HUMPHREY NWOSU: AN UMPIRE DEPARTS

Nwosu, former chairman of National Electoral Commission, dies aged 83

The late Chairman of the defunct National Electoral Commission (NEC), who conducted the annulled June 12 (1993) presidential election, Professor Humphrey Nwosu, will be buried today in Anambra State. He died last October in the United States at age 83. Given the encomiums that have been poured on him in recent days by a cross-section of Nigerians, there is no doubt that Nwosu left a worthy legacy in election management in the country. Although the results of the presidential election he conducted were not released at the time, the principal actors of the era have since admitted that the outcome was free and fair to the eternal credit of Nwosu.

Throughout his eventful four years in office as NEC chairman, Nwosu brought fresh thinking to the electioneering process in Nigeria, though some of his ideas were quite controversial. For instance, through the instrumentality of the NEC, which he chaired, two political parties, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and National Republican Convention (NRC), were registered for politicians to join. Nwosu also introduced the open ballot system in which voters openly cast their ballots, in contrast to a secret ballot. During the same transition to civil rule programme, Nwosu later came up with the Modified Open Ballot System. Under this system, people still had to register and be accredited but during the process of voting, they were issued with a ballot paper with which they exercised their franchise in a manner that would not allow a third party to know who they voted for. 

An astute and charismatic public administrator, academic, and technocrat, Nwosu graduated with a First-Class degree in Political Science from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) and later studied at the University of California at Berkeley where he earned master’s and doctoral degrees in political science ((Magna Cum Laude) in 1973 and 1976 respectively. He subsequently returned to teaching at the UNN, where he rose to become a full-time tenured professor. In 1986, he was appointed by the Anambra State Government to serve as Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Matters and later Commissioner for Agriculture. Three years later in 1989, Nwosu was appointed Chairman of NEC to replace Professor Eme Awa, his former lecturer and mentor, who had fallen out of favour with then military leader, General Ibrahim Babangida.

When Nwosu left office in 1993 after the annulment of the June 12 presidential election, he returned to the Department of Political Science at UNN from where he formally retired in 1999. In his lifetime, Nwosu published several books and peer-reviewed articles in both local and international journals. His books include ‘Political Authority and Nigerian Civil Service (1977); ‘Problems of Nigerian Administration’ (edited, 1985), ‘A Book of Reading’; ‘Introduction to Politics’; ‘Moral Education in Nigeria’; ‘Conduct of Free and Fair Election in Nigeria’: ‘Speeches, Comments and Reflections’ (1991), and several others. 

Between 2000 and 2008, Nwosu devoted much of his time to reflections on his experience in running elections in Nigeria which resulted in the book, ‘Laying the Foundation for Nigeria’s Democracy: My Account of June 12, 1993 Presidential Election and its Annulment.’ The book provided insights into what transpired before, during, and after the election which the late M.K.O. Abiola of the SDP was adjudged to have won. In 2009, Nwosu presented the lead paper on Nigerian Political Parties to the conference of Nigerian Political Parties held in Sokoto State. That same year, Nwosu’s opinion was sought after at the federal government of Nigeria’s Committee on Electoral Reform in Nigeria, headed by former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Mohammed Lawal Uwais.

Nwosu will always be remembered for his service to Nigeria. May God comfort the family he left behind.