Nafiu Gombe Undoing: A lesson from Arthur Nzeribe and Abimbola Davis, by Mustapha Hassan Gulu
_“The problem of my life is that I have arrived so early at a becoming a multi-millionaire at the age of 29, at that prime age, I have all houses yatch and fat bank accounts in major European cities of the world, therefore I was not mentally prepared to grapple with that fame or situations at that age, therefore I made a lot of mistakes.”_
Arthur Nzeribe in quality Magazine interview 1989.
Nigeria’s political landscape is full of narratives that look like each other, any discerning mind in this country could recalled the infamous role played by both late Senator Arthur Nzeribe and Otunba Abimbola Davis both deceased, in truncating the Nations democratic experiment during the heated period of Gen. Babangida’s Military Regime in the 90s. Going into memory lane, Gen. Babangida’s endless transition to civil rule was characterized by deceit, insincerities and manipulations. Such that the event then constituted serious impediments in bringing about democratic system and the termination of military rule.
On June, 12, 1993, Nigerians came out en mass and participated in the presidential election which was keenly contested by Chief M.K.O. Abiola of SDP, a Yoruba from South-Western Nigeria, and Bashir Othman Tofa of NRC from Kano State, the poll was conducted peacefully and amicably without any manifestation of violence or electoral malpractices. However, some few months before the election, a pressure group in the name of Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) was created by Babangida’s regime, mainly to sustain him and his cronies in power using all coercive instruments of the state and dubious manner to achieve that. In order to achieve this sinister motive, Babangida’s strategist and security apparatus led by Brigadier General Halliru Akilu and his Deputy Col. A.K. Togun behind the scene created, recruited and finally funded the organization using all tactics to precipitates anarchy and orchestrated deliberate confusion amongst democratic institutions like political parties, National Electoral Commission (NEC), the National Assembly and also the Judiciary.
During this debacle, Chief Arthur Nzeribe and Abinbola Davis as the leaders of the infamous association claimed to have obtained two million peoples signatures that were alleged to have signed for the continuity of the military rule under Babangida thereby jeopardizing all democratic processes.
In a suit filed by the Association for Better Nigeria (ABN), Justice Bassey Ikpeme issued a midnight interim order on June 10th 1993, restraining the NEC from conducting the election, the then electoral body under Prof. Humphray Nwosu disregarded the seemingly untimely order and conducted the election as scheduled, during this time, the services of another Judge in person of Justice Dahiru Sale of Abuja High Court halted the announcement of the result and subsequently annulled the election on the 23rd of June 1993 thereby paving way for one of the darkest political moment in Nigerian history.
In an ironically repeat scenario, President Bola Tinubu a leading beneficiary of that ugly event emerged as the winner of 2023 presidential election under the platform of All Progressive Congress APC. Tinubu’s ascendency to the apex of political prominence in Nigeria beginning from his active participation as a stalwart NADECO member and subsequently the Governor of Lagos state was directly attributed to the role he played as one of the opposition leaders to ensure the entrenchment of democratic rule and termination of military oligarchy.
Tinubu who got popular votes across the nation in the 2023 elections, not long after his assumption to office, he embarked on anti-people policies that strangulate the lives of millions of ordinary Nigerians, these include the withdrawal of both fuel, power and agricultural subsidies, increase of banditry, kidnappings and other high crimes particularly in the northern region and of course blatant display of nepotism in federal and political appointments. These unsavory traits made the administration extremely unpopular amongst Nigerians. At a political Sphere, in his miscalculations, the administration carefully crafted a design framework to imposed crisis in all the major political parties that contested with him. The strategy is to destabilize all credible opposition thereby permanently entrenching one party rule.
The opposition with superimposed internal divisions in their parties had to evolve an alternative strategy that will bring them under one umbrella thereby challenging Tinubu’s status qou in the preparation of 2027 general elections. These obviously paid up with the recent emergence and momentum of African Democratic Congress ADC which appeared to have massive grassroot support to upstage Tinubu’s second term ambition.
Meanwhile, just like Gen. Babangida misused Sen. Arthur Nzeribe to scuttled democratic process in the early 90s, similar shenanigan approach was employed in bringing on board Mr. Nafiu Bala Gombe by the APC administration using the manipulation of the Judiciary and INEC to frustrate credible ADC opposition and finally emasculate the vast majority of the citizenry to exercise their fundamental rights to freely choose their leaders. While Brigadier Gen. Akilu, the then Director military intelligence used unlimited resources to organized, mobilized and funded Nzeribe’s Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) the office of the National Security adviser under AIG Nuhu Ribadu is sponsoring and extending similar support to Nafiu Gombe just to demoralize oppositions and completely obliterate multiparty system.
The lesson to learn by Nafiu Gombe and his associates is that within a spin of just 33 years, all the leading personalities who conspired against Nigerians to truncate democratic order have transited to the great beyond. With all the stupendous wealth, power and influence, Sen. Arthur Nzeribe’s final moments was pitiful as he was reported to have suffered from unending stroke and restricted to a wheel chair for the rest of his life. His co-conspirators particularly from the Judiciary and other institutions like NEC, Abinbola Davis, Justices Dahiru Sale and Bassey Ikpeme are all deceased carrying the burden and blood of Nigerians to their respective graves. The likes of Gen. Akilu and A.K Togun are living like ghost with nobody caring about whether they are alive or dead. This is also not to mention their apparently drained financial resources and social status. Today Nigerians are not celebrating them with colorful fanfare but with disdain reminding them of these ugly events caused by these individuals and entirely distasteful circumstances. My cautionary advice to Nafiu Bala Gombe is that this event shall also pass like any other and that his role as a destroyer of democracy and a willing conspirator in emasculating the opposition is unfortunate, repulsive and evil. He may get all the millions of dollars now, state and security protection applause from APC oligarchy, but at the end, he will not escape the path earlier Travers by Nzeribe, Davis, Saleh and Ikpeme unless he reverses from that regrettable misadventure.
The opening quotation is reverberated to in particular remind Nafiu Gombe that despite Nzeribe’s early fortunes in life, he was still prepared at a later stage to be hopelessly misused by the power that be to frustrate and alienated Nigerians from having the democracy they were yarning at that time. Yet he died in pitiful circumstances. Be rest assured that Nafiu’s trajectory may be worse than Nzeribe and his cohorts.
_A word is Enough for a wise_.
Mr Gulu Wrote in from Kaduna, Nigeria.
