Politics and Nationalism II - June 12 and the Modern Era

The annulment of the presidential election of 12 June 1993 is the central political event in modern Yoruba memory. A Yoruba Muslim businessman won a national election across every region and both religions, the military cancelled the result, and he died in detention five years later. The mass movement that followed, largely Yoruba-led, produced the transition of 1999, and every Yoruba political figure of the last thirty years is positioned somewhere against that event. This file covers Abíọ́la, the interim head of state Ernest Ṣónẹ́kan, the assassinated Attorney General Bọ́lá Ìgè, the two Yoruba presidents Olúṣẹ́gun Ọbásanjọ́ and Bọ́lá Tinúbú, and Afẹ́nifẹ́re as the institutional carrier of the Awólọ́wọ̀ tradition.

Two of the people here are living and politically active. This file states the public record, names disputes where they exist in the public record, and takes no side.

Mọ́ṣọ́ọ̀d Kaṣìmawò Ọláwálé Abíọ́lá (1937 to 1998)

Abíọ́lá is the only Nigerian to have won a presidential election judged free by both domestic and international observers and never to have taken office.

He was born on 24 August 1937 in Abẹ́òkúta 1. He was born into poverty, the twenty-third child of his father and the first of his father's children to survive infancy, which is the origin of the name Kaṣìmawò, "let us wait and see", a name given in a family that had buried its children 1. He worked his way through school, went to the University of Glasgow to read accountancy, and returned to a career that took him to the vice-presidency for Africa and the Middle East of ITT Corporation, running its Nigerian subsidiary 1. On that base he built the Concord Group, which included the National Concord newspapers, an airline, farms and a shipping line, and became one of the wealthiest men in Africa.

His public profile before 1993 rested on three things. He was a spectacular philanthropist, funding schools, mosques, churches, libraries and hospitals across Nigeria, and he accumulated a documented one hundred and ninety-seven traditional chieftaincy titles from communities across the country, an unmatched figure and the material basis of his cross-regional appeal 1. He bankrolled sport, particularly football and the African Cup of Nations. And from the mid-1980s he was the leading international advocate for African reparations for slavery, chairing the Organisation of African Unity's Group of Eminent Persons on reparations. The reparations campaign is the part of his career least remembered in Nigeria and most remembered elsewhere in the Black world.

The election and the annulment

Abíọ́lá stood as the candidate of the Social Democratic Party in the presidential election of 12 June 1993, held under the transition programme of the military president Ibrahim Babangida, against Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention. On unofficial tallies he won decisively and, critically, won across the country, taking his opponent's home state of Kano and carrying northern and southern states alike. His running mate, Baba Gana Kingibe, was a northern Muslim, making it a Muslim-Muslim ticket that nonetheless carried Christian areas comfortably. The election is generally regarded as the freest in Nigerian history 2.

Before the results were fully released, the Babangida government annulled the election 12. No adequate official explanation was ever given. Babangida has since said publicly that the annulment was carried out by forces led by Sani Abacha without his approval, a claim contested by others present at the time and not accepted by most of the pro-democracy movement 2. Whatever the internal mechanics, the government that annulled the election was Babangida's and he was its head.

Babangida stepped down on 26 August 1993, handing to an unelected Interim National Government. Abacha removed that government on 17 November 1993 and took power directly 12.

Epetedo, detention and death

On 11 June 1994, the first anniversary of the election, Abíọ́lá declared himself President of Nigeria at Epetedo in Lagos and went into hiding. He was arrested on 23 June 1994 and charged with treason 1. He remained in detention, largely in solitary confinement, for four years, refusing offers of release conditional on renouncing his mandate.

His wife Kudirat Abíọ́lá took over the public campaign for his release and became the most visible opponent of the Abacha government. She was shot dead in her car in Lagos on 4 June 1996 3. Her driver was also shot and later died 3. Members of Abacha's security apparatus were subsequently prosecuted in connection with the killing.

