must have happened in split seconds.
Otedola Bridge along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, has since become notorious for such accidents, having hosted similar gas or petroleum tanker explosions at different occasions in recent years, with multiple fatalities recorded.
The little account suggest that the couples’ phones suddenly went off and nobody could reach them, setting off apprehension amongst their friends who eventually tracked them at the at the Burns Center in Gbagada and Yaba Mortuary, where their charred remains were finally found on the evening of Wednesday February 25 after days of frantic searching.
In fact, it was said that the first and only means of identification that eventually gave a clue to what must have happened to the couple, was when the search party finally discovered their car, which was found among the burnt vehicles at the scene of the incident, through the registration number.
“The wife was due to go back to her base (USA) last Friday. I don’t have much details. Dozie started work that particular Tuesday after his wedding. The wife left her father’s house at about 4.00pm to meet him, that is for Dozie to pick her on his way back from work. That was the last anybody heard from them.
“Until next morning when Dozie could not report at office as he normally comes on time, that was when his colleagues started calling his line without success. At this point they got in contact with his relation to know if there was any information about him. That was how the search started. With news of the tanker explosion the previous day, they extended the search to scene of the explosion where his burnt car was found,” a family member told WhirlwindNews.
Expectedly, family, friends and close associates of the couple have remained in mourning ever since, with the parents totally inconsolable as they contemplate how a life which began on a promising note for the youngsters who looked into their future with such great hope on that February 22, when they took their vow before the world could end on such a sad note in a swift, sudden and painful way. See how some of the grieving friends captured it.
MC the young wrote: “My classmate who i attend her wedding last 3 weeks died in a gas explosion caused by a tanker at Otedola bridge Lagos. Joan ur village people who did this to you will never know peace. My heart is heavy. I love you so much. You are supposed to go back to your base at USA on Friday.
Nelly Kelly: “Outbreak at Otedola Bridge. Otedola bridge took a vibrant soul away from Ladipo Oluwole Zenith Bank. Please come back to us. Two weeks you did your wedding and resumed yesterday and same yesterday you said goodnight to us along with your wife? Otedola bridge took a newly couple from us.”
Again, the story brings to the fore the contradictions in life. Dotun Oladipo, versatile journalist and Publisher of The Eagle Online, one of Nigeria’s leading online newspapers, had last week penned down how he and his wife and daughter escaped the same fate by a stroke of chance, having headed in the same direction only to divert towards a different road minutes before the explosion.
But while the media guru was lucky, Rotimi Adeleye, his mechanic who had fixed one of his cars was not as he was caught in the inferno, before he could escape. Devastated and distraught, Oladipo had prayed for the repose of the souls of the victims. But, how easy would it be for the family members of these victims, especially the Okoyes? Tragic!
By Sunny Igboanugo
“The purest treasure mortal times afford is a spotless reputation. That away, men are but gilded loam or painted clay…My honour is my life both grow in one. Take honour from me and my life is done.”
This was Shakespear, writing in King Richard 11, in 1597. It was one of the scenes where two nobles, Henry Bolingbroke Duke of Lancaster squared up against Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. The subject matter was that rare item – honour. Bolingbroke had accused Mowbray of high treason in an alleged attempt to overthrow King Richard – accusation that amounted the highest crime in the land.
For that Mowbray, who pled his innocence, swore that the only remedy that would cleanse and cure the dishonour was the blood of the man from which the treasonable word issued. The two hot-bloods would not listen to their elders.
Hear Mowbray’s retort to his father, when he tried to persuade him not to fight:
My king, I throw myself at your feet. You have power over my life, but not my honor: it’s my duty to obey you, but my good name, even if you take my life, will not be dishonored by you in death. I am disgraced, insulted, and slandered here, my soul pierced with the venomous spear of lies, which no medicine can cure except the blood of the man who has poisoned me.
It even got sharper when the king threatened Bolingbroke with his authority. King Richard’s staff was made of a lion’s head while that of the Duke, his cousin was made of a leopard. So, he commanded – give up the fight I command you – lions make leopards tame. But listen to Bolingbroke, still emphasising his honour even over his life said in reply:
Yes, but the lions notwithstanding its powers cannot make leopard change its spots. To take that gage from me is to take my honour. A brave spirit in a loyal person is like a jewel in a chest protected by ten locks. Then, my dear liege, let me prove my integrity in combat: I live for my honor and will die for it.
What does all this say? Simple! Without honour, a man is no more than a moulded sand or painted clay – completely lifeless! Therefore men who know the value of honour do everything to protect it. Like the British nobles who were prepared to kill themselves to preserve their honour, every man is supposed to prefer death over dishonour. In other words, not even the entire world or pain of death would make them trade this rare virtue.
Bola Ige, former Governor of Oyo State and Nigeria’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice, months before he was assassinated in December 2001, at the main auditorium of the University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus (UNEC), Enugu gave a local impetus to the idea. There, he spoke so eloquently and profoundly to accentuate the meaning of honour that his audience became clearly roused to why individuals must fight or die for it.
The essence of that event in the court of King Richard 11, more than 400 years ago and its reenactment by Ige two decades ago, remain as profound and true then as they represent the true spirit of man in the import of creation today. Men are still ready to die today to preserve their honour and integrity as they were in those eras.
Even with the thinning down of their numbers across the world, due to many years of sustained corruption and the interplay of personal interests, some men still manage to see honour and integrity as the main credo for existence of man. The name, Samuel Ayodele Adebanjo, foremost Yoruba leader and exemplary nationalist would certainly find itself in that fast-diminishing list.
