The Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) has called on President Bola Tinubu to prosecute former military head of state Ibrahim Babangida after he admitted truncating the June 12, 1993 election victory of Moshood Abiola.

In a statement on Friday, the CDHR president, Debo Adeniran, said Mr Babangida’s annulment of the election led to the loss of lives and properties after he deprived 14 million eligible voters of their constitutional right to choose their leaders.

“We call on the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to immediately order the prosecution of General Babangida for crimes against humanity and for orchestrating a coup d’état that subverted the democratic will of the Nigerian people,” Mr Adeniran said.

He added, “This prosecution should not be difficult since the chief plotter has confessed to these crimes in public and in writing, as published in his bloody book, which could have been ‘A Journey into Perdition’, mistitled “A Journey in Service.”

According to Mr Adeniran, the former dictator’s confession at the launch of his memoir, “A Journey in Service”, in Abuja on Thursday was an attempt to deceive Nigerians into believing he meant well for the country by his action at the time.

“The fact that the result of that election was already in the public domain and everybody knew that Abiola won the election before Babangida, in his typical deft ‘Maradonic’ manoeuvring of people’s sensibilities, stopped the official announcement of the remaining results, made the annulment as good as committing a coup d’état against the administration the people voted for.  

“His actions meet the threshold of crime against humanity, as they resulted in widespread human rights abuses and the repression of pro-democracy activists and ultimately affected a huge number of people who were affected by the misrule and misgovernance that followed that inglorious annulment,” Mr Adeniran said.

The CDHR president urged Mr Tinubu to also prosecute beneficiaries of the coup, withdraw all privileges they are entitled to, and confiscate all properties they acquired during their time in office.

“We would also like the government of the day to punish the likes of all beneficiaries of the coup d’état, especially late Chief Ernest Shonekan, and those that served in his kangaroo and illegal cabinet called the ‘Interim National Government.’

“His successor, late Gen. Sanni Abacha, Justice Ikpeme, who delivered the midnight verdict to accentuate the journey to perdition, spineless late Humphrey Nwosu, who succumbed to illegal instructions to truncate announcement of the election results and all others who benefitted from the annulment of the election one way or the other.

“We recommend that the national honours conferred on them should be withdrawn and the benefits being paid to the families of the dead ones among them should also be withdrawn. All the physical belongings they may have acquired during their illegal stay in office should also be confiscated even when some of them could no longer be prosecuted because they are no longer alive,” Mr Adeniran said.

The human rights group said justice for June 12 is justice for democracy and advised that the country should not allow such an egregious crime to go unpunished. He added that the time for accountability is now.