The Teacher who taught IBB a bitter lesson

Humphrey Nwosu

IBB ruled Nigeria for eight years shifting hand over dates, to civilians at will. In his ruler-ship style, he showed a lot of guile. In the process he was nicknamed Maradona.

To mask his Evil intent, he made a show of using prominent Nigerian Professors to massage their egos and divert attention. He had the Political Bureau with the sole aim of training Politicians in political ethos.

In one Professor, he met his match. This Professor, Humphrey Nwosu, was my teacher in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The interesting thing about Nwosu and IBB was that Nwosu was not IBB's first choice for the job, of Head of National Electoral Commission. 

IBB's first choice was the Late Professor Eme Awa.

Incidentally, Eme Awa was Nwosu's teacher in the Department of Political Science, University of Nigeria, Nsukka where Nwosu graduated with a first Class, in 1966. 

Ab initio, Nwosu was too young for the job at age 47. The Decree had age 50 as the minimum age for the job. When Eme Awa resigned due to irreconcilable differences with the Government, the Decree had to be amended to read age 45, to qualify Nwosu for the job of the Chief Electoral Umpire.

The Nwosu, I know was a very good teacher, very brilliant and forthright. He was well loved on Campus. He was not a sadist and loved his job and his students.

I was not surprised when he surprised IBB with the smoothness of the conduct of the June 12 1993 Elections. Whatever assurances he gave IBB, I do not know but obviously IBB was greatly disappointed in the out come of the results. IBB had promised to hand over power to civilians in 1990.

In 1993, the civilians were becoming suspicious of his moves. I was an Electoral official and the mantra was for voters to behave so as to deny the government, the opportunity to up turn the results of the Election.

The magic wand of Nwosu was option A4, an open ballot system that was replaced with secret ballot by Australia in 1856. Though, the open ballot system had obvious flaws but doubting the authenticity of its results was not one of them.

With the way the Elections were conducted, results could be announced at all levels. This was what convinced Social Democratic Party that they had won.

I believe that given another opportunity, IBB and his handlers would not make the mistake of picking Humphrey Nwosu for the job. Picked he was and deliver he did, not to IBB but to Nigerians.