NWOSU AND THE SENATE’S AMNESIA
Humphrey Nwosu deserves a national honour, argues PAT ONUKWULI
Memory is a stubborn witness; it holds on to the truth even when power tries to bury it. When the Nigerian Senate dismissed a motion to posthumously honour Professor Humphrey Nwosu, the man who midwifed the June 12, 1993 election, it did more than forget a hero; it passed a quiet but damning judgement.
In questioning the worth of his sacrifice, the Senate didn’t just ignore history; it tried to rewrite it, serving as a bitter adumbration of its gavel; that honour, like justice, is too often filtered through the lens of region, bias, and convenience.
Professor Nwosu is a name that cannot be whispered around the corridors of Nigerian history without evoking the date of Nigeria’s most credible, free, and fair election. He was the brave umpire who dared to conduct an election under the looming shadow of a brutal military regime. While soldiers patrolled the streets and the drums of dictatorship thundered, Nwosu stood firm, announced the results against direct orders, and etched his name in the ledger of integrity.
And yet, when the question came to honour him, not with gold or land, but with a simple posthumous acknowledgement, many senators shrugged. Some claimed he merely did his job. Others argued his efforts were not “good enough.” But not one of them could point to a singular wrong he had done. Then one wonders from where the senators are coming. Did their decision come from moral principles or perhaps from distorted or prejudiced convictions?
The refusal to honour Nwosu is akin to watching a firefighter run into a burning house to save a child, only to tell him afterward, “Well, that was your job.” Such reasoning strips courage of its meaning. Nwosu didn’t just clock in for duty; he stood firm in the face of a powerful military regime, risking his safety to uphold the integrity of an election that symbolised hope for millions.
To reduce his bravery to mere obligation is to ignore the extraordinary in favour of the convenient. Nwosu was not merely a technocrat doing his job. He was a man who dared to tell the truth in the belly of dictatorship.
Maya Angelou observed that “prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future, and renders the present inaccessible.” The Senate’s decision quietly echoes this burden.
In questioning the merit of a man who presided over the nation’s most credible election, the Senate may have allowed regional and political sentiments to obscure a moment that belongs to the shared history of all Nigerians. This act doesn’t just obscure the legacy of June 12; it complicates our collective understanding of justice and recognition. When national memory becomes selective, it risks leaving future generations uncertain about what truly matters.
June 12 stands as a defining milestone in Nigeria’s democratic journey, a day when citizens, regardless of ethnicity or religion, stood shoulder to shoulder under the scorching sun, casting their votes in the hope of a new dawn. It was a rare moment when the Nigerian people chose unity over division, marking the country’s most explicit expression of democratic will. To now celebrate June 12 annually while sidelining the very man who made it possible is a contradiction too stark to ignore. It is akin to clapping for a harvest while pretending the farmer never tilled the soil.
This selective remembrance raises uncomfortable but necessary questions. Would the Senate have so quickly dismissed the motion to honour Nwosu if he had come from another geographical zone? Would his name have been more palatable to celebrate if his roots traced back to a more politically favoured part of the country?
These questions matter because they expose the fault lines in how we construct national memory. If we genuinely believe in a united Nigeria, then our honours must reflect national values, not regional allegiances. Otherwise, we risk building a nation that praises the fruit of democracy while quietly erasing the hands that planted its seeds.
Senator Abaribe’s motion to honour Nwosu was more than a call for national recognition; it was a plea to correct a glaring historical omission. Supported by Senators Victor Umeh and Osita Izunaso, as well as a handful of voices from other regions, the motion sought to affirm that courage, patriotism, and service to the nation are values worth upholding, regardless of who embodies them.
Yet the resistance the motion faced starkly mirrored Nigeria’s persistent regional fault lines. The visible leadership of Southeastern senators in championing Nwosu’s honour, in contrast to the muted or indifferent response from other zones, gave the debate an unfortunate regional undertone.
Senator Izunaso’s pointed outrage that Nwosu’s omission signals that some sacrifices go unrewarded purely because of one’s origins cannot be easily dismissed. It speaks to a more profound discomfort: that merit in Nigeria is too often judged not by deed, but by geography.
Immanuel Kant espoused that perception is often coloured by emotion. In Nigeria, that emotion too frequently wears the mask of prejudice. Rejection to honour Professor Nwosu wasn’t just an oversight; it was a symptom of a deeper sickness, a ghost from 1966 still haunting our national conscience. Back then, a coup was wrongly labelled as “Igbo,” and from that single incident, suspicion took root and bled into war.
Today, that same suspicion quietly guides decisions, casting a shadow of merit over ethnic differences. When a person’s legacy is judged by their background rather than their accomplishments, truth becomes a casualty of bias.
Even more troubling is the narrative now gaining traction in some circles, particularly on social media, that if Nigeria will not honour Nwosu, then the South-east should step up and do so on its own. While borne out of frustration, this line of thinking dangerously shrinks a national hero into a regional symbol.
Nwosu did not stand against military intimidation for the sake of Anambra, Abia, or, indeed, the South-east; he stood for the integrity of the entire Nigerian democratic process.
To “localise” his legacy is to dilute its meaning. It is both intellectually dishonest and morally lazy to hand over the responsibility of national remembrance solely to his region.
Reducing Nwosu to a South-east hero undermines the very principles he risked everything for: unity, justice, and national conscience. If Nigeria is to move forward as a truly united nation, then it must learn to honour its heroes as Nigerians first, not as representatives of their tribe or tongue.
Thankfully, hope still flickers. In the wake of the Senate’s silence, voices beyond the Red Chamber rose in dissent. Among them, President Bola Tinubu, himself a product of the June 12 struggle, promising that Professor Humphrey Nwosu would receive the honour he deserves.
Despite this, the damage has been done. The Senate’s refusal sent a troubling signal: that in Nigeria, even courage can be ignored. But history does not wait for political approval. While the Senate chooses to cling to amnesia, time remembers and will never forget.
Onukwuli PhD, writes from Bolton, UK
