24 years after; the ghost of June 12 still haunts Nigeria

In 2015 when President Goodluck Jonathan handed over power to the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, after 16 interrupted years of the rule of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), following their defeat in a keenly contested election, many Nigerians jumped for joy celebrating the fact that Nigeria has come of age having for the first time been able to transfer power from the ruling government to the opposition, calling it historic.

As much as that was history, there was indeed another history that Nigeria had made 22 years earlier. It was on June 12, 1993 when Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, popularly called Chief MKO Abiola won what has become the freest, fairest election in the history of Nigeria.

That election entered the history book as one in which the Ogun State born business magnate won landslide in all regions of the country on the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), beating his sole opponent, Alhaji Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention (NRC) even in his home state of Kano.

It was also one election where no one cared about the religion of the candidates, as Abiola a Muslim from the Southern part of the country had his running mate, Babagana Kingibe, another Muslim from the North and it was not an issue to the voters.

The election itself was unique in much sense, as the National Electoral Commission (NEC) under the leadership of Prof. Humphery Nwosu introduced the Option A4 voting model which was the first of its kind in the country and ensured that the election was very transparent.

The outcome of that election though later annulled by then Military President Ibrahim Babangida after partial announcement of the results remains a reference point in the nation’s electoral history.

However, the annulment of the results of the election has remained till date one incident that has thrown the nation into more political turmoil than any other.

This is because following the annulment, Abiola convinced that he won the election and propped on by some of his supporters declared himself president and was consequently arrested and kept in prison custody for several years until he died.

The arrest and detention of Abiola was like the elixir required to kick-start a full blown agitation for the military to hands-off the reign of power and hand-over to the winner of the election.

The agitation which was mostly a South West thing saw many prominent persons from the region vehemently standing up to the military insisting that the right thing must be done.

The birth of National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) which was the umbrella body for agitators of the actualisation of June 12, later led to a confrontation with the military with many fatal consequences, but also forcing Babangida to step aside and hand over power to an Interim Government led by former Chairman of the UAC, Chief Ernest Shonekan.

When General Sani Abacha, the Chief of General Staff shoved Shonekan aside to take over the reign of government and subsequently arrested Abiola against all expectations, it became clear the battle line between agitators for June 12 and the Military government was going to be long drawn.

Abacha’s government was brutal and it saw to the assassination of some prominent June 12 agitators including the wife of Abiola, Kudirat and Alfred Rewane and the attempted assassination of many others like Abraham Adesanya among others.

The fatal turn of events saw many agitators sneaking out of the country to run for safety through what later became popular as NADECO route.

The death of Abiola in July of 1998, a month after the sudden death of Abacha and the enthronement of Abdulsalami Abubakar as the new head of state and the continued pressure from the NADECO group for the validation of the June 12 mandate was one reason why many frontline politicians and ex-military top brass had to seek out former Head of State, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo.

Obasanjo is a man with wide acceptance across the political, ethnic, religious divide and even among the top military hierarchy, from the same state as Abiola to take over the reign of power.

This is despite that many people of the Yoruba stock never wanted Obasanjo as the President as they mostly queued behind Chief Olu Falaye who was a coalition candidate of the All Peoples Party (APP) and the Alliance for Democracy (AD).

The emergence of Obasanjo, a fellow Yoruba man like Abiola, who was a product of national compromise, as no other tribe fielded candidate in deference for the sacrifice of Abiola was one government that was expected to celebrate Abiola and imortalise him because of the sacrifice he paid not only for democracy to return to Nigeria, but also that a fellow Yoruba man was given the freeway into Aso Rock, but it never was.

Throughout the eight years of Obasanjo, and despite the agitations from many quarters for the imortalisation of Abiola, the Obasanjo government maintained a sealed lip and ignored the agitations.

Though agitations for the imprtalisation of Abiola continued even after the government of Obasanjo, the attempt by Jonathan to heed the call by naming the University of Lagos after him was met with so much resistance and confrontation that the government had to rescind its decision and reversed itself on the issue.

