Professor Humphrey Nwosu and Nigeria’s democratic journey (1), By Jideofor Adibe

The job of being the nation’s chief electoral umpire is commonly referred to as a poisoned chalice, wherein hardly ever any umpire would come out of it together with his fame intact (Professor Jega, who organised the 2015 election, was principally fortunate that Jonathan conceded defeat). If simply coping with the political class makes the job of the chief electoral umpire to be a poisoned chalice, you’ll be able to then think about what it means to be an electoral umpire for each the political class and a politicised army.

Introduction

Once I was admitted to the Division of Political Science in 1980 as a freshman, straight from secondary faculty, Professor Humphrey Nwosu was one of many lecturers we encountered. He was the top of the sub-department of Public Administration, which owned the Native Authorities constructing that housed the Division of Political Science.

Although he was an lively and ebullient man, he wasn’t precisely highly regarded with us for 2 fundamental causes: One, is that he usually fastened his lectures at 7 a.m. within the morning, and he by no means failed to indicate up for lessons. He would in reality typically be within the class earlier than that 7 a.m., which led to a few of us gossiping behind his again a few man who most popular to come back leaping up and down within the class at a time within the morning that he ought to be holding his spouse firm. The second cause Nwosu wasn’t fairly common with us was that Nigerian Universities within the Nineteen Eighties and early Nineties was very ideologically pushed, basically between the Marxists (additionally referred to as the ‘radical students’) and people who had been variously referred to as ‘bourgeois students’ or derided because the “educated representatives of the propertied class.”

Sadly, Nwosu was amongst these we referred to as “bourgeois students.” We had been instructed that the bourgeois students weren’t in a position to to understand the “dialectics of sophistication wrestle”, that their works had been very “ahistorical”, with a “tendency to be arbitrary of their alternative of analytical classes”, and that they failed to understand that the character of the “productive pressure” and “social relations of manufacturing” had been the motif forces of historical past. Although we knew that Nwosu made a First Class honours diploma, nonetheless as a result of we noticed him as a “bourgeois scholar”, we ridiculed that accomplishment as being merely a First Class Honours in ‘Parts of Authorities’, not the form of correct political science that the ‘radical students’ had been educating us. Mr Nwosu, on his personal, blamed the ‘radical students’, the “Nnoli boys”, of exposing college students to just one aspect of a posh actuality. Although we regarded Nwosu as a ‘bourgeois scholar,’ we nonetheless revered him for the sheer pressure of his presence, or charisma if you happen to like – not like many of the different lecturers we thought to be ‘bourgeois students.’

I recall an incident with one of many ‘bourgeois students.’ He was educating us one thing about “colonialism,” which was at the moment the favorite whipping boy of the unconventional students, who made it obligatory that we must always learn and grasp such works as Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Okwudiba Nnoli’s Ethnic Politics in Nigeria, and Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth. In truth, from Nnoli’s e book we learnt that ethnicity in Nigeria began within the colonial city centres and was fuelled by the colonial coverage of ‘divide and rule.’ Rodney’s e book squarely blamed colonialism for Africa’s underdevelopment, whereas Fanon’s e book offered a psychoanalysis of the dehumanising results of colonisation upon the person and the nation.

When Nwosu left workplace in 1993 after the annulment of June 12 presidential election, he returned to educating on the Division of Political Science, College of Nigeria, Nsukka, the place he formally retired in 1999. Nwosu has revealed a number of books and peer-reviewed articles in each native and worldwide journals. His books embody Political Authority and Nigerian Civil Service (1977); Issues of Nigerian Administration (edited, 1985)…

With our understanding of colonialism from these three books and related ones, I believe we had been tolerating the ‘bourgeois scholar’, till he wrote on the black board: “The advantages of colonialism.” We felt we now have heard sufficient. One among us from the again of the category shouted, “Whaaat?!” In anger, the whole class walked out on him, believing that he didn’t know sufficient to show us, or was educating us the mistaken stuff, even supposing we had been simply in our first yr, or ‘class One’ as somebody of us favored to name it in these days.

Although we regarded Nwosu as a “bourgeois scholar”, we additionally revered him as an efficient administrator. In truth, behind the backs of the unconventional students, we mocked their relative lack of administrative capability, in comparison with Nwosu. Professor Nnoli, the chief of the unconventional students, was the top of Division of Political Science in our first yr within the division.

