Reformer at the Crossroads: Professor Humphrey Nwosu and Nigeria’s Democratic Journey (2)

Professor Humphrey Nwosu’s legacy

Domesticating the electoral process

As a political scientist, Professor Nwosu understood that the character of electoral competition in Nigeria is such that the outcome of any election will almost always be contested. This is because in societies like ours, political power is the major means of production, distribution and exchange and for that, whoever controls political power, controls everything, including the power to turn a pauper into a billionaire and to turn a billionaire into a pauper. The struggle for political power therefore is often anarchic, tending towards the Hobbesian state of nature, with a pervasive fear that whichever group captures state power will use it to privilege its in-groups while disadvantaging others. For this, African politicians seemed to take literally the injunction by Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first President, who famously advised his countrymen during the struggle for independence to: “seek ye first the political kingdom and all other things will be added unto you”.

As a political scientist who had the opportunity of trying to marry theory and practice during his earlier political appointments, Professor Nwosu realized that while democracy is in fact not alien to Africa, the current institutions of democracy such as institutionalized opposition via political parties and the winner-takes-all mentality, are not. He knew that as a ‘mere’ electoral umpire, he had little or no power to drastically change the nature of electoral competition but believed that he could attenuate its anarchic character by making the process more transparent through domestication. This was his rationale for introducing the Open Ballot system.

An open ballot system is a voting method in which voters vote openly, in contrast to a secret ballot, where voters’ choices are confidential. Professor Nwosu was not the originator of the open ballot system. Some other countries of the world also had traditional open ballot system until modern legislations adopted secret ballot system. In Australia for example, open ballot system was in use until 1856, when the country adopted the secret ballot system. In Britain, it was the Ballot Act of 1872 that officially introduced secret ballot to the British parliamentary politics. In Nigeria, open balloting was in use until 1923 when the British colonial administrators first introduced secret ballot system.

In a 2008 interview with The News magazine, Professor Nwosu defended the open ballot system against charges that it was a primitive system. “But there is nothing wrong, I must say, with secret ballot system per se, but it has been thoroughly abused in this country, starting from the federal elections in 1964, October 1965 Western House of Assembly elections, 1979 and 1983. Why should we continue to use what didn’t work? It works for Britain. No one would go and stop elections in Britain; no one would go and write results before it is released. Nigerians should begin to ask questions about systems that work, not mentioning theories- transparent this and electronic that. Nigerians want something that is real; that can restore confidence and that their choice is respected” (The News, 2008). Following criticisms that the Open Ballot system could expose some of the voters to witch-hunt, Professor Nwosu came up with the Modified Open Ballot System. Under this system, people still had to register and still had to be accredited but during the voting proper, they were issued with a ballot paper, where they went into a cubicle and voted secretly for the candidate of their choice. Professor Nwosu’s bold decision to domestic electoral competition came more than twenty years before many prominent Nigerians, including former President Olusegun Obasanjo began complaining that liberal (Western) democracy has failed in Nigeria and needs to be domesticated.

Professor Nwosu outwitted the military, conducted free-and-fair elections and yes, announced the results.

Babangida admitted in his recent book, A Journey in Service: An Autobiography (2025), that there was a faction of the military which opposed a handover of power to civilians. He also admitted in the same book that by the time of the June 12 election his government had massive credibility problem, which was compounded by several events, including the emergence of a shadowy Association of Better Nigerians (ABN), funded by Arthur Nzeribe, who was calling for four more years for the military government. Babangida said he was unaware of the existence of the group and believed that forces linked to the late Abacha were behind the group. On June 10, two days before the presidential elections, the ABN approached the Abuja High Court of Justice Bassey Ikpeme for an injunction to stop NEC from conducting the elections.  The injunction was granted.

Professor Nwosu, aware of the contending forces at that time showed uncommon courage. Babangdia narrated that the NDSC meeting on Friday, June 11, only hours before the scheduled elections, was one of the stormiest meetings he ever conducted as President. As he put it: “Strangely, the Attorney General and Justice Minister, Akpamgbo, who was the nation’s chief law officer and who ought to know that the Justice Ikpeme court order violated an extant law (and was tacitly supported, it turned out by some of my topmost military officers), advised that the elections be postponed in compliance with the Abuja court order. Professor Nwosu insisted, to the dismay of my top military colleagues, that he had enough powers under the law to proceed with the elections. (Babangida, 2025:273), emphasis mine.

It was obvious from Babangida’s narrations in the autobiography that by this time he had completely lost control of his government to that faction of the military that did not want the elections to hold at all (see part 1 of this article). In essence, the locus of power no longer resided with Babangida, despite being formally the President, on whose desk the buck should theoretically stop.  Professor Nwosu seemed therefore to be caught in the crossroads between Babangida, the formal authority who appointed him NEC Chairman, and who apparently wanted the process to be concluded (at least for self-preservation, having already lost out in the military power play), the shadowy military faction that did not want the elections to be conducted, (which had become obviously ascendant at this time), the Nigerian electorate (who expected him to do the right thing), and his conscience. At this stage, Professor Nwosu seemed to turn the whole affair into a game of wits between him and that faction of the military elite.  He had already outwitted them in round one by insisting that he would go ahead with the elections despite the ABN’s court injunction on June 11, 1993.

He also outwitted them in round two by ensuring that the conduct of the election was hitch-free as violence could have provided the forces that did not want the elections to go ahead with the ammunition to intervene and cancel the exercise or even topple the Babangida government. As Babangida noted: “Voting took place in all the 110,000 polling stations in the country, and in keeping with the Modified Open Ballot System (MOBS) as stipulated in Decree 13, counting took place flawlessly in the open, followed almost simultaneously with an open collation that allowed for final results to be attained quickly” (Babangida, 2025:274).

