NDM TRANSITION WATCH: Focus on Gen. Abacha's transition to civil rule programme

[org ndm]

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NIGERIAN DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT
(NDM)

NDM TRANSITION WATCH
May 25, 1998

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Focus on Gen. Abacha's transition to civil rule programme

by

Patike Communications Ltd., Nigeria

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Nigeria's on-going Transition to Civil Rule Programme was formally
unveiled on October 1, 1995 by General Sani Abacha, the head of the
military government. The programme was promulgated into law on January 1,
1996 under a decree entitled: Transition to Civil Rule (Political
Programme) Decre No. 1, 1996. This programme was a product of what can be
described as the first phase of the series of political activities
embarked upon by the military almost from the first day of its
intervention on November 17, 1993. The return of the military to the
scene just 82 days after the abdication from office of former Military
President, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, was itself a product of eight years of
a transition programme similar to the current one. In effect, one could
take a holistic view of the military's political transition process and
trace its beginnings to August 27, 1985, the day Gen. Abacha announced the
advent of the General Babangida regime, following the successful overthrow
of the Major-General Muhammadu Buhari regime.

On November 17, 1993, General Abacha made his maiden speech announcing the
entry of his government into the scene [SEE NDM NOTE 1]. He told
Nigerians, among other other things, that his government would immediately
commence the process of setting up a Constitutional Conference "with full
constituent powers" to address the political discontent in NIgeria. This
was the first in the long history of military rule in Nigeria that an
in-coming military government was announcing its plans for eventual return
of power to civilians on its first day in office.

It was, however, understandable why the new military government had to
take this step. Its intervention happened at a time of great political
tumult arising from the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential poll. The
presumed winner of the election, Chief Moshood Abiola and his supporters
were still contesting the annulment. It was seen as a great injustice
against a candidate of Southern origins perpertrated by a politicised,
North-controlled military establishment.

Many other groups seized the opportunity of the turmoil to point out that
injustice had been endemic in the system way before June 23, 1993, when
the poll was annulled. They argued that it was time to settle, once and
for all through dialogue, the culture of injustice. Some were of the
opinion that a sovereign national conference would be the right platform
for it. Such a conference would reconcile all the warring parties and
negotiate a proper social contract among the various nationalities and
political interests. It would recommend a proper federal arrangement,
with power devolved from the super-powerful Centre. By so doing, it was
argued, the Centre would be found less attractive by political aspirants,
especially the soldiers. Military coups would find success more
difficult. And so, when General Abacha promised to set up the Conference,
many people welcomed the idea and, in fact, participated in the numerous
pre-Conference seminars held all over the federation. Groups organised
the seminars in order to come up with their respective agenda for the
Conference.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONFERENCE

In January, 1994, the military government set up the National
Constitutional Conference Commission (NCCC). Its duty was to collect the
various memoranda that persons and groups from around the country were
proposing for the deliberation of the Conference when it convened. The
Committee collated these memoranda and formed an agenda for the
Conference.

This was where the cloud of doubts over, not just the Conference, but also
the transitional plans of the new military government started gathering.
Two issues ruled the season of doubt: would the Conference be allowed to
discuss freely and issue a constitutional document which would be binding
(or "sovereign", as some put it)? Would the crux of the crisis - the
annulled June 12 poll - be addressed and resolved?

The process of boycott from the Conference by the "June 12" activists
started when it became clear to them that the military would toe the
tradition of its predecessors and tamper with the product of the
Conference. They were also displeased that the agenda of the Conference
did not include the topic close to their heart, the "June 12" issue.

When the Conference eventually convened on June 27, 1994, those insisting
on the actualisation of the June 12 poll were not represented. Instead,
that section formed a platform of opposition known as the National
Democratic Coalition (NADECO) on May 15, 1994. The Coalition issued a
Charter and ultimatum. The Military was given until May 31, 1994, to
vacate office and hand over power to the winner of June 12 poll. The new
President would then convene a sovereign national conference which would
draw up a social contract for Nigeria and put her on a path to a
sustainable democracy under a true Federal dispensation. When the
ultimatum expired, it called out its supporters on a campaign of civil
disobedience and strikes. It encouraged the symbol of its struggle, Chief
Abiola, to declare himself President on June 11, 1994. The government
arrested Abiola when he emerged from hiding on June 23 [SEE NDM NOTE 2]
and set about crushing the uprising.

