1999 – Democracy Restored To Africa's Biggest Black Nation

1 year ago

1999 – Democracy Restored To Africa's Biggest Black Nation

On May 29, 1999, after 15 years, 7 months and 2 days of sustained pressure from local and international interests; of endless agitations and protests by pro-democracy activists, many of whom were jailed, and some martyred in the process, democracy was eventually restored to Nigeria.

Between the democratic governments of Alhaji Shehu Shagari, who was overthrown in 1983, and that of General Olusegun Obasanjo (rtd.), Nigeria had had 4 rulers, the last of which was General Abdulsalami Abubakar.

Abubakar was the chief beneficiary of the sudden death of one of Nigeria’s most dreaded military rulers – dark-goggled General Sani Abacha. Upon his demise, a high-powered meeting was allegedly held in Aso Villa amongst top echelons of the military and the general was considered as the most suitable officer to steer the affairs of the country and supervise her much needed transition to democratic governance.

On taking the reins of power, on June 9, the soft-spoken general’s assurance of handing over to a duly elected president was met with wide cynicism. This was not unexpected because his predecessors had also promised same, but never followed through on their assertions.

To ease the political tension and pacify political interests in the south-western region of the country who had felt shortchanged that one of their own, MKO Abiola; the supposed winner of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election, and had died fighting for his denied mandate, there was an unwritten political arrangement that power would shift to the South-West. Consequently,the two major contenders that vied for the highly coveted presidential seat were Obasanjo and Chief Olu Falae. Apart from both being of the same regional extraction, they also shared the unenviable experience of having been detained under the dictatorial Abacha regime.

Falae and Obasanjo were both eminently qualified for the presidency. Although Chief Falae, the economist from Ondo State, had served in previous governments in various capacities, most significant of which was Secretary to the Federal Government under Babangida, Obasanjo himself was a former military head of state.

To allay the fears of those in the polity who were not comfortable with the return of a past military ruler in agbada, Obasanjo’s campaign ran on one premise that during his time in jail, he had become reformed as a born-again Christian and his excessive military tendencies had been curbed. Coupled with the fact that he already enjoyed the backing of his counterpart ex-military generals, these different slants coalesced into giving him some electoral advantage over Falae.

Also, in a bid to balance ethno-religious sentiments, Obasanjo, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Falae, his rival who was the flagbearer of a merger between Alliance for Democracy (AD) and All People's Party (APP), had each picked northern Muslims as their running mate. So they both ran on a South-North/Christian-Muslim ticket.Eventually, Obasanjo won by a landslide, polling 63% of votes against Falae’s 37%, and President Abdulsalami stayed the course by handing over to a democratically elected president in less than a year of his taking the helm of affairs.

At home and abroad, Nigeria’s return to democracy was widely celebrated as it offered a new lease of life to the hopes of hundreds of millions of Nigerians, and Africans at large, that the biggest black nation in the world had been returned to the path of fulfilling her immense potential, which had repeatedly been truncated by military juntas.