Senator Adams Oshiomhole has criticized Professor Humphrey Nwosu, the former Chairman of the defunct National Electoral Commission (NEC), for his handling of the June 12, 1993 presidential election.
Widely regarded as one of the fairest in Nigeria’s history, the election is believed to have been won by the late Chief Moshood Abiola of the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
Thirty-two years later, Oshiomhole, who represents Edo North in the National Assembly, condemned Nwosu for failing to announce the election results. He asserted that the worst that could have happened was imprisonment or execution by General Ibrahim Babangida’s military regime, emphasizing that such actions would not have caused the heavens to fall.
“If Nwosu had declared him, heaven would not fall,” the former Edo State Governor said on Channels Television’s Politics Today. “What may happen at best is that they will detain him and how do you now detain him because he has followed the law enacted by the military?”
“We told him that having organised the election up to the presidency, why won’t you just do the next step of declaring the winner? Abiola died pursuing a mandate, he had to proclaim himself as the winner which Nwosu was going to do.
“If Abiola can have the courage, Abiola was not a militant. He wasn’t a Professor of Political Science, he was basically a businessman but he had enough courage to say ‘I won this election.’ Someone who has the background in Political Science ought to be able to do even better than that.”