By August, the task had been completed. The system, crippled for three
months under acute fuel scarcity and disruptions, gradually returned to
life. When it was clear that the government had successfully lived down
the confrontational challenge to its authority, attention of the public
returned to the Conference which swung into action.

Towards the end of 1994, the Conference had finished its job. One of the
last items on its agenda was the exit date of the military. A resolution
was made for the military to complete its assignment and hand over to a
democratically elected President on January 1, 1996. This resolution did
not go down well with the authorities. The Conference, which was supposed
to have rounded off proceedings in December, 1994, was made to suffer
series of postponements. In one of its reconventions in April, 1995, a
faction sympathetic to (and believed to be fronting for the political
interests of) of the military in the Conference spearheaded the reversal
of the exit date. The military was given a "carte blanche" on its tenure.
However, a number of activities were read out by the sponsors of the
motion for execution by the military before it goes.

The government was called upon to set up a transition implementation
committee made up of members of the Conference and some other "respected
Nigerians." Other activities were: national reconciliation, creation of
states and local governments, establishments of an electoral agency,
registration of political parties, delimitation of electoral
constituencies, implementation of the recommendations on power sharing,
conduct election into all levels of government, among others. On June 27,
1995, the Conference wound up its activities and adjourned "sine die."
This was the prelude to the announcement of the transition to Civil Rule
programme which took place on October 1, 1995.

THE TRANSITION TO CIVIL RULE PROGRAMME AND IMPLEMENTATION

When the three-year programme was unveiled, it contained some 27 items of
activities. These were phased over 12 "quarters" made up of three months
each. It looked, almost item for item, like a typical General Babangida
agenda for transfer of power to civiians, a project that was finally
aborted by Babangida and his followers in the military.

The first phase of the programme was for the fourth quarter of 1995 -
October 1, to December 31, 1995. The ban on political activities was
lifted. By December, government set up the six "transitional committees."
They included the Transition Implementation Commitee (TIC) which had the
Deputy Chairman of the defunct Conference, retired Justice Mamman Nasir,
as the Chairman; the National Reconciliation Committee which had Chief
Alex Akinyele, a former Information and Culture minister, as the Chairman
and the Committee on Power Devolution which is headed by Alhaji
Abdularahman Okene, a retired bureaucrat and the Chairman of the Northern
Elders Forum. Others were the Committee on Creation of States, Local
Government and Boundary Adjustment which had as its Chairman, Chief Arthur
Mbanefo, an industrialist; the National Electoral Commission (NECON) whose
Chairman is Chief Sumner Dagogo-Jack, a retired bureaucrat who served as
an electoral commissioner during the Babangida regima; and the Federal
Character Commission, which Alhaji Adamu Fika, a retired civil servant, as
the Chairman. Government, however, did not implement an important item on
the programme: promulgation of the 1995 Draft Constitution into law. It
deferred the item to the end of the transition.

By the first quarter of 1996, the decree establishing the transition
programme was gazetted. So also was the decree legalising the NECON's
existence and activities. Government also pursued the next item on the
agenda - the conduct of the zero-party local government election. This
activity was one of the items criticised by many politicians as
unnecessary, since there was another local government poll billed for
December of the same year. Many people felt that it was a waste of money
and time for two elections to be held in one year for the local councils
alone. Secondly, it was also felt that the electoral body, NECON, needed
enough time to settle down, retrain and re-orientate its staff for the
task ahead. It was suggested that, rather than hold two council polls in
one year, government should have scrapped the March poll and used the one
fixed for December to measure the strength of the political parties that
would sprout during the year.

