Interview with Lamidi Adedibu

With Lamidi Adedibu passing away this week, a lot of column inches have been occupied discussing him.  Rather than add to the column inches, I thought site visitors might be interested to see this television interview with him.  Enjoy.

JUNE 12, 1993 ELECTION: FULL RESULTS

Since the 15^th anniversary of the landmark June 12, 1993 election just passed, I thought it was an opportune time to publish the full results of the election. On June 15, 1993 the National Electoral Commission (NEC) released the results from 14 states (including the Federal Capital Territory). The following day (June 16, 1993) the Abuja High Court ordered that further announcement of the results should be suspended. Here are the full results of the election:

STATE	NUMBER OF NRC VOTES	PERCENTAGE OF VOTES FOR NRC	NUMBER OF SDP VOTES	PERCENTAGE OF VOTES FOR SDP	TOTAL VOTES	WINNER
Abuja (FCT)*	18,313	47.84	19,968	52.16	256,500	ABIOLA
Abia*	151,227	58.96	105,273	41.04	334,490	TOFA
Adamawa	167,239	54.28	140,875	45.72	414,129	TOFA
Akwa Ibom*	199,342	48.14	214,787	51.86	371,288	ABIOLA
Anambra*	159,258	42.89	212,024	57.11	847,274	ABIOLA
Bauchi	524,836	60.73	339,339	39.27	406,132	TOFA
Benue	186,302	43.06	246,830	56.94	282,180	ABIOLA
Borno*	128,684	45.60	153,496	54.40	342,755	ABIOLA
Cross River	153,452	44.77	189,303	55.23	472,278	ABIOLA
Delta	145,001	30.70	327,277	69.30	308,979	ABIOLA
Edo*	103,572	33.52	205,407	66.48	427,190	ABIOLA
Enugu	284,050	51.91	263,101	48.09	349,902	TOFA
Imo	195,836	55.14	159,350	44.86	228,388	TOFA
Jigawa	89,836	39.33	138,552	60.67	726,573	ABIOLA
Kaduna*	356,860	47.80	389,713	52.20	324,428	ABIOLA
Kano*	154,809	47.72	169,619	52.28	442,176	ABIOLA
Katsina	271,077	61.30	171,162	38.70	286,974	TOFA
Kebbi	144,808	67.34	70,219	32.66	488,492	TOFA
Kogi*	265,732	54.40	222,760	45.60	352,479	TOFA
Kwara	80,209	22.78	272,270	77.24	1,033,397	ABIOLA
Lagos	149,432	14.46	883,865	85.54	357,787	ABIOLA
Niger*	221,437	61.90	136,350	38.10	484,971	TOFA
Ogun*	59,246	12.22	425,725	87.78	964,018	ABIOLA
Ondo	162,994	15.58	883,024	84.42	437,334	ABIOLA
Osun	72,068	16.48	365,266	83.52	641,799	ABIOLA
Oyo*	105,788	16.48	536,011	83.52	676,959	ABIOLA
Plateau*	259,394	38.32	417,565	61.68	1,026,824	ABIOLA
Rivers	640,973	63.37	370,578	36.63	469,986	TOFA
Sokoto	372,250	79.21	97,726	20.79	469,986	TOFA
Taraba	64,001	38.58	101,887	61.42	176,054	ABIOLA
Yobe	64,061	38.41	11,887	63.59	38,281	ABIOLA

*States in which results were released. The results were released in 14 states only.

Vote Breakdown and Analysis

Voter turnout was higher in the south than in the north. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate Moshood Abiola received over 8 million votes, and won in 19 states and the Federal Capital Territory. The National Republican Convention (NRC) candidate Alhaji Bashir Tofa received over 6 million votes and won in 10 states only. Over 14 million people voted. Abiola won in Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Benue, Borno, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Kwara, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Plateau, Taraba, and Yobe states, and the Federal Capital Territory. Tofa won in Abia, Adamawa, Bauchi, Enugu, Imo, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Niger, Rivers and Sokoto States.

Abiola’s victory was comprehensive as he won almost 60% of the total votes cast. Only in two states (Kebbi and Sokoto) did Abiola fail to obtain at least one-third of the votes. Abiola even defeated Tofa in Tofa’s home state of Kano.

