By Richard Akinnola
I watched with embarrassment, the huffing and puffing of Senator Adams Oshiomhole, both on the floor of the Senate and on Channels two days ago, trying to justify the non-immortalisation of Prof. Humphrey Nwosu over June 12.
According to Adams, the NEC Chairman, Prof. Nwosu, who oversaw what has been adjudged the freest election in Nigeria, should not be immortalized by naming the INEC Headquarters after him because he refused to exercise courage to declare the full results of the election.
What other evidence of courage do you want from someone, who, despite the Babangida junta’s contrived court order of Justice Bassey Ikpeme, of June 10, 1993, stopping the holding of the election, he went ahead to hold the election. He went further ahead to start declaring the election results before he was stopped by the Babangida military acolytes from further release of the results.
Many people didn’t know that when Nwosu was adamant that he would continue with the release of the results, he was slapped by Brigadier Haliru Akilu, the Director of DMI. Through the obnoxious Association for Better Nigeria(ABN), a nebulous body that was being used to scuttle the election, Akilu, Clement Akpangbo, who was the Attorney General of the Federation, Abimbola Davies, (the Director of Operations of ABN) and Senator Arthur Nzeribe, approached Justice Dahiru Saleh, who gave an order against Nwosu and NEC from further release of the results.
Despite this black market court order, Nwosu and NEC (as INEC was then known), approached the Court of Appeal to challenge the Order, attaching the FULL RESULT of the election to their pleadings. By that Nwosu’s action, he had technically declared the results because it became part of the court records. Buhari Bello, who was NEC’s Secretary and who exhibited courage to attach the results in the court of Appeal processes, is still alive to corroborate this. Which other courage does revisionists like Adams want again from Prof. Nwosu?
And to put the records straight, Oshiomhole was part of the villains of the June 12 struggle because he never supported the struggles, despite his revisionist attempts at his Channels appearance two days ago.
Paschal Bafyau was the NLC president, while Adams was the deputy president of the NLC and the General Secretary of the Textile Workers union who never supported the June 12 struggle.
General Babangida had mounted pressure on MKO Abiola to make Paschal Bafyau his presidential running mate. Abiola declined.
At the Jos SDP primaries in 1992, after some horse tradings between Abiola and the Major-General Musa Yar’dua’s group, Abubakar Atiku, who was part of Yar’Adua ‘s camp, was asked to step down for Abiola and that was how Babagana Kingibe emerged as Abiola’s running mate, to the anger and discomfiture of Paschal Bafyau, who along with his deputy, Oshiomhole, didn’t support the June 12 struggles.
The two key labour unions that actively participated in the June 12 struggles were Frank Kokori-led NUPENG and PENGASSAN which literally brought the country aground with their strike.
Adams Oshiomhole should save us his tales by the moonlight with his revisionist narratives.
Thank God, me and some of our other comrades involved in the struggle are still alive to corroborate this -Olisa Agbakoba, Femi Falana, Owei Lakemfa, Abdul Mahmud, Sylvester Odion-Akhaine, Solomon Sobade, Uche Onyegoacha, Femi Aborisade, Omoyele Sowore, Dr Osagie Obayuwana, Debo Adeniran and a host of others.
