It was a rowdy session at the Senate on Thursday as senators from the South East failed to secure national recognition for the chairman of the defunct National Electoral Commission (NEC), late Prof Humphrey Nwosu.
Nwosu, who conducted the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election, won by the late Chief Moshood Abiola, died on October 20, 2024. His remains will be interred on Friday, March 28, 2025.
It was all calm during plenary until Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe (Abia South) moved a motion urging the federal government to recognise Nwosu with a posthumous award.
The senator, through the motion, also urged the federal government to name the present head office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) after Nwosu. All the senators from the Southeast were listed as sponsors of the motion.
Abaribe argued that the June 12, 1993, election laid the foundation for the democracy the nation enjoys today, stressing that the late Nwosu deserved recognition for conducting an election adjudged to be the freest and the fairest.
Other South East senators argued that Nwosu was one of the heroes of Nigeria’s democracy, regardless of what his critics might say about his role in the botched June 12 election.
But all the senators from outside the South East, except for Senator Yahaya Abdullahi (Kebbi North), who contributed to the debate, opposed the motion.
Senator Adams Oshiomhole was vehement in his rejection of any posthumous recognition for Nwosu, saying that, contrary to Abaribe’s claims, the late Nwosu failed to deliver on his mandate.
According to him, Nwosu could not defy the odds to announce the results of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, as demanded of a courageous public servant of his status.
Other senators who kicked against any form of recognition for the late Nwosu were Senators Sunday Karimi (Kogi West) and Jimoh Ibrahim (Ondo South).
Rejecting any posthumous honour for Nwosu, Oshiomhole said, “Nigerians were really in pain because nobody is able to quote where Professor Nwosu announced the results. It is his failure to announce the result, whether under threat or under whatever forces that prevented him from so doing, that Nigerians were unable to say that he had declared the winner.
“In fact, I was active in that struggle. When we met with the late General Sani Abacha, he said the reason he decided to order the detention of MKO Abiola was that Abiola proclaimed himself as the winner of the election and therefore as president.
“It was on that basis that Abiola was arrested, and he died in detention. If Professor Nwosu should have had the courage, I emphasise courage, as it’s being suggested here, to announce the winner and damn the consequences.
“After all, he who is not ready to die for something will end up dying for nothing. We cannot distort history. We must be seen to have sentiments that reflect the average feeling of the average Nigerian.
“Professor Nwosu, when it mattered most, his courage failed him. And when you give national honours and recognition, you do so for people who have shown courage, who have paid the supreme price, or who were ready to pay that price.
“This is the reason it is even more painful that you allegedly had the courage to conduct elections. I am on record as saying that Professor Nwosu and President Babagida fooled 18 million Nigerians who voted.”
But the South East senators argued that Nwosu could not have acted differently, with a gun pointed at his head by members of the Ibrahim Babangida junta under which he conducted the election.
The Senate at plenary, presided over at that point by the Deputy President of the Senate, Barau Jibrin, rejected all the requests for posthumous honour and immortalisation of Prof Nwosu.
The lawmakers, however, agreed to observe a minute’s silence in honour of Nwosu as contained in the motion.
Led by Abaraibe, the South East senators later addressed journalists, saying that as a participant in the June 12 struggle, President Bola Tinubu should consider a befitting honour for Prof Nwosu.
