Opinion
Still Ignoring June 12
It is exactly 20 years ago Nigeria held its first freest and fairest national election. The epoch-making event otherwise known as the June 12, 1993 presidential election was won by late Bashorun M.K.O Abiola. Although the Pan-Nigeria election was annulled by the General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida military junta against all reasons and rhymes, the potency it has etched in people’s minds and consciousness has refused to die 20 years after its annulment.
In spite of the conspiracy of the military cabal and the succeeding political class to deny June 12 its right place in history, few progressive elements within the Nigerian polity, have always invested June 12 with the potency of a political watershed. The human rights groups and Abiola’s kinsmen have particularly kept its soul alive. While a human rights group, Save Nigeria Group (SNG) is organising a lecture in Lagos, today, the South-Western States controlled by the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) are observing a public holiday to mark the 20th anniversary of that Pan-Nigeria mandate.
Sadly however, the major beneficiaries of that historical milestone have refused to accord June 12 its right place. They are often heard arguing that June 12 has been overtaken by May 29, which in the first place, has its root in the June 12, 1993 election. The closest national recognition of the June 12 event was last year when President Goodluck Jonathan named the University of Lagos after Abiola whose death hastened the return to civilian rule on May 29, 1999. Even at that, the renaming was resisted by some Nigerians who, either out of ignorance or by mere mischief, considered the renaming of an institution after a man who laid down his life for democracy, too much a sacrifice. Since then, the President appears to have beaten a sudden retreat.
One is not surprised about Nigerians’ sense of ingratitude. Nigeria has a history of forgetting its heroes and milestones. That many of us have been bludgeoned into sudden amnesia is typically Nigerian. This amnesia explains why many Nigerians would gleefully beckon on the June 12 annuller to contest the presidency. I have the strong feelings that if the late maximum dictator and Abiola’s gaoler, Sanni Abacha were to be alive, not few Nigerians would have shouted his name as the messiah Nigeria needs in 2015.
June 12 may appear to be a fading political momentum considering the fact that most of those who committed the June 12 crime are still around calling the shot, it stands as an inviolate political watershed in Nigeria. It marked the day Nigerians, both at home and in diaspora, rose above the notch of ethnicity and religion to decry the rule of gun and resist the perpetual hold on power by the military hegemony. The unity of electoral responses on June 12, 1993 presupposes the renewal of the Nigerian-nation and the rescue of the country from martial abuse.
Till date, the octave of discussion on the June 12 rises several notches above the common run. The Abiola mandate inspires one of the most intellectual seminar discussions in Nigeria’s political annals.
One can therefore, say, without fear of contradiction, that June 12 is the turning lathe in Nigeria’s quest for civil rule. It is the apogee of the people’s quest for genuine democracy in Nigeria, and therefore, the foundation of our current democratic experience. There could hardly have been May 29 we now celebrate as ‘Democracy Day’ without the June 12.
And even if we concede that there might have been elections and annulments before the June 12’s, the fact remains that never in the history of Nigeria had an election momentarily taken place so benignly and to the acclaim of Nigerians as the June 12,1993 elections. Neither had any election annulment been trailed by sporadic and unanimous condemnation by both Nigerians and international community as the cynical and contemptuous abrogation of Abiola’s pan-Nigeria mandate. The dastardliness, arrogance and heinousness of its annulment which locked Nigeria into a debacle for six years particularly invests June 12 with its potency, such that whenever June 12 is mentioned, the people’s minds, including those of its annullers go to the epoch of 1993.
Although, the annulment of that election sealed Abiola’s presidency, as it is delaying our soft-landing on genuine democracy, the place of June 12 is assured in Nigeria’s calendar of infamy, and will continue to be a veritable touchstone of Nigeria’s political future.
To therefore renounce such an historical date or try to consign it to the garbage of history is to deny those who fought and laid down their lives for civil rule we are enjoying today, martyrdom and resting place. This is because the road to the present democratic dispensation leads inexorably to the past, the past of June 12. The day therefore deserves an inviolate place in Nigeria’s history.
Boye Salau
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