Chris McGreal
Many will remember Chief Moshood Abiola as a political martyr denied presidential power, even though he came to prominence as an opportunist businessman, prepared to do deals with Nigeria’s soldiers until the very end.
In the days before he died, Abiola had been ready to forsake his presidential claims, according to the various visitors who saw him. The winner of the now infamously annulled 1993 election had even told the late General Sani Abacha he was prepared to renounce his claim to the presidency in return for his freedom after four years in prison.
Democrats, angry at this unilateral deal they considered a breach of faith with most Nigerians, began edging away from Abiola and talking up other alternatives to military rule. Nigerians waited to see what their new government, led by General Abdulsalam Abubakar, was planning if it wasn’t to make Abiola president.
Abiola’s death undoubtedly provided the army room for manoeuvre. One of Abubakar’s first acts was to dissolve his Cabinet, although he left untouched the Provisional Ruling Council – the core of the junta regime.
For the military’s opponents it is both a blow and a potential source of strength. The army’s enemies clung to the tainted businessman of dubious democratic credentials because his cause was their best hope of levering the army from power.
The military clearly feared Abiola’s potential as a rallying point, albeit a reluctant one.
While many political prisoners were released after Abubakar took power a month ago, the army kept hold of Abiola. It wanted a signed, and presumably public, renunciation of any claim to the presidency in the hope of neutralising any possibility he could be used as a weapon against military rule. Many democrats were not entirely comfortable with Abiola as their cause.
Pro-democracy groups were forced, some reluctantly, to back a man they would have viewed extremely sceptically in different circumstances. Abiola did not have strong democratic credentials. He was embroiled with the military for years, until he fell out with it over a sour business deal. And while he had a strong ambition to be president he had no vision of building a representative government.
The 1993 election is endlessly trumpeted as free and fair even though it was rigorously controlled by the military which permitted only two political parties and banned a host of potential presidential candidates from running. But Abiola provided a focus for demands by major opposition groups for an immediate transition to civilian rule. With Abiola claiming the presidency it would be that much harder for Abubakar to extend military rule on the pretext of requiring time to lay the ground for elections.
In Abiola, Nigeria had its elected leader. Why not hand power to him, the democrats argued. It was a difficult one for the military to answer.
Many democrats secretly feared the prospect of Abiola as president only marginally less than the army hanging on to power. After four years in prison, none of them were sure what sort of physical and mental state he was in. His initial period in jail had been tough, and reports emerged that he was virtually begging to be released on almost any terms. And while Abiola was a rallying point for opposition groups, he was hardly a unifying figure across Nigeria.
In his anger at the annulment of the 1993 election he turned on the very people who gave him victory and legitimacy – the northern Muslim voters. It was the first election in which the north backed a southerner, albeit a fellow Muslim. But Abiola’s principal mouthpiece, his National Concord newspaper, loudly denounced northerners in general as conspiring with the army to deny him power. In an instant, his support shrank away in cities such as Kano which had overwhelmingly backed Abiola. And in that instant it became possible for Abacha to seize power and imprison Abiola. Nigeria was once again riven along regional lines.
After it was known Abiola had bowed to pressure to renounce his presidential claim, some democracy activists again started backing away from him. They re- emphasised a call for the swift installation of a civilian-led government of national unity in which the military would play a part but only until elections are held.
With Abiola gone, that option may suit Abubakar – especially if he can get away with handpicking any new government. To most Nigerians’ dismay there are all too many politicians ready to play the military’s game for the right price, as Abacha again proved when the only five political parties he allowed to exist all chose him as their presidential candidate.
Abubakar is wooing top international diplomats, in part by appearing so much more civilised than his thuggish predecessor. Nigerians are more sceptical. They have been down this road before. General Ibrahim Babangida spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a decade-long transition to democratic rule only to wreck it at the finishing post when he cancelled the 1993 election won by Abiola.
Abacha made much the same promises and then rigged the whole process so as to step right into the presidency. Abubakar will not easily extend his rule indefinitely. If nothing else, Abacha reunited Nigerians in their resentment of the military.
Nigerians across the spectrum are now pressing for an end to the perpetual bouts of military rule. If they can find a unifying voice with more credibility than Abiola the army may be forced to step aside for good.