Until his passing on Friday, February 14, 2025, Pa Adebanjo, gave a grand performance like a principal character in an opera accentuating that concept of humanity. The stage was the Nigerian politics. Just two years earlier, in 2023, men of integrity were called to that stage. The nonagenarian led the pack. As the Leader of Afenifere, the pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, he had every reason to benumb his conscience and bury the truth as he knew it.
After all, how could he abandon the people he led when one of their own was in the arena for a contest? Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a Yoruba son and one of his subjects as the alter ego and numero uno of the Yoruba people by virtue of his leadership of the Afenifere, was one of the contestants for the presidential election of that year.
It was therefore not only expected to stand behind the Jagaban Borgu, the Asiwaju of Lagos, but imperative. He could have given that excuse to his colleagues in Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), or the Middle Belt Forum with whom there was a previous agreement for the Igbo to produce the next President. Of course, in the Nigerian context, it would have sufficed as an excuse.
But that was where Adebanjo’s quality stood out. The Yoruba, is also inured in the doctrine of Omoluabi – the unique value expressed in a well-behaved person and stressed only in the principle of doing the right thing at all times – which also includes upholding the doctrine of equity, justice and fair-play – the essence of man in a plural and divergent world.
That was the pitch! That was how instead of Tinubu, Adebanjo, led the Yoruba support for Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party, an Igbo man. Reason: “The Yoruba will not take its turn and take the turn of another person just because it has the advantage or power to do so.”
For his compatriots who argued otherwise, he had this to say to them, in an Arise News Television interview: “Why are we supporting Obi? The constitutional, logical, and equitable reasons for it, I have stated. Those are the issues they should address. They should tell us that the rotation system which showed that Yoruba have had their slot and automatically disqualifies Tinubu now is false.
“None of them can claim to love the Yoruba people more than me, Ayo Adebanjo; no Yoruba man living. I am challenging them to come out if there is any organisation in existence that surpasses Afenifere in protecting Yoruba interest.
“This is not a Yoruba matter; it’s not a contest between Yoruba and Igbo. It is about who are the best champions of the people. This is an equitable thing for the unity of the country. That is what we should address. We should first decide whether we should have a second chance when one of us has not had a chance.
“Those are facts of the issue. We are not only opposed to the issue of Tinubu; we are also opposed to Atiku. How can a Fulani man rule for eight years and another Fulani man is going back there? Those are the issues. Let us base this election on issues, not on sentiments.
“And if you read that statement where I first announced our support for the South East, I didn’t even know who was going to be the candidate then; it was principle and certain ideals. It is that ideal they should challenge.
“They should not bring in any price line or sentimental attachment. I won’t accuse them of any other ulterior motive; that’s their affair, but that is our own case; it is the case that they should address; address the message, forget the messenger.
“We cannot continue to demand that the Igbo people remain in Nigeria while we at the same time continue to brutally marginalise and exclude them from the power dynamics. Peter Obi is the person of Igbo extraction that Afenifere has decided to support and back. He is the man we trust to restructure the country back to federalism on the assumption of office.
“We will not compromise this principle of justice, equity, and inclusiveness because one of our own, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, is a frontline candidate. It is on this same principle we condemn the People’s Democratic Party for sponsoring Atiku Abubakar, a Northern Fulani Muslim, to succeed General Muhammadu Buhari, another Fulani Muslim.
“The current President is a Fulani from the Northwest, and by virtue of the zoning arrangement that has governed Nigeria since 1999, power is supposed to return to the south imminently. The southwest, as I have pointed out, has produced a president and currently sits as VP; the South-South has spent a total of six years in the Presidency, but the Igbo people of the South-East have never tasted presidency in Nigeria, and now that the power is due back in the South, equity demands that it be ceded to the Igbo.”
Even after Tinubu grabbed, snatched and ran away with the trophy, Adebanjo was neither any less relentless, nor perturbed. Like the father, whose recalcitrant and wayward son brought back a stolen item, he refused to be part of it in spite its seemingly resplendent beauty and inviting allure. He knew that the magnificence of that item, was superficial and beneath it, just like a tomb, was rottenness and fetidness.
So, as punishment, he might not have received some freshly-minted state of the art exotic cars into his home, deservedly as an Afenifere leader. His house might not have been renovated and decorated with the latest designs of ornamental furniture. No! He might not have received hefty amounts in his bank account as allowance or gifts during festive periods. No streets or monuments were named after him either as some people who took a different road are getting today.
But did it bother him? Did he care? Certainly no! Ostensibly, he knew what he had was far more valuable than silver and gold. Just like the biblical reenactment, he saw the riches of the world shown to him with the prospect of owning them if only he could bow down and serve mammon. But he screamed with a loud voice – away with you!
Bola Ige, in that Enugu outing, while describing the beauty of honour, had told his audience that in that assemblage at the auditorium, were people, whose entire life bore the imprimatur of official sleaze – who from the brooms in their kitchens to the slew of exotic automobiles in their garages were the proceeds of corruption. Amid the enthusiasm and loud ovation his words generated, were registered countenances of discomfiture as with thieves whenever stolen items are mentioned.
Clearly, Samuel Ayo Adebanjo, would hardly be counted in that group of established villains to whom integrity and honour are alien, having sold their souls to the devil. He did not want to gain the entire world and lose his soul. So, he chose the uncommon path.
Like the noblemen in the court of King Richard 11, 400 years ago, he went into a duel with the renegades and reprobates of the world. In the end, at the age of 96, he closed his eyes in his modest house in Lekki Lagos. On that Friday, he breathed his last, clutching in his bosom the biggest trophy his traducers yearn for but would never have – the purest treasure mortal times afford – a spotless reputation!
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