Since then, the agitation for him to be imortalised has gone down and seems only to be mounted at anniversaries to mark the day.
Despite this, many people believe that the problem of the country and the reason the country has really not made much progress was because of the level of injustices across the land citing the case of Abiola as case in point.

Speaking on the issue, former Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Adeyemi Ikuforiji, who himself has also been at the forefront of the agitation for imortalising Abiola, said one of the problems making Nigeria to remain backward was because of the level of injustices in the land, advising that if indeed the nation wants to make progress it must retrace its steps and right some wrongs beginning from imortalsing Abiola.

He wondered why a nation that will be so proud to be celebrating 18 years of its democratic governance will refuse to acknowledge the man who laid down his life to make that democracy possible, “We all go about with raised shoulders enjoying the so called democracy, but the man who paid the supreme price we even don’t remember him, our children knows nothing about him.

“Look, there are many 30 year old university graduates in Nigeria today who can’t tell you a single thing about MKO Abiola. They don’t even have an idea who MKO was and when you mention MKO, to them you just mentioned a name like any other, it has no meaning.

“There is no civic, no government in our schools to teach our children about their society, there were things we grew up with. In my primary school, LA Central School, Epe, you must know the names of all the commissioners of the state to pass civic.

“We knew the names of the governors, the governors of the states of the federation in primary school, though there were only 12 states then, not 36, but you must learn those things, and how old were we then? I left primary school when I was just a little over 11 years old.

“In 1993 we had the freest and fairest election in the history of Nigeria and that election was won not by the contribution of one region or a few states, but the entire entity called Nigeria and that man was made to die on the ‘cross’, today with some semblance of democracy, because that man died and we have refused to even acknowledged his contributions, we don’t even mention his name.

“We see some of his children suffering in the midst of plenty and some of us have amassed so much wealth all from this democratic governance and then we are expecting that nation to prosper and grow. Personally, I don’t think God is as unperturbed as that, it is difficult,” he said.

While questioning the rationale behind the government refusal to imortalise Abiola, Ikuforiji asked, “as a people, what are our values, how honest are we with one another?”

According to him, “Those who questioned the rationale behind naming the University of Lagos after MKO, they have their reasons, and some of us who believe that there is the need to immortalize him because his contributions to the coming of this democratic experience is so huge that we cannot just sweep it under the carpet, we have our reasons.

“Something need to be done. We need to be a just nation and you cannot be a just nation on the platform of falsehood and half truths, it will not survive.

“I don’t want to make suggestions on how he can be immortalised, because many suggestions have been made, but it doesn’t appear we have the political will to get anything done, if the political will is there it will be done and it will be properly done, so making suggestions have been made, when you know that the will to get it done is not really there is just chasing of shadows.

“If we are not ready to help ourselves and we are expecting heaven to help us, then we are deceiving ourselves,” he said.

Also speaking on the issue, a frontline Yoruba leader and former Senator, Chief Anthony Adefuye argued that what Nigeria has learnt from the fall out of June 12 election is very little considering the approach to politics today.

He said, “Nigerians have only learnt from June 12 partially. The military scuttled June 12 just because they wanted to continue as civilian presidents and since June 12 only one or two presidents have not been military, all remaining ones have been military presidents or ex-military presidents.

“If Nigerians are to really benefit from June 12 we must try as much as possible to prevent all these ex-military men from taking over the political terrain from all of us.

“They are the cause of all the problems we have today, they are the cause of corruption, they are the cause of everything that is bad and they are forcing themselves in again, fanning the embers of disintegration, the embers of one ethnic group against the other. Nigerians should learn and go away from them so that they don’t pollute them further.

According to him subsequent governments in the country have not been fair to Abiola or what he stood for, as they have continued to ignore him without reason, “No past government in the country has been fair to the memory of MKO Abiola, there has not been any attempt to honour him at all.

The only thing that was done was the university that was named after him and it was overturned because the students of the University of Lagos said they were used to the name of their school and they don’t want any change, it is not because they hated Abiola, but because they were used to that name, that was the nearest to honouring him and that is the man that paid the supreme sacrifice to enthrone democracy in this country, I think he needs more attention than we are giving to him,” Adefuye said.