Government did not buy the argument. It insisted that scrapping the March
poll would only give its critics an opportunity to accuse it of
insincerity in the implementation of its democratisation programme. It was
also at this moment that people started entertaining the doubt over the
willingness of the military to run a successful transition programme and
hand over to civilians. The ferocity with which the government agents had
viewed the December 14, 1995 All Politicians Summit in Lagos gave the
impression that the military rulers were not interested in seeing the
political class unite. Government also showed open hostility to proposals
for dialogue between the representatives of the Summit and the military
leadership to harmonise views on the transition programme with a view to
implementing it as partners. Government's insistence on the March local
polls were seen as a ploy to plant people loyal to the hidden cause of the
military rulers at the grassroots. Already, Alhaji Bukar Mandara, a
member of the Borno Emirate Council, the traditional authority of the
Kanuri-speaking ethnic group to which Abacha belongs, had started media
campaign calling for General Abacha to be allowed to continue as civilian
President after the transition programme.

The conduct of the polls only re-inforced the fear that the military
leaders wanted to use it to water the ground for their future ambitions.
For instance, security agents, NECON officials, government supporters,
political appointees in government and even state administrators
participated in screening and selecting candidates that contested. A lot
of people believed to belong to political camps not favoured by the
military were disqualified even after the polls. In spite of this,
however, the NECON Chairman, Dagogo-Jack, certified the polls free and
fair, and indicated that his Commission would use it as a model for future
elections.

The next major item on the transition programme was the formation of
political parties. This event, like the Conference, decided the fate of a
large section of the Nigerian political elite under the Abacha political
dispensation. On June 17, 1996, NECON issued the guidelines for the
formation of political parties. It imposed certain conditions for
registration which, according to it, would bring about strong, national
political parties. Many politicians saw the guidelines as unrealistic.
For instance, for the multi-party democracy, the parties seeking
registration must, within three months, register 1.2 million members
nationwide. They must provide evidence of the registration by issuing
each member a membership card, and four passport photographs. They must
also have offices in all state capitals and Abuja, all the 690 local
government councils and most of the over 7,000 wards. Items of furniture
for offices were prescribed, including the number of staff they must
employ. Nevertheless, in spite of their misgivings over NECON's (or
government's) sincerity, 23 political associations each paid the N500,000
registration fees.

At the deadline for the submision of their registration materials for
verification by NECON, 17 of the associations on July 25 submitted their
registration materials. NECON set about the verification of materials.
Meanwhile, some of the political associations openly boasted that they
were government parties and were sure of registration. Towards the end of
September, when the successful parties were announced, some of the parties
already knew that they had little chance of making it. This was because
their leaders were among those well known to be nursing the ambition to
succeed the military leaders. In fact, some of them had already taken
shots at the presidential race but were frustrated by the Babangida
administration.

Three days to the September 30, 1996 date for the announcement of the
successful parties by NECON, one of the three Special Duties Ministers,
Dr. Laz Unaogu, told a press conference in Abuja that NECON was not
interested in parties with big names nor those with "extremist"
ideologies, adding that the country was now ripe for "centrist" parties.
The government owned electronic media were already discrediting the
politics of "progressives" and "conservatives", the core of Nigerian
politics. These heightened the fears that the registration of political
parties would not necessarily be based on NECON guidelines. It was felt
in many quarters that the government had already made up its mind on which
parties to register.

Dagogo-Jack eventually announced the five parties issued with registration
licences as follows: the United NIgeria Congress Party (UNCP), the
Democratic Party of Nigeria (DPN),. the National Centre Party of Nigerian
(NCPN), the Committee for National Consensus (CNC) and the Grassroots
Democratic Movement (GDM). [SEE NDM NOTE 3]. The conservatives and the
progressives (notably the All Nigeria Congress led by Mallam Adamu Ciroma,
a former presidential aspiratnt; the Social Progressive Party led by its
main financier, Alhaji Abubakar Rimi, who had declared his intention to
run for the presidency; the Peoples' Progressive Party led by former
civilian governor, Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife and the People's Convention
Party led by jailed Major General Shehu Yar'Adua's supporters [SEE NDM
NOTE 4]) were denied registration, in spite of their popularity.

