JUNE 12, AFTER 16 YEARS

Culled From Vanguard Newspaper

GRADUALLY, the upper echelon of the Nigerian establishment is beginning to realise the need for this country to honour June 12 and the man who symbolises it, the late Chief Moshood Abiola. In his 2010 Democracy Day message to Nigerians, President Goodluck Jonathan, became the first sitting president to admit that this date and Chief Abiola mean something to our nation and deserve to be properly acknowledged.
Even the man who annulled the election of Chief Abiola, General Ibrahim Babangida, has remorsefully thrown his weight behind the acknowledgement of this date and the sacrifices of Abiola.

“June 12” is a household name in Nigeria .

The mere mention of it without naming which year the date refers to tells any adult and reasonably informed Nigerian that it refers to June 12, 1993. On that date, Nigeria held its freest and fairest election.

Nigerians ignored the fact that the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Alhaji MKO Abiola and his running mate, Alhaji Babagana Kingibe, were Muslims in a country where it has become an acceptable culture to always balance between both religions in everything we do. They were given the presidential mandate to lead this country.

This was even more profound given the fact that the rival National Republican Convention (NRC) had a more balanced ticket of Alhaji Bashir Tofa as presidential candidate and Dr Sylvester Ugoh as his running mate. Abiola won in all parts of the country, which indicated that Nigerians also eschewed ethnic, tribal and religious sentiments in making their choice.

Nigerians behaved like people of a political enlightened society in that election which would have been an African showpiece and a precedent that would have stabilised Nigeria and increased the chances of electing quality leadership to provide good governance.

But unfortunately, there is no June 12th with June 23rd 1993 when the military annulled the election without allowing the Professor Humphrey Nwosu-led National Electoral Commission to release the rest of the results. What makes June 12 and June 23 special was the consequence of the annulment.

The annulment was rejected by the civilian populace, and Chief Abiola, who had initially run away to exile, was forced to return to Nigeria to fight for his mandate. The crises that followed led to the fall of the Interim Government and the advent of the military regime of General Sani Abacha.

Abacha’s regime was draconian and wily. It was able to divide the supporters of June 12 along ethnic and sectional lines. It crushed the Labour uprising and arrested many activists (including Abiola). Many got killed while many more escaped to self-exile.

But in May 1998 when Abacha was ready to announce his presidential candidacy, he died mysteriously and a new transition to civil rule was pursued under a new interim military regime led by General Abdulsalami Abubakar.
June 12 became a watershed in that it forced the system to redefine the ways so many things have been done.

For instance, it forced power shift to the South, even though the annulment was meant to prevent power shift to the South.

For the first time, a Yoruba person, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, was elected president of Nigeria as a way of appeasing the Yoruba for the slap in the face that June 12 was.

On getting into power, Obasanjo introduced the now popular fashion of people sponsored by political godfathers and entrenched interest refusing to dance to the tune of their sponsors. Obasanjo removed the military’s appetite for using coups to consummate ethnic and sectional agenda by retiring risky military officers.

Furthermore, the fire of popular protest has become a political tool to say no to impunity and sectional arrogance. The more extreme part of it – armed struggle – was also fallout of June 12 because before then, all parts of the country were cowed over by Biafran experience. June 12 gave the youths of the Niger Delta a new boldness to force Nigeria to pay greater attention to the nation’s cash cow.

Without June 12, ethnic arrogance would not have permitted a Goodluck Jonathan to succeed the late President Umar Yar’ Adua. The army would probably have intervened to block the shift of power.

We are of the view that the hand over of power to the next elected crop of leaders next year should be shifted to October 1, 2011, while June 12 should be celebrated as the nation’s Democracy Day. We will eventually come to this inescapable decision.