After the coup that brought in Maj. Gen Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida to power, he and his ruling Council initiated a transition process for the return to civilian rule.
They established the National Electoral Commission to oversee the electoral process through decree 25.
IBB, to everyone’s surprise, formed 2 parties; the National Republican Convention (NRC) and Social Democratic Party (SDP).
The new nomination process began using an open ballot system, “OPTION A4.” This led to the emergence of Bashir Tofa (NRC), a businessman from the North and M.K.O Abiola (SDP), a popular multimillionaire, media mogul from the South.
Tofa picked Sylvester Ugoh as VP from the SE while Abiola picked from the NE, BabaGana Kingibe as VP.
Despite some setbacks, Sir. Humphrey Nwosu led NEC proceeded with the election, which was deemed to be FREE and FAIR by observers.
NEC began announcing the first batch of election results on 14th June, and Abiola won 19 out of 30 states. On June 15, a court injunction was brought to halt the counting, announcement, and verification of result. The injunction was obeyed.
Tension rose, and a leaked final vote was circulating on 18 June, revealing Abiola won by a 58% majority. This prompted IBB to annul the election.
The annulment led to political unrest and violent protests in the SouthWest region, an estimate of over 100 people were killed by security forces while quelling riots.
This led to the mass exodus of South Easterners (Ọsọ Abiola)
especially Ndigbo, on June 12, 1993, from different parts of the country to their Igbo states of origin as the tension was rising all over the nation.
Ndigbo lost so many of their people and businesses. Properties were seized in the process by the host, while some were auctioned out of fear of losing them.
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Media houses were shut down, journalists arrested, the UK, US, EU, and Commonwealth all condemned the annulment and suspended aid to Nigeria.
IBB resigned, followed by an interim civilian rule led by Ernest Shonekan, then proceeded by another military rule with Sani Abacha ascending to power as the military head of state via a coup later in the year.
Abiola, who left for the UK and US to seek support on his annulled election, came back and was arrested, charged with treason in June 94 after he declared himself president and commander in chief.
This led to another round of protests, strike by workers in different sectors for 9 weeks.
Sadly, Abiola died a month later while in detention on 7 July 1998.
Cowbell sachet Milk was coincidentally introduced in 1993 during the election period at a cheaper rate. Hence the popular name “Milk Abiola”.
In 2018, after 19 years of continuous civilian regime, President Buhari declared june 12, the date of the annulled 1993 election, as the new Democracy Day to immortalize the man MKO Abiola
We hope you learnt a thing or two from this our Ọsọ Abiola piece 😀