Voting Patterns

Although the voting pattern has subsequently been cast as unprecedented in cutting across ethnic, religious and geographic patterns, the true picture is a little more subtle. It is true that Christians voted for Muslim candidates. However Christians had little choice in the matter as the Presidential candidates of both parties were Muslim. The SDP was led by two Muslims: Abiola, and his Muslim vice-presidential candidate Babagana Kingibe. The NRC was also led by a Muslim candidate: Alhaji Bashir Tofa. Although Tofa’s running mate was Christian, both Tofa and Kingibe were Kanuri Muslims. Hence the concept of Christians voting for Muslims was an in-built certainty as any vote necessarily had to be for a Muslim since both presidential candidates were Muslim. Additionally, voting patterns in the south-west were solidly ethnic as the overwhelming majority of votes cast were for Abiola. In the south-west mainly Yoruba states of Ogun, Ondo, Osun, and Oyo, Abiola scored crushing victories, and received over 80% of the votes in each of those states. He also received over 85% of the votes in Lagos state.

WHAT IF ABIOLA HAD BECOME PRESIDENT?

As the 15^th anniversary of the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election approaches, I ask a question that Nigerians rarely ask, and will never know the answer to.

The facts of the annulment are well known. After the painstaking eight year conduct of a “transition programme” to return Nigeria to civilian democratic rule after 9 years of military rule, the then military government led by General Ibrahim Babangida voided the results of the June 12, 1993 election that was supposed to herald the return of democracy. That act added the word “annulment” to the standard Nigerian vocabulary. Although the full election results were never disclosed, everyone knows that Moshood Abiola won. However, given his antecedents, background and temperament, would Abiola have been a beneficial President for Nigeria?

The story of Abiola’s life is a classic rags to riches story that could be a Hollywood film. He was born into poverty in a large family. His birth came after a series of failed pregnancies, still born children and infant deaths in his family. He eventually attended the famous Baptist Boys High School in his home town of Abeokuta, in Ogun State. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is another alumnus of that school. Afterward he studied accountancy at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. He then worked with the multi-national pharmaceutical company Pfizer. However Abiola made his name and riches when he joined the telecommunications company International Telegraph and Telephone (ITT). Abiola eventually became the chairman of ITT and via series of cordial relations with key army officers, Abiola amassed so much wealth, influence and fame that he once boasted of being the richest African on Earth.

Two of Abiola’s closest military friends were then Minister of Communications Brigadier Murtala Muhammed and Lt-Col Ibrahim Babangida. Abiola met Babangida in 1974 when Abiola was selling radio systems to the military. Babangida was sent to evaluate the quality of devices being sold by Abiola. According to Babangida “From that time the relationship developed and he was always around”. Abiola also met Brigadier Muhammed after bravely confronting Muhammed over a series of debts owed to Abiola’s company by Muhammed’s Communications Ministry. The normally fearsome and ruthless Muhammed was impressed by Abiola’s courage and the two struck up a friendship. With Babangida and Muhammed eventually becoming Heads of State, Abiola exploited his relationship with them to secure extensive patronage via contracts with the government and became spectacularly rich in the process. His business empire grew massively as did his bank account balance, number of wives, concubines and children.

With his perpetual wealth ensured, Abiola turned to politics and joined the ruling party, the National Party of Nigeria (NPN). The NPN had an elaborate zoning system for the distribution of government portfolios – including the presidency. Since the presidency had been zoned to President Shagari (from the north), Abiola assumed that when President Shagari’s term of office expired, the NPN would zone the presidency to the south, and he would be allowed to run for President. He was wrong. His presidential ambition was rebuffed by the powerful Minister of Transport Umaru Dikko who told him that “the presidency is not for sale to the highest bidder”. Abiola “retired” from politics soon after – totally exasperated with the NPN. He would have his revenge. President Shagari reported that several frustrated politicians engaged in what he termed “coup baiting” against his government. Abiola had a massive publishing empire was used to launch frequent vitriolic attacks on President Shagari’s government with the intention of discrediting it sufficiently to psychologically prepare the public for its replacement by a military regime. In his memoirs (“Beckoned to Serve”), President Shagari later obliquely referred to the financing and support given to military conspirators by an unnamed “well known business tycoon”. Although he declined to name this tycoon, contextually it was an obvious reference to Abiola. Babangida went further in unequivocally confirming Abiola’s role in financing a coup plot against Shagari and using his influence to destabilise Shagari’s government. He later revealed that Abiola:

