ABUJA, Nigeria – Adams Oshiomhole, the senator representing Edo North, has voiced strong opposition to a motion seeking to immortalize the late Humphrey Nwosu, former chairman of the National Electoral Commission (NEC).
The motion was raised during a debate on Thursday, March 27, 2025, by Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe of Abia South.
Nwosu, who chaired the defunct NEC from 1989 to 1993, passed away in October 2024 at the age of 83.
His burial is scheduled for Saturday, March 29, 2025, in his home state of Anambra.
The motion, which seeks to honor Nwosu for his role in the historic but controversial 1993 presidential election, has sparked intense debate in the Senate.
Oshiomhole criticized both Nwosu and the then military Head of State, Ibrahim Babangida, for what he described as deceiving the 18 million Nigerians who voted in the June 12, 1993, election, only for the process to be annulled shortly after.
He argued that Nwosu, who oversaw the election, failed to declare the results, a decision he believes significantly impacted the country’s democratic process.
“Professor Nwosu and President Babangida fooled the 18 million Nigerians who voted. If he was afraid of the gun because we were under a dictatorship, some people might say, ‘Well, there were Nigerians who protested under the gun without minding the consequences,’” Oshiomhole stated during the debate.
He further argued that, given the subsequent transition to democracy under President Olusegun Obasanjo, Nwosu should have publicly acknowledged the results of the 1993 election.
Oshiomhole said that had Nwosu been courageous enough to declare the true winner of the election, which many believed was MKO Abiola, the trajectory of Nigeria’s democratic process might have been different.
“After the end of Babangida’s tenure, the death of Abiola, and the birth of the new democracy that produced President Obasanjo, I would have expected Nwosu to say — either on his birthday or on a special occasion — ‘I couldn’t declare these numbers then, but now, on my record, Abiola won this election. I just wasn’t able to announce it.’ He died without confession; he cannot be rewarded,” Oshiomhole asserted.
The former governor of Edo State also described parts of Abaribe’s motion as “manipulative,” accusing those advocating for Nwosu’s immortalization of distorting history.
He emphasized that Nwosu’s failure to declare the results of the election ultimately undermined Nigeria’s progress toward democracy, and in his view, such an individual should not be honored.
“We cannot distort history in this senate. If Professor Nwosu had the courage to announce the winner, and dared the consequences, it would have been different. When it matters most, his courage failed him,” Oshiomhole added.
