Analysis by FELIX OGUEJIOFOR ABUGU
With the roll-out of the burial programme by the royal family of Eze Nwosu Nwafor of Ajalli, Orumba North LGA of Anambra State, all is now set for the burial of the late Professor Humphrey Nwobu Nwosu, the iconic professor of political science who, practically under fire, showed the nation the right path to a desired and desirable electoral destination.
According to the burial programme, Nwosu’s remains will be committed to Mother Earth on Friday, March 28, 2025 at his Ogbiti Otti Palace home, Ajalli, Orumba North LGA of Anambra State.
The obsequies begin this Saturday, March 1, with ‘service of songs and celebration of life’ at the Nigerian Embassy, Washington DC, USA at 3pm local time.
The late Chairman of the defunct National Electoral Commission (NEC), now Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), died in the United States on October 24 last year, aged 83.
Daily Query reports that going by information in the burial programme, the departed former NEC (INEC) Chairman’s funeral is entirely a family affair.
Although the late Professor Nwosu has been described by many as the ‘authentic’ hero of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, having conducted, to date, the freest and most credible presidential election in Nigerian political history, it would appear that the political establishment is simply loathe to give him his due recognitions.
Up until now, every major official pronouncement on that watershed of an election, either by way of commendation or giving due to whom it is due, had always passed Nwosu by, and it isn’t as if such omissions were, indeed, acts of omission.
When on June 6, 2018, former President Muhammadu Buhari declared June 12 Nigeria’s Democracy Day, less than two weeks away from the former May 29, and apologised to the nation and, in particular, to the family of the late MKO Abiola, acclaimed winner of the presidential election, for the injustice of the inexplicable annulment of that election, no mention was, in anyway whatsoever, made of the the man who, moving, as been widely reported, against all odds, made June 12 possible.
Some cynics have interpreted the obvious short-shrift, by the power brokers, of Professor Nwosu in matters of accolades and or commendations, both in life and death, to mean that Nigerian politicians are loathe to garland him for fear of creating a situation where conducting free, fair and transparent election in Nigeria would become an aspiration, even ambition, among future INEC chairmen. Why should politicians create problems for themselves by recreating the Nwosu-Abiola scenario in subsequent elections? Who would convince Bola Tinubu that Humphrey Nwosu was a great man, an electoral hero?
And so, such cynics may well be right. For, come to think of it, there is, so far, no other sign of the federal government according or preparing to accord any significance to Nwosu’s passing than his lying-in-state at the Nigerian Embassy in Washington DC, USA.
As Daily Query can report, the late NEC (INEC) Chairman’s burial programme does not, for instance, include any stop-over with his remains at INEC headquarters, Abuja, for a brief lying-in-state or something along that line.
Ordinarily, the burial of such a historic man should be the business of the federal government through INEC, but there is no scintilla of indication that INEC will even actively participate in its late former boss’s burial, if the burial arrangement by the family is anything to go by.
“On the contrary, in a seeming bid to diminish the significance of his contributions to the Nigerian political history, the governments of the day, apparently sold on the wisdom of see-no-good, hear-no-good about Nwosu, probably passed down the line by their predecessors, would appear to be acting as if the passing of the man who made the nation’s Democracy Day possible; the man whose guts and wits made the great MKO’s momentous passage through Nigeria’s political corridor possible; the man whose courage created the ‘democratic’ Obasanjo’s and Tinubu’s of this world, isn’t exactly like that of a prince for the nation to pay it attention…”
And yet, in reality, Nwosu’s death, to all intents and purposes, is much more significant than those of hundreds of princes put together. Or isn’t it instructive that there is no sign of any special participation in the late former NEC (INEC) Chairman’s burial by even the government of his home State, Anambra?
Left to politicians – Nigerian politicians especially – to create realities, they would create the ones that suit their egos and group interests. For instance, there was no cogent reason for former President Olusegun Obasanjo to have declared May 29 Nigeria’s Democracy Day, with all the celebrations, holiday et al, except that Obasanjo was inaugurated as President on that day. His practical handpicking and inauguration as president was more significant than June 12 in Nigeria’s political calendar, of course!
Unfortunately for Nigerian politicians, like it or not, they can never wish Humprey Nwosu’s reality away. His accomplishments will keep reminding them of the perfidy of their democratic pretenses.
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