The Abacha years drove the opposition abroad and underground. The National Democratic Coalition, NADECO, formed in May 1994, was the principal umbrella of the pro-democracy movement, disproportionately Yoruba in leadership, and it operated under sustained assassination and detention. Radio Kudirat, named for Kudirat Abíọ́lá, broadcast into Nigeria from outside 3.

Abacha died on 8 June 1998. Abíọ́lá died in custody on 7 July 1998, on the day of a visit by an American delegation, officially of heart failure 1. The circumstances are disputed and have never been independently established. His death removed the constitutional problem his survival would have posed for the incoming transition.

Afterwards

The transition of 1999 was carried out by the military under Abdulsalami Abubakar and produced a Yoruba president, Ọbásanjọ́, in what was widely read as compensation to the west for June 12. Abíọ́lá himself was left unrecognised by the federal state for twenty years. On 6 June 2018 President Muhammadu Buhari conferred on him posthumously the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic, the honour reserved for presidents, and moved Nigeria's Democracy Day from 29 May to 12 June 1. The award was made without a formal declaration that he had won the election, which remains the outstanding point.

Ernest Adégúnlé Ọládẹ̀indé Ṣónẹ́kan (1936 to 2022)

Ṣónẹ́kan held the office Abíọ́lá had won, for eighty-three days, and is the shortest-serving Nigerian head of state.

He was born in Lagos on 9 May 1936 and read law at the University of London, later attending the Harvard Business School programme 4. He joined the United Africa Company of Nigeria and became its chairman and managing director in 1980, running what was then described as the largest African-controlled company in sub-Saharan Africa 4.

Babangida appointed him head of the Transitional Council and head of government on 2 January 1993, and on 26 August 1993, after the annulment and Babangida's departure, he became Head of the Interim National Government 4. The government had no electoral mandate, faced a general strike and rapid inflation, and was declared illegal by the Lagos High Court in November 1993. Abacha removed him on 17 November 1993 in a palace coup 4.

He returned to business and public advocacy, co-founding the Nigerian Economic Summit Group in 1993, and was a frequent convener of elder statesmen initiatives thereafter 4. He died on 11 January 2022. His reputation is genuinely divided: he is regarded by some as a competent technocrat who accepted an impossible job to keep a civilian face on the state, and by others as having legitimised the annulment by agreeing to occupy the office at all.

James Àjíbọ́lá Ìdòwú Adégòkè Ìgè (1930 to 2001)

Bọ́lá Ìgè was the sitting Attorney General of the Federation when he was assassinated, the most senior Nigerian official ever murdered in office in peacetime, and the case has never been solved.

He was born on 13 September 1930 at Ẹsà Òkè in what is now Ọ̀ṣun State 5. He attended Ìbàdàn Grammar School, took a degree at University College Ìbàdàn, read law at University College London and was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1961 5. He founded the firm Bọ́lá Ìgè and Co. in 1961 and became a Senior Advocate of Nigeria 5.

He was Federal Commissioner for Agriculture from 1967 to 1970, and Governor of Ọ̀yọ́ State from 1979 to 1983 for Awólọ́wọ̀'s Unity Party of Nigeria, the direct inheritor of the Action Group tradition 5. Under Abacha he was a leading figure in the pro-democracy opposition and a founding figure of Afẹ́nifẹ́re in its modern form, serving as its deputy leader. In the Fourth Republic he served in Ọbásanjọ́'s cabinet as Minister of Mines and Power from 1999 to 2000 and then as Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice from 2000 5.

He was known as the Cicero of Ẹsà Òkè for his oratory in both English and Yoruba, and was among the last front-rank Nigerian politicians who campaigned substantially in Yoruba.

He was shot dead at his Ìbàdàn home on 23 December 2001 5. The killing took place against a background of a violent factional conflict within Ọ̀ṣun State politics. Several suspects were charged; all were acquitted, the last by November 2010 5. No one has been convicted. The unsolved status of the case is itself a standing fact in Nigerian political life.