On October 1, the government announced the creation of six more states-
Bayelsa, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Gomber, Nasarawa and Zamfara States. The country
was split into six geo-political zones - East, South West, Middle Belt,
North East and North West . Also 183 new local government areas were
created, in consonance with the items of the transiton programme. However
the list of the new local councils and their headquarters were witheld
until December, 1996.

Because of this delay, the items of the last quarter of 1996 could not be
implemented. These were the delineation of electoral constituencies, the
production of authentic voters register and the conduct of the local
government elections among the five parties. Government was able to get
the five parties to agree for these items to be carried out in the first
quarter of 1997.

In March 1997, the party-based local government poll was held, with the
UNCP coming tops. The conduct of the elections and creation of the
councils have not been without their own controversies. Up till this
moment (end of August 1997), the election petition tribunals set up by
government have not concluded their assignment of looking into grievances
arising from the polls. In fact, a recent Council of State meeting,
chaired by the Chief of General Staff, Lt.-Gen. Oladipo Diya [SEE NDM NOTE
5], criticised the tribunals for slow work and corruption, and promised to
overhaul the job they have done. In the same vein, the siting of the
local council secretariats have created a lot of communal problems. On
March 13, just two days to the local council polls, the headquarters of
some of the new councils were suddenly relocated to rival communities.
This immediately drew the fire of communal violence, especially in Warri,
between the Ijaw and Itsekiri-speaking peoples.

The transition programme suffered another hiccup when, in April, just as
the parties were preparing for their primaries for the emergence of
governorship and state parliamentary candidates. The government again got
the parties to propose the postponement of the governorship and
parliamentary elections at the state leavel. The subsequently revised
transitional time table was announced by the Transitional Implementation
Committee Chairman, Justice Nasir.

The questions on many lips are: would there even be presidential poll come
next year? Would there be a contest of multiple candidates, or do
Nigerians expect to be treated to a bout of "transformation" to civilian
President by the Head of State, Abacha? Many government spokesmen and
supporters, including former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Mohammed Bello and
even the First Lady, Mrs. Maryam Abacha, have said that there was nothing
worng with transformation, as it has become the trend among military
rulers in West Africa. Many organisation have heeded the call of his
Press Secretary on Nigerians to commence "maximum pressure" on Abacha to
accept to succeed himself. These include the National Mobilisation and
Persuasion Commitee for Abacha's Presidency in 1998 led by Dr. Gowin
Daboh; and the Youths Earnestly Ask for Abacha 1998 (YEAA), led by one
Daniel Kanu. There are quite a number of such groups all over.

Members of the five political parties have continued to campaign for
Abacha to run for President under their party platforms. [SEE NDM NOTE 6]
No presidential aspirant is visible in any of the parties. The only one
that was well known, Chief Don Etiebet [SEE NDM NOTE 7], was arrested by
the security agents during the March 15, 1997 local council polls and held
for about ten days. When he gained his freedom, he glumly addressed a
press conference in Abuja, decamping to the UNCP, the party widely
believed to be favoured by Abacha. It is widely believed that Etiebet, a
former oil minister under Abacha, was intimidated to dump his party and
presidential ambition.

General Abacha has not made a catergorical statement on his perceived
ambition. He said [SEE NDM NOTE 8] his "constituency" would decide though
he never explained what the constituency is and how it would make the
decision. Abacha has, however, continued to stress the determination of
his government to hand over to democratically elected President on October
1, 1998. The country waits with bated breath.

CONCLUSION

The transition programme has gone through a very rough weather indeed.
This is the most complex programme of its kind in the eventful 28 years of
military rule in Nigeria. Two major factors can be identified as the
cause of this. One, the military governmnet was the first in the hisotry
of the country that met active opposition and challenge to its authority
by a civilian political movement canvassing the cause of the annulled June
12, 1993 presidential elections. This opposition has contributed in no
small measure to the climate of political attrition during the period.
Two, the military goverment has not helped matters either. It has
continued to move only in the direction that suits its political goals.
In the process, many of the earlier supporters of the transition programme
have now found out that they are not welcome to play their own politics.
Many of them have now fallen by the wayside and now belong in the camp of
the alienated.

