BREAKING: A Nation That Honours Villains And Forgets Its Heroes
Nigeria, we are a people who know the weight of history like the heavy load of garri sacks we carry on our heads in the markets of Onitsha. We’ve tasted struggle, chewed the bitter nuts of survival, and risen before dawn to chase a better tomorrow. But we are also a nation with a short memory, a people who honor villains while trampling on the graves of our heroes. The recent decision by the Nigerian Senate to throw out a motion to honor the late Professor Humphrey Nwosu by naming the INEC headquarters after him is a bitter pill, a stark reminder of how we dignify the corrupt and humiliate the just, it is only necessary we peel back the layers of this shame and call out those who deserve to be called out.
Prof. Humphrey Nwosu was the Chairman of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) in 1993, the man who gave us the June 12 election, acclaimed to be Nigeria’s freest and fairest. With his Option A4 system, where voters lined up behind their candidate’s picture, he stripped away the shadows where electoral fraud hides. Under General Ibrahim Babangida’s military regime, Nwosu began releasing results showing Moshood Abiola as the winner. But the vultures of power swooped in. On June 10, 1993, Arthur Nzeribe, through his Association for Better Nigeria (ABN), went to court to stop the election. Justice Bassey Ikpeme of the Abuja High Court ruled in Nzeribe’s favour, ordering the election’s suspension. Nwosu, resolute, pushed forward, citing Decree 13, which protected the election from court interference. Yet, after the election, another blow came: Justice Dahiru Saleh issued a “midnight janakara” judgment on June 16, stopping the announcement of results with only Taraba State remaining. On June 23, Babangida annulled the election, dissolved the NEC, and sent Nwosu into exile. These men: Nzeribe, Ikpeme, Saleh played their roles in scuttling our democracy, yet their names are rarely called out in the history we teach our children.
In his book, Laying the Foundation for Nigeria’s Democracy: My Account of June 12, 1993, Presidential Election, Nwosu set the record straight: Abiola won. This isn’t a tale from the beer parlors of Aba, it’s the truth from the man who counted the votes. So, when Senator Adams Oshiomhole stands in the Senate, claiming Nwosu “died without confessing Abiola’s victory,” I wonder if he’s forgotten how to read. Oshiomhole’s distortion of history is a betrayal of the truth, a slap to the face of a nation that deserves better from its leaders. But he’s not alone in this hypocrisy.
The Senate agrees June 12 was our finest democratic hour, yet they refuse to honor Nwosu. They clap for the harvest but curse the farmer. Senator Solomon Adeola weeps for his brother, lost in the unrest after the annulment, and my heart breaks for him, but to blame Nwosu for the sins of Babangida’s regime is like blaming the okada man for the potholes on the road. These senators, many of whom ran away when the military’s guns roared in 1993, now sit in judgment of a man who faced the beast head-on. They enjoy the democracy Nwosu fought for, yet they spit on his legacy. Hypocrisy, as we say in Nigeria, is like a masquerade dancing in the village square; everyone sees its true face beneath the mask.
Contrast this with how these same elites, including many of the pontificating senators, were falling over themselves just weeks ago to honor Babangida, the man who annulled June 12. At the launch of his autobiography, A Journey in Service, in Abuja on February 20, 2025, they gathered to celebrate the very man who crushed our democratic dreams. Babangida admitted Abiola won, even taking “full responsibility” for the annulment, yet he faced no shame, only praise. This is the same Babangida who presided over a regime that murdered Nigeria’s foremost journalist Dele Giwa. Where is the justice in honoring the oppressor while rejecting the oppressed?
Look further at how we immortalize others who committed atrocities against our people. General Murtala Muhammed, who personally supervised the 1967 Asaba Massacre, where thousands of Igbo civilians were slaughtered during the Nigerian Civil War, today has his face on our currency and the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos named after him. His name echoes every time a plane lands in Ikeja, a cruel reminder to the people of Asaba who still mourn their dead. Then there’s Sani Abacha, the military dictator who ruled from 1993 to 1998 with an iron fist. Abacha’s regime executed Ken Saro-Wiwa, turned Nigeria into a pariah state, and looted billions estimated to be between $2 to $5 billion, as documented in a 1998 report by the Abdulsalam Abubakar government. Yet, Abacha’s name adorns roads and monuments, his legacy polished by those who benefit from his kleptocracy. Meanwhile, Nwosu, who gave us a glimpse of true democracy, is cast aside like a used sachet of pure water.
What fuels this opposition to Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe’s motion to honor Nwosu? Ethnic bias festers like a sore in our national body. Nwosu was Igbo, and for some, that’s enough to erase his contributions. The South-East senators walked out in protest, a cry against the generational prejudice that still shapes our politics. Senator Tony Nwoye precisely put his fingers on the button when he called out the distortion of facts by some Senators simply because Nwosu hailed from the South-East. We are a nation of over 250 ethnic groups, but we cannot let tribalism blind us to justice.
Then there’s the political cowardice. Some senators fear honoring Nwosu might reopen old wounds, exposing the military cabal and their allies who annulled June 12. They worry it might set a precedent, forcing them to confront their own failures in upholding electoral integrity today. Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin called the motion “controversial,” but what is controversial about honoring a man who gave us hope? The only controversy here is their refusal to do what is right.
Nigeria, we must ask ourselves: what kind of country honors Babangida, Murtala Muhammed, Abacha and Buhari men who brought us pain, while rejecting Nwosu, a man who brought us pride? By rejecting Nwosu’s honor, the Senate is telling us they don’t care about our past or our future. But history has a long memory. Nwosu doesn’t need their accolades; his legacy lives in the hearts of Nigerians who still dream of a better country.
For the senators who turned their backs on him, Oshiomhole, Adeola, Jibrin, and the rest; history will also remember you. It will remember your hypocrisy, your tribalism, your fear. And it will judge you harshly. So let us, the people, honor Nwosu in our own way. Let us tell his story to our children, like the tales of old we share under the moonlight in our villages. Let us remind them that one man, in the face of a military storm, gave us a taste of true democracy. And let us pray that one day, Nigeria will wake from its hypnosis, shake off the chains of ethnic bias and political cowardice, and become a nation that honors its heroes not its villains. Until then, we keep staying awake and vigilant against those who wants to revise our history in our very before.
