| |
Between 1984 and 1999, democracy believers, activists and practitioners engaged military regimes in fierce battles, not because they hated the military but because military rule was an aberration. It did not only elevate arbitrariness above the law but also encouraged the enthronement of corruption in high places.
But with the demise of General Sani Abacha, Nigeria was ushered into an 11-month transition programme, which culminated in her return to civil rule. Although the elections were marred by gross irregularities and monumental frauds, Nigerians received the new civilian administration with unspeakable joy. To them, as late Chief Obafemi Awolowo would say, the worst civilian rule is better than the best military regime.
Barely two years after Nigeria’s return to civil rule, state-sponsored assassinations and/or attacks, infrastructural decay, disdain for human rights, disregard for rule of law and corruption in high places glaring manifest themselves in the polity. As a result, the Nigerian people began to ask: ‘Is this the democracy we fought for?’
Disappointed by the continued reflection of traits of militarism in the polity, and considering that until they are removed the dividends of democracy will continue to elude the Nigerian people; a group of pro-democracy/human rights activists, lawyers, engineers, journalists, and accountants met in Aba, the commercial nerve centre of Abia State in June 2001 at the instance of Mr. Chidi Nwosu, the southeast regional chairman, Campaign for Democracy (CD), a foremost pro-democracy organization in Nigeria to fashion out modalities on how to rescue Nigeria from what they described as ‘camouflaged dictatorship.’
At the end of the meeting, a group known as National Congress of Nigerian Commoners (NCNC) was formed. But following the decline of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Abuja, to grant the NCNC permission to operate by that name when it applied for registration in 2003, it was renamed Human Rights, Justice and Peace Foundation (HRJPF).
|
|
