June 12: We acted in ‘extreme’ national interest – IBB

Our reporter/ Former military president Ibrahim Babangida on Thursday defended the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, insisting it was for “national interest”.

He said this during the launch of his autobiography – “A Journey in Service”, in Abuja.

IBB, as he is fondly called, was the president during that election which was widely believed to have been won by Moshood Abiola. The election was annulled without the announcement of a winner.

But 32 years after the election, Babangida said he acted to protect the country’s interest.

Speaking after former Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo reviewed the book,  IBB took responsibility for the cancellation of the exercise which was a two-horse race between Abiola, candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention (NRC).

“I regret June 12. I accept full responsibility for the decisions taken and June 12 happened under my watch. Mistakes, missteps happened in quick successions,” he said.

While saying he agreed that it was free and fair and also the best of all elections ever conducted in Nigeria’s history, he said Nigeria was not ready for a democratic rule as of the time the election held.

“June 12 was accepted by Nigerians as the best of elections in Nigeria. It was free and fair. But unfortunately, we cancelled that election. I used the word unfortunately, for the first time. We were in government at the time and we knew the possible consequences of handing over to a democratic government. We did well that we wanted ours to be the last military coup deta’t. To be honest with you, the situation was not ripe to hand over at the time.

“Forget about the wrong things that happened in politics. The issue of security of the nation was a threat and we would have considered ourselves to have failed, if six months after handover, there was another coup. I went through coup deta’t and I survived it. We knew that there would be another coup deta’t. But not many people believed what we said. They could have allowed me to go away and then they (coup plotters) would regroup and stage another coup. This is how coups are staged – one man will always come to complain. And he will try to convince you about his complaints,” Babangida said.

He said security threats to the advent of democracy at the time culminated in fresh plans to conduct another election within another six months after June 12 annulment, with better strategy, but which he said he could not achieve as a result of the hostility which accompanied the cancellation. According to him, another election was conceived to come up in November 1993.

He revealed further that he was determined to conduct another election which culminated in the constitution of an Interim National Government (ING), which he noted was eventually toppled by a military coup staged by General Sani Abacha.