Nwosu also outwitted that faction of the military by announcing the results. Yes, he ‘announced’ the results – contrary to some suggestions that he failed to “announce” the results.  To quote Babangida again:

“Using a giant board in front of its Abuja offices, NEC started, as early as June 13, as stipulated by the Electoral law, to display already released results from all 30 State Headquarters of NEC before the Resident Electoral Commissioners brought them to Abuja for final ratification (emphasis, mine). That process of public display of results, which had now covered 14 states, continued until June 14. And then, on June 16, without my knowledge or prior approval, NEC Chairman, Professor Nwosu, announced the suspension of the June 12 election results ‘until further notice’. I knew instantly that certain fifth columnists were at work and that there was a need for extra care! (emphasis, mine) And even after that suspension of the announcements of results, ABN obtained another ‘strange’ court order from Justice Saleh’s court in Abuja, stopping the release of the results of the elections” (Babangida, 2025:274).

The truth is that if Nwosu had not gone ahead to release the results “even before the Resident Electoral Commissioners brought them to Abuja”, we would probably not be talking about Abiola winning that election today.  By releasing the results of the elections the way he did despite knowing that the forces that did not want the elections to hold had become ascendant, Professor Nwosu actually informed the world that Abiola had won and by so doing outwitted that faction of the military yet again. While he was not in a position to declare MKO Abiola President elect because not all the results had been released and a court in Abuja, working with those shadowy forces had obtained another court order stopping the release of the results, Professor Nwosu believed he had done his bit by letting the world know who was winning the election and that it was up to Nigerians to help Abiola claim his mandate.

I have heard some Nigerians claim that Nwosu should have gone ahead to “announce the results”. Former Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, a man who likes to act tough (for obvious reasons, some would say), and to sound authoritative even on issues he knows next to nothing about, descended so low as to call Professor Nwosu a “coward” for not having the “courage” to “announce” the results (I believe he meant declaring him President elect). English people would say that discretion is a better part of valour. Babangida, a military General who was the Head of State, said he suspected fifth columnists in the annulment, and “realised he needed to thread very carefully”. The Igbos say that it is from the compound of an apparent coward that people stay and point at the ruins in the compound of a man of bravado. It takes wisdom to know that there is a difference between bravery and bravado.

Professor Nwosu’s genius in the game of wits between him and the faction of the military that did not want the elections to hold at all was to let Nigerians know who won the election before allowing the military to annul it. In essence, a faction of the military annulled the election but it was like bolting the stable after the horse had already bolted. By outwitting that faction of the military yet again, Professor Nwosu successfully turned it into a confrontation between progressive Nigerians and that wing of the military.

Professor Nwosu called for June 12 to be made Nigeria’s Democracy Day some 10 years before it was actualized.

Professor Nwosu saw ‘June 12’ as a movement and called for that Day to be made Democracy Day. In the interview he granted to The News Magazine in June 2008, he declared as follows: “So you’ll find that June 12 as a movement was indeed the day Nigerians opted for a democratic political order. They didn’t care and the parties cut across ethnic, state and regional boundaries. And Nigerians were highly mobilized and they expressed their choices freely without interference…. And so in my own view, June 12 was the day Nigerians decided freely for a democratic political order without any hindrance. That day should be Democracy Day. I don’t see anything that makes 29 May 1999 superior to June 12, 1993. Without June 12, there wouldn’t have been May 29. In my view, it was an offshoot of June 12.”  It was only in June 2018 that Muhammadu Buhari made June 12 Democracy Day in Nigeria. That was clear 10 years after the man the likes of Adams Oshiomhole called a “coward” made that call.

What is the best way to immortalize Professor Nwosu?

I have a lot of respect for Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe. But I disagree with him and his colleagues in the Senate who walked out because the Senate refused to endorse a motion to honour Professor Nwosu posthumously on several grounds:  One, I am not sure it was proper to bring that motion in the floor of the Senate as it amounted to “begging” the state to honour him. That apparent act of begging in itself would have cheapened that honour, if it was granted. A simple letter to the President drawing attention to Professor Nwosu’s legacy would perhaps have been a better approach.

Two, even if Professor Nwosu is honoured posthumously, one could raise the question of the worth of a few letters after one’s name or naming a building after the person (especially now that national honours have become very cheapened). The best place to immortalize anyone is in people’s hearts. The two colloquia in his honour – variously at the University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus and at Abuja,  (in which Senator Abaribe himself and several others like Professor Jega attended), are among the best ways of immortalising anyone. I had the privilege of presenting a version of this paper at a segment of the Abuja colloquium.

Three, there are better ways of immortalizing Professor Nwosu in the hearts of people who appreciated him as a scholar and Chairman of NEC:  Prizes could be endowed in his honour at selected  Departments of Political Science and Public Administration across the country; the Department of Public Administration at the UNN could be named after him. Some of the papers presented at the colloquia to honour his legacy could be published as a book.  If the Nigerian state decides at any point to honour him, it should be at its discretion to do so.  After all, June 12 was made Democracy Day 25 years after Professor Nwosu ‘announced’ Abiola the winner of the elections, and 10 years after he made a call for June 12 to be so honoured.

Jideofor Adibe is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Nasarawa State University. He can be reached at 0705 807 8841 (WhatsApp and Text messages only).

The paper was originally presented at a Colloquium on the Life and Times of Professor Humphrey Nwosu at Abuja on March 25, 2025.