Olúṣẹ́gun Mátthew Okikiọlá Aremu Ọbásanjọ́ (born 1937)

Ọbásanjọ́ is the only Nigerian to have led the country twice, once as a military head of state and once as an elected president, and the only military ruler in Nigerian history to have handed power voluntarily to an elected civilian.

He was born on 5 March 1937 at Ìbógun-Ọláògùn near Abẹ́òkúta into a farming family of the Owu branch of the Yoruba 6. He enlisted in the Nigerian Army in 1958, served with the United Nations force in the Congo, and during the civil war commanded the Third Marine Commando Division, receiving the Biafran surrender in January 1970 6. He was Federal Commissioner for Works and Housing and then Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, under Murtala Muhammed.

When Murtala was assassinated in February 1976 Ọbásanjọ́ became military Head of State 6. He continued Murtala's programme, expanded universal primary education, oversaw the drafting of the 1979 constitution, nationalised BP's Nigerian holdings, and hosted FESTAC '77, the second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, in Lagos. On 1 October 1979 he handed power to the elected Shehu Shagari and retired to farming at Ọ̀tà 6.

Out of office he became a prominent international figure, serving on the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group on South Africa and writing several books 6. In 1995 the Abacha government charged him with concealing knowledge of a coup plot; he was imprisoned from 1995 until Abacha's death in 1998 6. His deputy from the 1970s, Shehu Musa Yar'Adua, died in detention in the same case.

He was elected President in 1999 and served two terms to 2007 6. The record includes the negotiation of substantial external debt relief in 2005 and 2006, the creation of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, telecoms liberalisation and the GSM licensing that transformed Nigerian communications, and a sustained set of institutional reforms. It also includes the military operations at Odi in 1999 and Zaki Biam in 2001, in which large numbers of civilians were killed, and the attempt in 2006 to amend the constitution to allow a third presidential term, which the National Assembly defeated. He denies having personally driven the third term effort; participants at the time have said otherwise, and the question remains disputed.

Since 2007 he has been a persistent public critic of successive Nigerian governments, including those he helped elect, and an international mediator in African conflicts.

Bọ́lá Àhmẹ́d Adékúnlé Tinúbú (born 1952)

Tinúbú is the sitting President of Nigeria and the most institutionally influential Yoruba politician of the Fourth Republic, having built the political machine that produced two presidencies including his own.

He states his birth date as 29 March 1952 in Lagos 7. He took a degree in accounting from Chicago State University in 1979, worked in the United States, and returned to Nigeria to a senior finance role at Mobil Producing Nigeria 7.

He entered politics through the Social Democratic Party and was elected Senator for Lagos West in 1992, chairing the Senate committee on banking and currency, until the military dissolved the National Assembly in November 1993 7. He was a founding member of NADECO, went into exile in 1994 and returned in 1998 7.

He was Governor of Lagos State from 1999 to 2007 7. The Lagos record that matters is fiscal: his administration rebuilt the state's internally generated revenue base, taking Lagos from dependence on federal allocation to a position where own-source revenue could fund a capital programme, and litigated successfully against the federal government over the withholding of local government allocations. That revenue base is the foundation of everything Lagos has done since and is the substantive claim to his record.

After leaving office he built and held together the political structure that in 2013 merged the Action Congress of Nigeria with other opposition parties to form the All Progressives Congress, which defeated an incumbent president in 2015 for the first time in Nigerian history 7. He contested the presidency in 2023, was declared winner with 8,794,726 votes, 36.6 per cent of votes cast, against Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, and was inaugurated on 29 May 2023 7. The result was challenged in court by both principal opponents and upheld by the Presidential Election Petition Court and then the Supreme Court.

His first policy actions were the removal of the petrol subsidy announced at his inauguration and the floating of the naira in June 2023, which together produced a sharp rise in the cost of living and are the central point of contention about his presidency 7.

