Humphrey Nwosu, the former chairman of the now-defunct National Electoral Commission (NEC), has come under scrutiny from Senator Adams Oshiomhole for his involvement in the June 12, 1993, presidential election.
The military leadership cancelled the election, which sparked demonstrations across the nation.
The late businessman and industrialist Moshood Abiola of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) is thought to have won
the election, which was regarded as one of the freest and fairest in the history of the country.
32 years later, Oshiomhole, the National Assembly representative for Edo North, criticised Nwosu for failing to
announce the outcome of the election he oversaw.
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He maintained that if Nwosu had taken the action, heaven would not have fallen, emphasising that in the worst
situation, he would have been executed or imprisoned by General Ibrahim Babangida’s (rtd) military dictatorship.
“If Nwosu had declared him, heaven would not fall,” the former Edo State Governor said on TV. “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.”
