That was a snippet from MKO’s presidential campaign song in the run up to the election of June 12 1993. The song is very catchy and what always gets me about it, is how the issues it talks about are still with us today.
Before the June 12 election, Nigeria had local, legislative and gubernatorial elections. These happened between 1990 and 1992. And people looked to these elections for a sense of how the presidential election might play out. But from the results, it wasn’t immediately clear where the party strongholds were.
During the 1991 gubernatorial elections, NRC, the so-called right-wing party, won 16 of the 30 state governorships and gained control of 13 state assemblies. SDP won control of 16 assemblies, including those in Lagos, Katsina and Cross River, three states where NRC had won the gubernatorial poll.
The results seemed to herald the end of regionalization in Nigeria.
During the 1992 legislative elections, regional party lines were a bit clearer. SDP won 52 seats and NRC won 37 seats in the Senate elections. And for the House of Representative elections, SDP won 314 seats, while NRC won 275 seats.
SDP’s support came from Lagos and the middle-belt states including Taraba, Plateau and Kwara. NRC support came mainly from Muslim Hausa and Fulani-speaking states in the North. Fighting was reported at polling stations in several states, mainly in the South East, and a number of elections were postponed in other areas because of logistical issues from the electoral Commission.
This is The Republic, a podcast about pivotal African figures and historical events. Our first season looks at Nigeria’s controversial June 12, 1993 elections. I’m your host, Wale Lawal.
So, by now we kind of know SDP. We know that it was the party MKO ran under. We also know that it was the party that was a little to the left. But what about SDP’s rival NRC? Well, I’m going to borrow from Beyoncé and tell you that Nigeria has a party problem. In today’s politics, we hear it a lot that Nigerian political parties have no clear political ideology. Even if you disagree with this argument, you agree that it’s very difficult for the average Nigerian to say, ‘Hey, these sets of beliefs are what this party stands for.’ This problem is an old problem.
Let’s go back to IBB’s regime. On paper at least, he tried to impose the typical Western split of left and right with how he went about forming SDP and NRC. But in the end, both parties were still largely the same. Both parties were offshoots of other smaller parties with active membership from the so-called elder statesmen.
In episode one, we touched on the two-party system IBB created. In today’s episode, we’re going to focus a bit more on the two parties. Who were the actors in NRC and SDP? How did MKO become the SDP candidate? Brace up: we’re going to hit you with many names and many dates. So, open your notes app or your notebooks, and hold to your seats because here we go.
EPISODE 3: SDP AND NRC, TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN
SDP AND NRC BIG WIGS
At first, many Nigerians believed that IBB was delaying the democratic transition because he wanted to transfer power to himself. Baba Aye seemed to share this idea.
Baba Aye: But he wanted to be in control of it. Initially, it was clear that he wanted to self transit. But I think he got lost in the labyrinth of realizing how almost impossible that was and with several interests impinging on it, lost control of things.
Views changed by 1989, after he had announced the formation of SDP and
NRC.In 1990, elections were in view. Now, both parties had to choose their National Chairmen at their party conventions. It wouldn’t be Nigeria if there weren’t ethnic rules to play by. The plan was, if the party chairman came from the South, then the presidential ticket would go North.
In NRC, Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu was a party big wig. He first emerged in the political scene as the National Chairman of the unregistered Nigeria National Congress. The NNC was later absorbed by NRC. Iwuanyanwu wanted a Northern Chairman because he had his eyes on the presidency. But there were other games at play. Adamu Ciroma and Umaru Shinkafi were also NRC heavyweights who were formerly in NNC. Being from the North, they wanted a party chairman from the South because they also wanted the presidency for themselves. Ibrahim Mantu and Tom Ikimi–both politicians–slugged it out for party chairmanship at the NRC convention in 1990. With most of the presidential aspirants being from the North, Tom Ikimi won. And Mantu would later steer an unsuccessful presidential campaign for Alhaji Bashir Tofa, NRC’s candidate for the annulled 1993 election.
Ciroma had been circling and dipping his toe into the presidential race. After IBB lifted the ban on old politicians of the first and second republics, Ciroma firmly entered the contest in 1991. At the NRC party convention in 1993, he won the presidential primaries and Iwuanyanwu became his running mate.
So a quick recap: by 1992, NRC had Ikimi as its national chairman. NRC also had Ciroma and Iwuanyanwu as its presidential candidates.
Now let’s go a little to the left, to SDP. Remember those party factions I spoke about earlier and the so-called elder statesmen? Well, Shehu Musa Yar’adua was an SDP elder statesman.
Shehu Musa Yar’adua is Nigerian political royalty. I’m going to let Peace Onafuye and Iniye Spiff, who helped with research and writing for this episode, tell you a bit about who he was:
Peace Onafuye: Shehu Musa Yar’adua was an army general–the youngest major general in Africa Iniye Spiff: He was the son of Musa Yar’Adua–the Minister of Lagos Affairs during Nigeria’s First Republic and Matawalle of Katsina.
Peace Onafuye: He was the older brother of former president Umaru Musa Yar’adua, who took over from Obasanjo as democratic president in 2007. Iniye Spiff: He was an active participant in the military coup that deposed General Yakubu Gowon.
Peace Onafuye: After the success of the coup, he served as Transport Minister in General Murtala Muhammed’s regime. Iniye Spiff: He was Obasanjo’s second in command after the 1976 coup and then became deeply involved in Nigeria’s political structure.
