Aareonakakanfo of Yoruba land, Iba Gani Adams, has called on the National Assembly to immortalise the former Chairman of the National Electoral Commission (NEC), the late Professor Humphrey Nwosu.
He said the former electoral umpire boss deserved such recognition, given his role in delivering the June 12, 1993, presidential polls, adjudged globally as the freest and fairest in the country.
The appeal made by Aareonakakanfo was based on the second time that the majority of the lawmakers in the Senate rejected a motion seeking to immortalise Nwosu, as the parliament only agreed to honour his death by observing a minute’s silence and extending condolences to his family.
A statement issued by Adams says, “Through a sincere NEC chairman like Nwosu, Nigeria conducted a free and fair election that gave the late Chief MKO Abiola, presidential flag bearer of the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP), the mandate, which the then military administration of General Ibrahim Babangida (retd) annulled and also refused to install him as president.”
According to Iba Adams, the respect and the glory that Abiola is enjoying today, long after his passing, are a result of the honesty displayed by Prof. Nwosu and the people who worked with him to make it happen. If Abiola could be honoured by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2018, then Nwosu also deserves to be immortalised.
The Yoruba generalissimo said the Federal Government should at least ensure that a monument is named after Nwosu, which would serve as a good precedent for other INEC chairmen to be honest.
He said the National Assembly should also make this possible if it wants people in important positions in the country to uphold credibility.
Adams said that should Nwosu be denied the honour he deserved, “his spirit will not be happy with Nigeria. It would also amount to selfishness on the part of the Yoruba people not to support the move to immortalise Nwosu. Many Igbo people supported the move to immortalise Abiola.”
Besides, he said countless Igbo people always participated in June 12 programmes, where one of the resolutions remained “that Abiola should be immortalised. We have to believe in justice, and what is good for the goose is also good for the gander,” he said.