“was also very good in trying to mould the thinking of the media. We relied on him a lot for that. So there was both the media support and the financial support.” (Karl Maier – Midnight in Nigeria)

President Shagari was overthrown in a military coup on December 31, 1983 and replaced by a military government in which Abiola’s friend Babangida was Chief of Army Staff (number 3 in the regime). Less than two years later Abiola was at it again and financed another military coup which eventually led to his friend Babangida becoming Head of State. Abiola’s wife Simbiat was opposed to his involvement in politics. However after she died in 1992 Abiola returned to politics and ran for President in an election stage managed by his bosom friend Babangida. As a southern Muslim (the religion of the north) and who was a close friend of the Head of State, an Abiola presidency seemed a virtual certainty. As results began trickling in, it became obvious that Abiola was headed for a landslide victory. He even defeated his opponent Bashir Tofa in Tofa’s home state of Kano. For the first time Nigerians voted across ethnic and religious lines as Christians voted for a Muslim, and northerners voted for a southerner. However something went very wrong. On June 23, 1993 the election was annulled and Abiola was denied the presidency. Five years later Abiola was dead, having been incarcerated for treason for declaring himself the rightful president.

So what would have happened had the election not been annulled and had Abiola ruled? A powerful hard line faction in the military bitterly opposed his candidacy. Babangida later said that had Abiola become President, he would have been overthrown in a violent military coup within six months. The then Director-General of military intelligence Brigadier Halilu Akilu was quoted as saying that “Abiola will be President over my dead body”. Other officers in the regime such as General Sani Abacha and Brigadier David Mark (current Senate President) promised to overthrow or even kill Abiola if he became President. With such opposition to him in the army, an Abiola presidency would almost certainly have led to new round of bloody coups and counter-coups that would have given the military a pretext to retain power. Nigeria might even have still been under military rule today.

But what if the military had supported Abiola? Would an Abiola presidency have been good for Nigeria? Abiola did not win the June 12, 1993 election because he was a massively popular candidate. He won and was adopted as an unlikely symbol of democracy by a public that was desperate to rid Nigeria of increasingly corrupt and authoritarian military rule. To the public, any candidate was better than the military. Olusegun Obasanjo warned that “Abiola is “not the Messiah that Nigerians are looking for”. How (in)accurate was Obasanjo’s assessment of Abiola?

Having come from a poor background Abiola was extremely generous to the poor and made grandiose charitable donations. These took the form of bulk buys of rice and tinned milk, to constructing new wings in new universities. He also awarded several hundred scholarships from his own personal fortune. Abiola made such gestures country-wide and did not limit them to his own ethnic or geographic group. He had contacts and friends across all ethnicities and regions of the country. It was also hoped that Abiola’s stupendous wealth meant that he was rich enough not to be tempted to loot the state treasury. A rich multi-billionaire southern businessman from the south, who adopted the religion of the north and had extensive local and international contacts, the perception was that if Abiola could not govern, no one could.

However Abiola had many weaknesses which might have proved his undoing had he become President. His first and foremost weakness was for female flesh. His appetite for women was such that a decade after his death, not even his own family is aware of how many wives and children he had. Educated estimates put the number of his wives somewhere between 25 and 40, and children anywhere between 85 and 120. He also had a number of concubines. Such a complicated personal life could have proved embarrassing and destabilising for a President in the public eye and would probably have occupied several column inches for gleeful tabloids.

Although from humble origins, in adulthood Abiola was no firebrand political reformer and he was unlikely to rock the boat or risk physical challenge. In many ways he was part of Nigeria’s corrupt elite and a government led by him would have continued with business and corrupt dealings as usual. His emergence as a presidential candidate was predicated on his membership of that corrupt elite. In the end the same military Leviathan which Abiola sponsored and supported ended up devouring him.