Shonekan’s interim government designed to fail – Tinubu

Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, on Tuesday disclosed that the ill-fated Interim National Government of Chief Ernest Shonekan, was programmed to fail from the beginning.

Tinubu dropped the bombshell at the public presentation of a book titled “Nigeria’s Aborted 3rd Republic and the June 12 Debacle: Reporters’ Account” at the National Press Centre of Radio House in Abuja.

The development is coming barely nine months after the former head of state died and was buried in Lagos.

Shonekan was hastily brought into power on August 27, 1993 after Babangida announced that he was “stepping aside” following the annulment of June 12 presidential election.

The new Interim National Government, however, was short lived as it was toppled by an overzealous and ambitious former Chief of Army Staff, General Sani Abacha on November 17, 1993.

But Tinubu, who was represented by Director of Media and Publicity of APC Presidential Campaign Council, Bayo Onanuga, believed the transition programme was designed to crumble by the powers that be.

He said, “The Third Republic was not expected to last long. Indeed of all our nation’s republics, it was the shortest: it began in January 1992 following the election of state governors in December 1991. It ended on 17 November 1993 with the Abacha coup against the Interim Government of Ernest Shonekan. This happened some five months after the annulment of the 12 June, 1993 election, won clearly by Moshood Kashimawo Abiola.

“The entire transition programme of the military administration of the time, according to discerning critics, was designed to fail. It was, they said, meant to make then military president Ibrahim Babangida succeed himself as a civilian president.

“The journey to the short-lived Republic began in 1986 when the military junta announced a transition programme, setting 1990 as the terminal date. New leaders at all levels of government were to be elected to usher in the Republic. But no sooner the programme was announced than government began to tinker with it, brewing accusations of hidden agenda.

“The transition programme was first extended by two years and then extended by another year to terminate in 1993. During the seven-year transition, Nigerian politicians were turned into guinea pigs for political experimentation. First, the military government attempted to clone a new set of politicians known as the ‘Newbreed.’

“It introduced Option A4, a system of voting done by queuing behind candidates, a novelty in the making of democratic choices. It imposed a two-party system, with defined ideologies.”

The APC national leader lamented that Nigerians witnessed a form of government known as diarchy, with elected state governors being bossed by a military president under the Third Republic.

According to him, the nation watched helplessly as the military regime cancelled presidential primaries and banned all politicians from participating in political gathering.

“Then a year later, the most unexpected happened with the annulment of the June 12 election. I was an elected senator of the short Third Republic and thus a witness like all of you. I was also a staunch supporter of MKO Abiola and the struggle to restore his mandate.

“Though I have not written my memoirs of the period, I have given many interviews and speeches about my role in the struggle, kicked off by the annulment,” he said.