Last Wednesday’s maiden celebration of the epoch-making June 12 as an official Democracy Day will, no doubt, go down as a watershed in the annals of Nigeria’s political history and a significant recognition of the labour of our heroes past in the country.
As a prelude to this dazzling celebration, President Muhammadu Buhari had, some months back, approved the recognition of June 12 as the country’s official Democracy Day, conferred on the winner of that election, late Chief MKO Abiola, the highest honour in the land, Grand Commander of the Federal republic (GCFR), and his running mate, Ambassador Babagana Kingibe, the second highest national honours of the Grand Commander of the Niger (GCON). The President also conferred GCON on the late human rights activist and fiery lawyer, Chief Gani Fawehinmi. This magnanimity by President Buhari is, indeed, noble, especially given the fact that he’s the fourth elected president since the military exited from power in 1999. Successive regimes since 1999 had shown clear disinterest and lack of will to right that crass wrong and injustice. It is believed that with President Buhari’s action, now the feelings of some Nigerians aggrieved over the June 12 annulment are somehow assuaged.
On June 12, 1993, Nigerians, while defying the elements of weather and climate, trooped out in their millions to vote and elect Abiola as their president. Abiola, who had contested on the platform of the Social Democratic Party, had roundly trounced his main opponent, Alhaji Bashir Tofa, of the National Republican Convention, who he even defeated in his ward in Kano State. That election held 26 years ago is still believed by majority of Nigerians as the freest, fairest and most peaceful election ever conducted in the country. But the initial euphoria among Nigerians over the results of the election was short-lived, as Abiola’s victory was annulled by the then military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, triggering the long struggle by many aggrieved Nigerians to revalidate the aborted mandate. That fierce struggle, which eventually claimed the lives of Abiola himself; his wife, Kudirat, some pro-democracy activists and many other Nigerians, culminated in the democracy currently being enjoyed in Nigeria.
The Buhari-led administration’s gesture followed the age-long agitations by Nigerians for the official recognition of June 12 and its symbol, Chief MKO Abiola. Although the action was then misconstrued by many Nigerians, particularly the opposition, as one aimed at scoring cheap political points with the electorate, especially since it was done in the run-up to the 2019 general elections, it was, indeed, the appropriate response to the long yearnings of many citizens of this country for atonement for the criminal annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election.
Although with his renaming of the National Stadium, Abuja, the Moshood Abiola National Stadium, the President has gone a step further in recognising the contribution of the icon of the nation’s democracy, fostering national reconciliation and calming long-frayed nerves, it is imperative that the wandering ghost of the aborted June 12, 1993 presidential be finally laid to rest.
Naming the National Stadium, Abuja, after the late MKO Abiola, who throughout his lifetime was the Pillar of Sport in Africa, is a salutary development, but it is not enough to compensate for the loss of a man who has become the icon of the democracy Nigeria and Nigerians enjoy today. The man, whose blood, that of his wife, Kudirat, and hundreds of other Nigerians was used to water the mustard seed of democracy that has today grown into the huge oak steadying the Nigerian polity, deserves much more.
Unless we want to keep deceiving ourselves, June 12 will forever remain a fact of life in Nigeria, a constant and living presence. And the supreme sacrifice paid by the symbol of June 12, Abiola, and other Nigerians, who lost their lives in the long struggle for the validation of the mandate, has become just such a presence that will never fade away in Nigeria’s political history.
To truly correct injustice, achieve total healing and reconciliation as well as to completely atone for the damage caused the Abiola family, in particular, and Nigerians in general, with the criminal annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, we cannot continue to struggle to preserve a veil over these facts.
Therefore, we believe that the only atonement that can propitiate the “restless ghost” of June 12, which has, in the past 26 years, been haunting the country’s burgeoning democracy, is the declaration of Abiola as a former president of the country, payment of his family his entitlement, settlement of the debts owed him by the past military governments, investigating and bringing the arrowheads and others involved in the infamous annulment to book, and according the late business mogul his proper place in the legion of past presidents of Nigeria.
Nigeria must strive to fully reconcile and make enduring peace with history.
