"It was only hours to the annulment of the June 12 1993 presidential election". "Once inside his office, General Babangida locked the door. He welcomed me with a strong appeal to my loyalty which I assured him was constant. He looked very worried; he removed his shoes and cap and confessed that his wife did not know where he was at the time and that he drove from Minna to Abuja to see me. For a few minutes, he remained speechless and looked morose. 'I see disaster for myself and my family. Where do I go from here"? [sic] The president asked. "Professor, we must find a solution here and now or else I am finished." [sic]
Above is the dramatic text of the blurb on the back cover of Omo Omoruyi's recently published book: The Tale of June 12: The Betrayal of the Democratic Rights of Nigerians (1993).
Clearly, this excerpt from the book is presented to convey the impression that it is the exposé that finally reveals all the answers to the questions that have nagged the minds of millions of Nigerians since the debacle of the country's June 12 1993 presidential elections.
Such questions include most significantly: who and what were ultimately responsible for the bizarre annulment of the results of the elections, which had been adjudged by both local and international observers as the freest and fairest ever held in the country?
 | Unfortunately however, hardly are there any concrete answers to these and many other pressing questions regarding the annulment in this book.
Omoruyi, who was appointed head of Nigeria's Centre for Democratic Studies (CDS) during the Babangida regime meanders all over and around the issues involved, without necessarily saying anything profound or revealing for all concerned to learn.
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Rather, the professor of Political Science attempts to pass the buck away from his former boss, General Ibrahim Babangida for the fiasco that plunged Nigeria into a chaotic five-year reign of terror, during which an otherwise auspicious country was transformed into a pariah nation in the world community.
For Omoruyi, the actual culprits are a "geo-ethno-military-clique" at whose door the entire blame for the annulment is to be placed.
According to him, the "clique" consisted of a faction of self-seeking officers within the Nigerian military and the faceless members of a "Northern" cabal of power brokers. Together these elements conspired to derail the transition program at its final phase when it became imminent that there was going to be a power shift from the North to the South as manifested in the success of Chief M. K O. Abiola after the vote counting.
Babangida, himself is painted as a helpless (even cowardly) hostage to these forces ostensibly beyond his control and he is thus spared culpability in the dastardly political crime against the Nigerian people.
Given the backdrop of the record of Babangida in office, during which his dominance over his regime was unquestionable, Omoruyi's assertion of his (Babangida) being held hostage by subordinates is untenable.
However, leaving aside the unsatisfactory nature of the views posited by the author, there are a good number of other elements to this book, which make it quite an unappealing reading. One of these is its verbosity.
The main chapters, eight in number are inundated throughout with headings, minor headings and sub headings, which often comprise repetitious analyses and tautology lacking the coherence and logical progression which a scholarly work should ideally have.
The many long, unwieldy, and poorly constructed sentence structures in the book suggest that there was hardly any professional content editing at the manuscript level or proper proof reading of the text thereafter. This is further made manifest by the several typos, grammatical errors, inconsistencies and incomplete sentences to be found in various chapters of the book.
However what may be regarded as the most inexplicable failing of The Tale of June 12: The Betrayal of the Democratic Rights of Nigerians (1993) lies in the overall appalling production quality of the book, which upon close scrutiny is almost laughable.
Over forty pages (43 to 85) of the third chapter of the review copy were printed upside down!
The 18 photographs in between the fourth and fifth chapters are so poorly reproduced, some of them come out looking like they were originated from third or fourth generation photocopies. That any publisher could have approved such quality of work from a printing press for release to the general public is beyond rationale. And why any author, especially a scholar of Omoruyi's supposed international standing, would accept such work from a publisher is beyond the comprehension of this reviewer!
Perhaps merely for the record, The Tale of June 12: The Betrayal of the Democratic Rights of Nigerians (1993) may be considered worth reading for Nigerians in their quest of putting together the pieces that brought about the debacle. Indeed, likewise for non-Nigerian readers interested in gaining an understanding of the reasons for the country's stunted socio-political development over the years. However, the complete story of the event is still yet to be told and this book cannot be regarded as the definitive word on the subject matter in any real historical sense.
Hopefully a truly impartial and objective researcher will undertake such work in more serious fashion in the near future.
As the head of the CDS, and a close confidant of General Babangida, the pre-eminent political actor in the fiasco, Omoruyi may be regarded as a central figure in the drama, but as he has shown in his book, he certainly cannot be considered an impartial or truly objective one.
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