& THE JUDGMENT OF HISTORY
Adams “Squealer” Oshiomhole in a recent Channels interview, announced to Nigerians that Humphrey Nwosu was a coward, and undeserving of any honour with regards to the conduct of the 1993, June 12 Election. This had come against the backdrop of the recent Senate rejection of the motion for immortalizing the late Humphrey Nwosu. Truly, before truth has got its pants on, falsehood would have travelled the globe twice. History, nevertherless is always an impartial arbiter.
As the days go by, the current Senate continues to make Nigerians wonder whether this was what we bargained for when we set out to free Nigeria from the military jackboots. The reputation of the present Senate of course reflects the character of its influential personalities. Men like Adams Oshiomhole. These are the people sent into the hallowed chambers to ensure balance and national cohesion but who have become more of soldiers of fortune.
Indeed, Nigeria’s Igbo problem is real. Always the soft targets to be picked apart at any point in time. The conduct of people like Oshiomhole, as long it endures, denies the country invaluable opportunity for healing, unity, and progress. What has Oshiomhole said to some of the engineers of the June 12 annulment who have occupied enviable positions in the Senate and are today walking about with Nigeria’s highest honours.
This was a man so admired as the poster boy of the people’s struggle during his trade union days. Turns out he is today akin to the Squealer in George Orwell’s famous novel, Animal Farm. The chief propaganda despatch rider for the oligarchy, elevating gas-lighting, half-truths and innuendos into an enviable art by his pompous grandiloquence.
It is indeed, divine that even IBB himself has vindicated Nwosu’s courageous role before he was compelled by the junta to stop publishing the results. Senator Osita Izunaso has said it all in a press conference, in reaction to Oshiomhole’s disgraceful rant, in which he gave a blow by blow account of how Nwosu resisted the military and had to be detained to give way for the annulment of the election. Osita, I recall, was a bureau chief of a national newspaper in Abuja at this time and covered the very elections closely.
Angels didn’t fall from heaven to organize that June 12 election, and as long as it is adjudged “freest and fairest” the prize goes to both Abiola the winner and Humphrey Nwosu the organizer. It borders on performative contradiction, to brand an election as such and then turn around to smear the architect of that election as a coward. The only reason Oshiomhole is prancing about with a carefree swagger is because he feels nothing will come off any offence against the Igbos. We leave them to the judgment of history.
Adieu, Humphrey Nwosu! I am sure the heavens blaze forth your praise. We know our heroes and a thousand Oshiomhole’s no matter their Squealer histrionics, cannot diminish them.