Aspects of his record before 1999, including his academic and early employment history and his age, have been the subject of litigation and press investigation in Nigeria and the United States, and a 1993 civil forfeiture of 460,000 dollars in a United States proceeding relating to bank accounts is a documented matter of court record 7. He has not been criminally charged in that matter. These are stated here because they are part of the verifiable public record; this corpus draws no conclusion from them.

Afẹ́nifẹ́re and the Yoruba political tradition

Afẹ́nifẹ́re is the socio-political association that carries the Awólọ́wọ̀ tradition. The name is Yoruba and means roughly "the one who wishes good for all", from a fẹ́ ni fẹ́ ẹrẹ, glossed as "we desire that which is good", and it was originally the slogan of the Action Group 8.

The lineage runs Ẹgbẹ́ Ọmọ Odùduwà, founded 1945 as a cultural body, to the Action Group in 1951 as its political vehicle, to the Unity Party of Nigeria in 1978, to Afẹ́nifẹ́re as the association that held the network together through the military years, to the Alliance for Democracy which adopted the Afẹ́nifẹ́re agenda as its platform in 1998 8. Its leading figures have included Abraham Adésànyà as leader with Bọ́lá Ìgè as deputy, then Reuben Fasoranti, then Ayọ̀ Adébánjọ̀, alongside Olú Falae and Bisi Akande 8.

Its consistent programme is federalism: devolution of powers to the constituent units, state or regional control of resources and policing, and a constitutional order that recognises Nigeria's nationalities. That is Awólọ́wọ̀'s argument from 1947, restated.

It fractured after the elections of 2003, in which the Alliance for Democracy lost every western state but one. Rival factions held separate conventions; the Afẹ́nifẹ́re Renewal Group formed in 2008; and by the 2010s the Yoruba political establishment had substantially reorganised around Tinúbú's structures rather than around Afẹ́nifẹ́re, with the older body remaining influential as a voice on restructuring and a critic from the traditionalist wing 8. Its authority now is moral and rhetorical rather than electoral, and it is openly divided, with factions endorsing different candidates in recent elections.

The tradition it carries is nonetheless the single most coherent political ideology any Nigerian region has produced: welfarist in domestic policy, federalist in constitutional design, and built on the assumption that education is the primary instrument of development. Whether it is a universal programme or a Yoruba interest expressed in universal terms is exactly the argument that has run since 1951.

History and evolution

Yoruba political governance traces its earliest documented structures to ancient Ifẹ̀ between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, where sacred monarchy balanced power through town councils of titled elders 9. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the expansion of the Ọ̀yọ́ Empire transformed this regional political landscape through a centralized imperial system overseen by the Aláàfin and the Ọ̀yọ́ Mèsì council 9. The collapse of Ọ̀yọ́ in the 1830s and the subsequent nineteenth-century Yoruba civil wars restructured power around militarized city-states like Ìbàdàn and Abẹ́òkúta, creating new avenues for non-hereditary political leadership 9.

Christian missionary contact from the 1840s introduced Western literacy, English-language print journalism, and administrative training, fostering a literate elite that reshaped political advocacy 9. Under British colonial rule established formally after 1893, indirect rule altered traditional chieftaincy dynamics, while western-educated professionals established nationalist associations such as the Ẹgbẹ́ Ọmọ Odùduwà in 1945 to advocate for regional autonomy 9. Following Nigerian independence in 1960, Yoruba political actors navigated deep regional cleavages, federal party coalitions, and repeated military coups 9.

The annulment of the 12 June 1993 presidential election galvanized a broad pro-democracy movement that resisted military dictatorship throughout the 1990s 9. Today, modern Yoruba politics operates within Nigeria's Fourth Republic, defined by competitive electoral coalitions, persistent debates over constitutional restructuring and fiscal federalism, and active diaspora civic networks across North America and Europe that mobilize international advocacy and finance regional development 9.