June 12: Justice Saleh lied, judiciary didn’t annul election-Falana

Femi Falana, SAN

Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN) says retired Justice Aminu Saleh lied to Nigerians in his account of June 12, 1993 Presidential election won by the late Moshood Abiola when he said it was the judiciary and not General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, IBB, that annulled the election.

In his detailed interview recently published by the Interview magazine, Saleh, a former Chief Judge of the Federal Capital Territory, claimed that the result of June 12, 1993 election was annulled by the judiciary and not by the Ibrahim Babangida junta.

He further stated that M.K.O Abiola or his political party did not appeal against the ruling of the Federal High Court which had annulled the election.

Reacting to this development, Falana on Thursday said the account of the retired judge was totally wrong, saying that whereas the Lagos High Court had restrained the Association for Better Nigeria, ABN, a shadowy society, from disrupting the election in any manner whatsoever.

“Howsoever, Justice Bassey Ikpeme of the FCT High Court contemptuously ordered the National Electoral Commission (NEC) not to conduct the said election. However, the NEC conducted the election based on the order of the Lagos High Court and the clear provision of Section 19 of the Political Transition Decree which had ousted the jurisdiction of any court from entertaining any suit pertaining to anything done or purported to have been done under the Decree,’ Falana said in a statement.

According to him, “to the dismay of the Babangida junta, the election was successfully conducted without any hitch whatsoever. The NEC commenced the collation of the results and had in fact announced the results of 16 states. It was at that juncture that Justice Saleh granted the prayer of the ABN to suspend further announcements of the result of the Presidential election in defiance of the valid and subsisting order of the Lagos High Court.

“Completely dissatisfied with the illegal order of Justice Saleh the NEC and Chief Abiola approached the Court of Appeal sitting in Kaduna for redress. When it was found that the appeal was likely to succed the junta reached out to the leadership of the Court of Appeal. The then president of the Court, the incorruptible Justice Mohammed Akanbi refused to compromise the integrity of the judiciary.

“In utter desperation, the junta announced that the jurisdiction of the Court had been ousted by the annulment decree which was enacted while the hearing of the appeal was in progress at the Court of Appeal.”

Falana said it was therefore grossly incorrect to say that it was not the Babangida junta which annulled the June 12 election and that Chief Abiola and his party did not file an appeal against the ruling of Justice Saleh.

“His lordship is therefore advised to stop giving the dangerous impression that it was the judiciary which annulled the election. More so, that it has since been confirmed that the ABN was set up and funded by the military junta to sabotage the political transition programme and thereby prolong military rule in Nigeria,” he stated.

-Kazeem Ugbodaga