Thanks guys! The recommendations from the 1987 Political Bureau and the Constituent Assembly initially prohibited Shehu Musa Yar’adua from being directly involved in politics but he had…shall we call them henchmen? Maybe allies. Allies sounds better. He had allies who represented his political interests at the forum.
Yar’adua would eventually become an SDP kingmaker, but before he planted his feet into SDP, he was shooting his shot at becoming the frontrunner of the political group, People’s Front Nigeria or PFN. The People’s Front included the likes of Ambassador Babagana Kingibe, MKO’s eventual running mate; SDP chairman, Atiku Abubakar (who would later become vice President of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007; Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the current president of Nigeria; two-time Kano state governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso; so-called father of the People’s Democratic Party, Lamidi Adedibu; and Chuba Okadigbo a man who once called Nnamdi Azikiwe an ant.
Here’s Obasanjo in 2017 discussing Shehu Musa Yar’adua’s entry into politics.
Olusegun Obasanjo: I remember when Shehu Yar’adua came to see me in my farm saying that he was going to form a party. He of course left me in no doubt that the purpose of forming the political party was not for him to use it to attain highest political office but to use it to achieve making Nigeria a great nation.
Yar’adua’s party and the big names associated with it merged with other smaller parties to become SDP. Another major faction with SDP was the People’s Solidarity Party, PSP. But unlike the other factions within the party, the People’s Front faction was considered more organized and this feature made them hold significant political weight.
In 1990, there was a general belief that the SDP party chair would be from the North. The factions within the party went to their posts. Led by Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, the PFN faction supported Babagana Kingibe, a Northern politician who had previously been their chairman while the PSP faction supported Mohammed Arzika. Kingibe held a lot of political goodwill and won. In 1990, he was elected party chairman.
Alright, so now the SDP party chairman is from the North. By the zoning rules I explained earlier, we should automatically expect a presidential aspirant from the South. Right? Well…
IBB’S BAN
Let’s zoom out a bit. It’s important to understand first that Yar’adua played a very key role in SDP. During IBB’s ban on political activities, Yar’adua kept on politicking. The military government caught up to this and in January 1992 he had a short stint in jail. But get this: shortly after IBB repealed the ban, Yar’adua announced his presidential bid.
Shehu Musa Yar’Adua: I hereby solemnly declare my intention to seek the nomination of my party the Social Democratic Party to the office of the president of our great country.
At this time, MKO was barely in the picture. In contrast, Yar’adua had a nationwide campaign structure for the SDP presidential primaries. He had a national campaign directorate. He also had campaign coordinators and ward mobilizers in every state. His campaign group included people like former PDP chairman Anthony Anenih, Atiku and Tinubu. Before MKO was a real contender, Yar’Adua was leading the SDP presidential primaries. In fact, he won in the SDP’s presidential primaries of 1992, with about 480,000 votes, dominating his primary opponent, Olu Falae, in the first round.
But on October 16, 1992, IBB annulled the results of both SDP and NRC primaries. IBB’s government accused both parties of electoral malpractices. The Armed Forces Ruling Council or AFRC nullified the results and then dissolved NRC and SDP’s party executives. The government then barred their candidates from contesting again. This ban would affect Shehu Yar’Adua along with figures like NRC’s Ciroma and Iwuanyanwu.
The ban sent shockwaves through SDP and NRC. Both parties had to go back to the drawing board. The publisher, Mr Gbenro Adegbola, helped me understand how the fall out of the ban created an opportunity for MKO.
Mr Gbenro Adegbola: But to my mind, his entry into politics was sudden, and it really came, if I recall, well, at the point when the old breed politicians were banned, and new breeds were being projected and promoted. His emergence to my mind, to my recollection, was sudden.
IBB was deeply involved in the political process. And the nature of his involvement has puzzled historians for years. On one hand, IBB seemed like this puppet master who was dictating the pace of the game. This made a lot of people believe that IBB never really intended to let go of power.
But on the other hand, IBB also seemed to be making all the right democratic moves. After he suspended the results in October 1992, he restructured the military government and replaced the AFRC with the National Defence and Security Council. The council was led by Chief Ernest Shonekan, a prominent corporate executive from the South West. More importantly, Chief Shonekan was a civilian. IBB created a clean slate and now the National Electoral Commission, had a new assignment. The NEC had to ask itself: How do we conduct primary elections that are as credible as possible? Enter Option A4.
I have my friend Jola Ayeye from the I Said What I Said Podcast in the studio with me today. Here’s Jola explaining what Option A4 was. Jola Ayeye: Okay, so as we know the initial 1992 primaries were sha just very corrupt. The presidential primaries were supposed to hold in six rounds of 5 states per round and you had heavyweights in the contest. In both NRC and SDP there were rumours of proper rigging and trust Nigerians, people went to court tire to prove that rigging happened. So, after IBB cancelled the primaries, the NEC came up with a new nomination process, Option A4, which was an open ballot system. If that sounds awkward that’s because it is. Think of it like this IBB was tired of a corrupt system so he said wo, everybody will see who you voted for. So if you were voting Obi, everybody will see because you would be standing on the Labour party ballot queue and if you were BATified then everybody would see too.. You get? It was also a knockout contest. So the top 3 candidates from each round would move to the next stage from the wards to local level to the state level and then finally at the national party level. It essentially was like World Cup knockout stage.
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