Thursday, June 12, 2014

READ! June 12: Undying 21-year-old albatross

MKO Abiola
MKO Abiola
Today, marks the 21st anniversary of the June 12, 1993 presidential elections. On that day, millions of Nigerians trooped out to perform their civic duty of voting in what arguably remains the best election ever conducted in Nigeria’s history. For the first time since gaining political independence from British colonial masters, Nigerians looked beyond their ethno-religious bias to participate in an electoral process which, in spite of the then ruling General Ibrahim Babangida-led military junta’s insincerity to relinquish power, was properly planned and well conducted. Nigerians, who were obviously tired of military rule, were united in their resolve to send the military back to the barracks where the men and women in uniform truly belong.

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Twenty-one years after, the election, which was sadly truncated by the IBB junta, is still being talked about because for the first time in the nation’s history, contestants were made to face the public through quality debates and healthy campaigns that followed. Long before the Prof. Humphrey Nwosu-led electoral body began a state by state announcement of the results, it was obvious to Nigerians and the international community that Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola had won the contest.
The late multi-millionaire businessman and philanthropist, who contested on the platform of the now defunct Social Democratic Party, carved a name for himself in the field of philanthropy. The impact of his generosity was felt by individuals within and outside his immediate community. Abiola, an Ogun State indigene, was so accepted nationwide that he defeated the National Republican Convention candidate, Alhaji Bashir Tofa, on his Kano stronghold. When it became apparent that Chief MKO Abiola was coasting to victory, Tofa was reported to have conceded defeat and sent him congratulatory messages.
Nigerians trusted Abiola’s judgement so much that no one raised an eyebrow when he picked a fellow Muslim, Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe, as his running mate. There were also recorded cases of people giving out free gifts to strangers on receiving news of an impending Abiola victory.
The nation was primed to begin a journey into a new democratic order when the self-styled “evil genius,” General Ibrahim Babangida, and his hardliner colleagues decided to throw spanner in the works, by annulling the elections as they cited irregularities only he and his anti-democratic colleagues saw.
Babangida’s irresponsible behaviour threw Nigeria into chaos and pushed the nation to the brink of war. Twenty-one years have not wiped out the memory of a golden opportunity missed. Soon after the annulment, Nigerians across ethno-religious divides again came together to denounce the military and called for a return of the mandate they freely gave to Abiola. A former Military Governor of Kaduna State, Colonel Dangiwa Umar, resigned his commission in protest of the Babangida-induced June 12 debacle.
There were protests in most cities of the country. Several Nigerians lost their lives in the street marches and clashes with armed military personnel; some were forced into exile as a result of the crackdown which followed. However, there were individuals who worked hand in glove with the military to truncate the people’s will.
A cabal made up of top military brass and their cohorts in the political class who obviously felt threatened by an Abiola Presidency, secretly plotted against him. Babangida was forced to abdicate and install the lame duck Ernest Shonekan-led Interim National Government. After waiting for over a year with his mandate nowhere in sight, Abiola took his destiny in his hands when on return from a search for foreign support to claim his mandate, declared himself the lawful President of Nigeria on June 11, 1994. His address, which he delivered in Epetedo, Lagos, included an announcement that he has formed a Government of National Unity (GNU) which he was to head.
Abiola declared, “Our patience has come to an end. As of now, from this moment, a new Government of National Unity is in power throughout the length and breadth of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, led by me, Bashorun MKO Abiola, as President and Commander-in-Chief. The National Assembly is, hereby, reconvened. All dismissed governors are reinstated. The State Assemblies are reconstituted, as are all local government councils. I urge them to adopt a bi-partisan approach to all the issues that come before them. At the national level, a bi-partisan approach will be our guiding principle.
I, hereby, invoke the mandate bestowed upon me by my victory in the said election, to call on all members of the Armed Forces and the Police, the Civil and Public Services throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria, to obey only the Government of National Unity that is headed by me, your only elected president.”
Shonekan’s government was kicked out by the then Secretary of Defence, General Sani Abacha, who subsequently purged the military of his real and imagined enemies and ordered Chief Abiola’s arrest and detention. This led to more protest marches and an unprecedented industrial action by oil workers, followed by civil servants and civil society groups. Scores of people died in the struggle to actualise that mandate, which some of those who are today direct beneficiaries of the struggle, would want to wish away, but has remained engrained in the hearts and minds of Nigeria’s democrats.
The struggle to actualise the mandate came at a great personal cost to the Abiola family. They did not only lose their patriarch and breadwinner, who died mysteriously after years in detention, his wife, Kudirat, was gunned down by state sponsored agents.
Abiola died at a time many thought he would be set free from detention to claim his mandate after Abacha died in mysterious circumstances. An Abiola ascension to power was not to be as the anti-democratic evil cabal had plans of their own, leading to a mysterious death of the late extraordinary philanthropist.
Nigerian politics has never been the same since then. Although both Abiola and Abacha, his tormentor-in-chief, are dead, the nation appears to still be paying for the injustice mated out to the former, in particular, and Nigerians in general.
The divisive ethno-religious/regional politics is back. Much as most politicians would prefer to live in denial, the nation is today at crossroads. The political crisis currently rocking the body polity has taken a regional dimension with northern politicians claiming it is their turn to rule. The south, particularly the South-South, is insisting that incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan, has a right to seek for another terms and must be allowed to do so.
An activist, Awual Musa Rafsanjani argues that those who reduce the June 12 1993 elections to the person of Abiola were missing the point. He noted that Abiola remains a symbol because his candidacy united Nigerians across most of what many consider fault lines which has stunted Nigeria’s socio-economic and political growth over the years. He said, “What we should look at today is the opportunity which that election offered us as a people.
Those who went out to vote, those who joined in the campaigns, those who went on exile, those who were imprisoned and those who paid the ultimate price did not make this sacrifice because Abiola was Yoruba or that he picked Kingibe, another Muslim as running mate. We all came together because our collective mandate which we freely gave was snatched in the most insulting manner.”
Campaign for Democracy, one of the several groups which gained prominence during the struggle to actualise the June 12 mandate, said Nigeria would benefit greatly from imbibing the spirit of June 12. President of CD, Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin, said it was regrettable that 21 years after the heroic election adjudged globally as the best in the political history of the nation, “nothing substantially has changed” about our politics.
She said, “As we celebrate the heroes and heroines of Nigeria’s democracy and as Nigeria marks yet another in the history of her democratic watersheds, CD once again harps on the need for patriotic and democracy-loving Nigerians to go back to June 12 for the answers to the myriad of problems that are currently confronting our nation state, chief among which is to get our politics right.”
Okei-Odumakin stressed the need for all Nigerians to rededicate themselves to the struggle for genuine democracy through credible elections, an enduring constitution and adopting measures that will hold our leaders accountable.
On the whole, what we need to do as a people is for us to be told the truth about what happened, then we should collectively acknowledge it, and make amends. This way, we would learn from our mistakes and genuinely set the nation on the path to greatness.”

-Punch

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