Those who would like to place the transition programme in the context of
the failed one by Babangida would have a valid argument. This is because
Abacha's transition programme follows closely the pattern of the Babangida
edition which was, according to critics, programmed to fail or programmed
to retain the head of the military leadership in power at the end. It is
believed that the credible way for Nigeria to achieve an authentic
transition to democratic rule is for all the pockets of the opposition to
engage the military and its supporters in a genuine dialogue under the
auspices of the multilateral agencies of the international community,
especially the United Nations. A peace process, akin to the ones that
delivered democracy in South Africa and recently Liberia, is suggested as
the suitable framework to achieve lasting democracy in Nigeria. Anything
less could only be a partial solution which will likely continue to be
dogged by cycles of crises.

- The above report is contained in "Nigeria Handbook & Review 1997",
published by Patike Communications Ltd., 89 Bode Thomas Street, P.O. Box
6934, Surulere, Lagos, Tel: 5847305, 836887; ISSN-0794-7895; General
Editor: Dr. (Mrs.) Titi Ufomata; Board of Directors: Dr. Pat Utomi
(Chairman), Ike Emeagwali, Jimi Akiboh.

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NDM Notes:
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1. General Abacha unseated Chief Ernest Shonekan, head of the Interim
National Government (ING) of which he (Abacha) was the Defence Minister.

2. Chief Abiola continues to be held without trial by the Abacha junta
until the time of this NDM release (May 1998).

3. Before approval of the five parties, all the parties had been required
by NECON to hastily merge into fewer parties wherever possible under very
hazy guidelines. Some parties were conveniently disqualified as they
could not fulfil merger conditions on time.

4. General Musa Shehu Yar'Adua (Rtd.), deputy head of state under General
Olusegun Obasanjo in 1976-79, was one of the main proponents in the
Constitutional Conference for an early exit in January 1996 of the
military. He was in detention for an alleged coup against the Abacha
government and hence was not on hand when the reversal of dates was voted
upon reconvening of the Conference in April 1995. He was sentenced in
July 1995 for life in connection with the alleged coup plot, and died in
prison on December 8, 1997.

5. Diya was arrested on an alleged coup plot on December 20, 1997, and
sentenced to death with 5 others on February 14, 1998. At the
commencement of the trial, Diya asserted that he had been "set-up", and
that it involved people right at the very top, including at least Major
General Bamaiyi, Chief of Army Staff. The nation still awaits the final
verdict of the Provisional Ruling Council on the matter as of the time of
this NDM release (May 1998).

6. By April 20, 1998, the last of the five parties, GDM had endorsed
Abacha as the sole presidential candidate, despite a spirited but thwarted
contest by one Alhaji M.D. Yusufu under GDM. The presidential election of
August 1 has now been scrapped in favor of a referendum. Abacha has still
not publicly stated whether he will run or not, and if he will, under what
party. Law suits challenging Abacha's nomination are pending, and several
notable individuals and organisations have written letters to Abacha and
to the international community variously protesting the illegality,
imorality, unethicality and wrong-headedness of the sole adoption.

7. Chief Don Etiebet was actually founder and main financier of NCPN.

8. This was in a Washington Times interview of January 1997.

NDM Commentary
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No sustainable democracy can emerge from the current transition exercise.
The emergence of General Abacha as the sole candidate of five so-called
parties simply confirms this long-held notion. Thus, we consider the
transition programme fatally flawed and irredeemable while the winner of
the June 12, elections, Chief MKO Abiola, is in detention illegally,
hundreds of other political prisoners are still held, other members of the
opposition exiled and the press continues to be muzzled. It should be
abandoned in favor of the formation of a government of national unity, to
convene a sovereign national conference, and from which a New Nation will
emerge.

This is our implacable position.

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