Humphrey Nwosu: a Temporary Biography

Humphrey Nwosu was an astute and charismatic public administrator, tutorial, technocrat, and political scientist. He studied Political Science on the College of California at Berkeley, the place he earned Grasp’s and doctoral levels (Magna Cum Laude) in 1973 and 1976 respectively. He subsequently returned to show on the College of Nigeria, Nsukka, the place he rose to grow to be a full-time tenured professor. In 1986, he was appointed by the Anambra State Authorities to function Commissioner of Native Authorities and Chieftaincy Issues and later Commissioner of Agriculture. He was appointed Chairman of the Nigeria Electoral Fee in 1989, to exchange Professor Eme Awa, his former lecturer and mentor, who had fallen out of favour with the Babangida authorities.

When Mr Humphrey Nwosu left workplace in 1993 after the annulment of June 12 presidential election, he returned to educating on the Division of Political Science, College of Nigeria, Nsukka, the place he formally retired in 1999. Nwosu has revealed a number of books and peer-reviewed articles in each native and worldwide journals. His books embody Political Authority and Nigerian Civil Service (1977); Issues of Nigerian Administration (edited, 1985); A E-book of Studying; Introduction to Politics; Ethical Schooling in Nigeria; Conduct of Free and Truthful Election in Nigeria: Speeches, Feedback and Reflections (1991) and Laying the Basis for Nigeria’s Democracy: My Account of June 12, 1993 Presidential Election and its Annulment (2008). Mr Humphrey Nwosu, breathed his final on Thursday, 24 October, in america of America, on the age of 83

What Does It Imply to Be a Reformer on the Crossroads?

A reformer is a change agent who’s deliberate and intentional about enhancing the best way issues work. As an expression, the imagery typically invoked is that of an intersection of two roads wherein an individual has to decide on which of the roads to take. Primarily, it means being at a stage when one has to take a crucial or an essential determination.

Humphrey Nwosu’s problem was not simply in serving to to handle a transition to a full civilian rule, but additionally to facilitate the method of de-militarisation – that’s the army handing over energy to civilian authorities and accepting subordination to a civilian authority. Because of this not like the electoral our bodies since 1999, which dealt solely with the political class and its mode of competitors for energy, Nwosu needed to take care of two humongous teams – the political class and the army institution…

The above raises two essential questions: Which reforms are we speaking about in relations to Mr Nwosu? And at which crossroads?

Although it’s apparent that Nwosu, given the variety of public positions he had held, would have been at a number of crossroads, for many Nigerians, he’s identified for his function because the chairman of the Nationwide Election Commissions from 1989 to 1993. So which crossroads are we speaking about?

Mr Nwosu’s Crossroads

Mr Humphrey Nwosu’s problem was not simply in serving to to handle a transition to a full civilian rule, but additionally to facilitate the method of de-militarisation – that’s the army handing over energy to civilian authorities and accepting subordination to a civilian authority. Because of this not like the electoral our bodies since 1999, which dealt solely with the political class and its mode of competitors for energy, Nwosu needed to take care of two humongous teams – the political class and the army institution, together with a faction of that institution which didn’t need to lose its privileges by accepting a handover to a civilian political class.

The job of being the nation’s chief electoral umpire is commonly referred to as a poisoned chalice, wherein hardly ever any umpire would come out of it together with his fame intact (Professor Jega, who organised the 2015 election, was principally fortunate that Jonathan conceded defeat). If simply coping with the political class makes the job of the chief electoral umpire to be a poisoned chalice, you’ll be able to then think about what it means to be an electoral umpire for each the political class and a politicised army.

De-militarisation would typically elevate the query of de-politicisation. How do you professionalise troopers who had grow to be used to political energy and its appurtenances and to being superordinate to civilian authorities? As Elaigwu (2015:232) argued, “the demilitarization of the polity with out ample de-politicisation of the army is an invite to chaos; but paradoxically, that strategy of de-politicisation of the army includes the politicization of the army”.

Primarily, Babangida’s transition programme, wherein at a degree the nation was working a diarchy, meant that the army as an institution had grow to be extra politically acutely aware and was factionalised between those that needed a handover to a civilian authorities and people who resented such. In truth, Babangida, in his latest autobiography, admitted that a lot when he declared that “there have been fears, even at that early stage of the transition programme, that some members of the highest hierarchy of the army had been reluctant to relinquish energy” (Babangida, 2025: 258).

Jideofor Adibe is a professor of Political Science and Worldwide Relations at Nasarawa State College and founding father of Adonis & Abbey Publishers. He could be reached at: 0705 807 8841 (WhatsApp and Textual content messages solely).

This was initially offered at a Colloquium on the Life and Occasions of Professor Humphrey Nwosu at Abuja on 25 March.