Contd. from last edition
“The National Electoral Commission is hereby suspended. All acts or omission done or purported to be done by itself, its officers or agents under the repealed Decree No 13 of 1993 are hereby nullified”.
This was the way and manner Babangida and Aikhomu wanted to talk to make vulnerable Nigeria think that there was genuine reason for their martial madness. Firstly what Legal System were they making reference to when they averred that they wanted to save judiciary from being politicized or ridiculed? The same Legal System that the Military strangulated and desecrated? The judiciary that they cowed down. The same military government that made mess of court orders and judgments. Did the pedigree of military dictatorship in Nigeria show any respect for the rule of Law and fundamental (Human) Right or the Constitution or Judiciary? The same military government that trampled upon the sacred provisions of that ground norm, christened “The Constitution? The same government that took joy in dumping human beings in the various prisons without any form of trial?
Infact it is an aberration for somebody like Aikhomu to have stated that they were to save the judiciary. The same judiciary they killed and almost buried, hence you heard Judges in Aikhomu’s era saying “our hands are tied”. Who tied the hands of judges if not Aikhomu and his mentor, IBB? Was their action of annulling a free and fair election responsible or responsive? Has a military government in Nigeria been responsive?
Aikhomu inadvertently mentioned in his address that the courts were the last hope of all law-abiding citizen. What hope were the court giving the common man or according to him, law-abiding citizens when it was stupid and illegal to be law-abiding during that dark-era? Was it not during Aikhomu’s era that his countryman, Dele Giwa was bombed through a mail? Was it not that era that bomb blast was introduced into Nigeria? The windfall of the gulf that is not accounted for to this day was an episode during late Aikhomu’s era in the saddle. The many travails and ordeals of late Gani Fawehinmi were legacies of IBB/Aikhomu junta.
All the controversies and double standards of that regime cannot be borne by IBB alone. Aikhomu was an accessory and a co-mastermind. The slaughter of matman vatsa, Gideon Orka etc are achievements of the two Generals and their cronies. The blood of these young soldiers are not only on IBB’s head. Aikhomu was a dependable ally of the Maradona. There was no time we were told, that both of them ever disagreed on policies of government.
He did not also resign from the government of the Lucifer trained General. It was when civil society pressurized them to leave Aso Rock that both of them shamelessly left. Was their government ever responsible or responsive as claimed by Aikhomu? Which responsible or responsive government will perpetrate the evil they did?
Unto the day of Aikhomu’s demise he has not and did not at any time tell Nigerians that he was sorry for all the administrative malpractices and malfeances he committed in concert with his boss while in office. He has not also told the waiting public that he ever disagreed with IBB on some of the very unreasonable and anti-people decisions and policies of that junta. So what are we glorifying him for? Why is he a saint in death? Was he a better devil?
To show that the thought of Aikhomu and that of IBB cross-bred, the two personalities appointed to chair, led or head the two IBB”s appointed political parties (SDP) Social Democratic Party and (NRC) National Republican Convention were his Ishan or Esan compatriots; to wit, Chief Tony Anenih from Uromi and Chief Tom Ikimi, from Igbueben respectively and himself (Augustus Aikhomu from Irua-all Esan or Ishan, in Edo State. That is to show you the level of politics, nepotism or ethnicism or tribalism that Aikhomu exhibited in the main. No wonder, Anenih and Ikimi showered upon his corpse so much encomium.
No other tribe, state or region had qualified people to become party chairmen apart from Esan brethren as far as Aikhomu was concerned. It was the politics of “Na my turn or na our turn”. No wonder, it was easy for him to wake up on the morning of June 23rd 1993 to annul the election while his brothers (party chairmen) looked the other way. Job creation for kinsmen?
Aikhomu was the man who built a University Teaching Hospital in his village or Town (Irua) and named it after his own mother “Otiwukhai Specialist Hospital”. First in history of a University Teaching Hospital.
It is now question time on matters arising His Script (annulment announcement) looked carefully. Couched buffeted with unsubstantiated reasons but that was the same way their speech was beautifully couched when they took over government and did worse than they condemned in their coup announcement made by General Sani Abacha.
The devil equally used sweet mouth or call it eloquence to convince Eve to eat the wrong fruit in the Garden of Eden. The evil is an orator. So was the speech of Late Augustus Aikhomu on 23/06/1993. The speech that annulled the mandate of the people. In death Nigerians seemed to have forgotten the story of 1993; its nostegia, its bitter pills, its death toll, its tension and threat to national unity. Today, several years after Aikhomu is mystified, glorified and magnified in death. I am sure that when IBB shall die, many shall cry more than the bereaved in this country and the victims of IBB”s belligerence may not be an exception, but I refuse to be a party to such crocodile tears. Jamboree.
Barr. Gideon Kpoobari Girigiri
08036784327
