The Tide Of History

By Tajudeen A Tijjani,

NEWSDAILYNIGERIA: History is ever kind to those who made good decisions or vice versa. The circumstances of each action or actions may differ, it will remain as part of history that are very impossible to erase.

There is no how we transform the democracy put in place today, that one name will not come up in the nation’s nascent democracy.

As a young reporter and Deputy Bureau Chief of the rested New Nigerian Newspapers in Abuja during the June 12 political stampede, and covering the activities of the then Independent National Election Commission (INEC), among many other journalists, both local and foreign, it was one of a beat that one can hardly forgot.

We have battery of journalists and cameramen from all over the world to cover a great event, that was later truncated and buried by the Military Government of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida.

As the election results were progressing, and late INEC chairman was sitting in the hall, the whole nation was eager to hear the final results, but the unexpected happened. Professor Nwosu put up a fight that the results have reached the peak, and only few remains to be announced, but the army who have barricaded the office could not listen to any explanation from the political science Professor.

He was then whisked away to an unknown destination on the orders from above. Professor Humphrey Nwosu will be remembered as a man who stood by the truth, and performed well as the electoral umpire of June 12 political impasse and deserved to be recognized by those in power today. He was saved by the whiskers from death when he insisted at a gun point not to stop the announcement of the election results.

In the history of election umpires in Nigeria since the Second Republic, the INEC headed by the erudite scholar had been adjudged by politicians and other stakeholders, even outside the country shore, as one that may be hard to forget or buried. The act of nationalism exhibited by the Professor and his team should not be allowed to go into the dustbin of history.

This country must recognize those who made the Democracy we are experimenting at the moment possible, and be celebrated and honoured, besides any sentiments. Late Professor Nwosu and his team did their during the rough period, and put in their best to see that democracy was not derailed.

It is therefore sad that many legislators in the current national assembly have now turned the idea to immortalize the late Professor into the politics of religion and ethnicity; they should search their minds and come back to reason.

Late Professor Nwosu should not be seen from that perspective before been conferred a national honour, and be among those we should be remembered at every celebration of June 12 ceremony. There would not have been any Democracy day to celebrate without the commitment of the Nwosu led INEC.

The erudite Professor of Political Science put his life on the golluten for democracy to survive, and he deserves a national honour, and his name be written in Gold to encourage those who want to put their best in any national assignment to do so without any compromise. The late Professor was bent on making a difference, but fate had other plans.

The current National Assembly, as the Representatives of all Nigerians, irrespective of tribe or religion, they should strive to build an assembly of all Nigerians and see Nigeria as one constituency in all their dealings, and not to forget that other people will be in the two Chambers tomorrow.

Finally, instead of the National Assembly to turn the issue of the late Professor into religion and ethnicity, they should do the needful and honoured those who deserved to be honored.

..Tajudeen A Tijjani wrote in from Kaduna Nigeria.