By Rasaq Ibrahim, Ado-Ekiti
The Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, Senator Biodun Olujimi, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele among other Nigerians on Friday paid glowing tributes to the winner of the June 12, presidential election, late Chief Moshood Abiola and other Nigerians who died as martrys of democratic struggle.
Fayemi, in a statement entitled: “Reminiscences on June 12 Struggle and its Imperatives” lauded the significant sacrifices made by Abiola and other Nigerians, describing them as sacrificial lambs for the enthronement democracy.
He advocated the commencement of a new conversation that will arouse the citizens’ confidence of a better life and a brighter future, adding that June 12 signposts a significant lesson that a new and better Nigeria having a democracy that instils confidence of the citizenry is possible.
He lauded President Muhammadu Buhari for giving official recognition to June 12 as the nation’s Democracy Day, describing it as a symbolic gesture which has provided a psychosocial healing for the people who sacrificed for the enthronement of Democracy.
The Governor noted that Buhari, by the gesture, would be fondly remembered after he might have left office for giving June 12 a significant place in the national diary and acknowledging the symbol of the struggle, Chief Moshood Abiola as the rightful winner of the election and taking a step further to give him the nation’s highest honour.
Buhari’s gesture, Fayemi said, was also made remarkable by the highest national honour of the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR) he conferred on the late Abiola who all the previous administrations had refused to recognise as the winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election.
Speaking on the significance of the date, Fayemi said: “The greatest take away from June 12 is that of the possibility of a new Nigeria where our so-called fault lines would no longer matter as our best lines.
“I therefore urge that we start a new conversation around a democracy that instils confidence in the citizenry, enables unrestrained breathing and holds a promise of a better life for all irrespective of whom they are or where they come from.
“This, for me, was the most significant lesson of June 12 and we must teach it, learn it and keep it etched in our sub-conscious in the certainty that a new Nigeria, a better Nigeria is possible.
“This symbolic gesture has provided a psycho-social healing for the people who sacrificed, including their lives, for the enthronement of democracy.
In her message, former Senate Minority leader, Mrs Biodun Olujimi called on Nigerians to use the significance of June 12 as the country democracy day to pursue and promote issues that would foster national cohesion and peaceful co-existence.
Olujimi, in a statement personally signed on Friday in Ado-Ekiti, said Nigerians needed a united front to surmount the myriad of challenges currently affecting the country as exemplified in June 12, 1993 election when Nigerian shunned ethnicity and religion to vote for late Chief Moshood Abiola.
The Senator representing Ekiti South Senatorial District said June 12 should be a day of sober reflection to weigh the country’s democracy, reflect and restrategise on how to move Nigeria forward rather than a day of celebration across the country.
She acknowledged the incalculable contributions of the late MKO Abiola and other Nigerians who struggled for the enthronement of democracy, adding that genuine democracy remain one of the fulcrums capable of engendering socio-economic and political development.
While condemning the incessant killing in the country, she urged President Muhamnadu Buhari to take urgent steps to address the problems of insurgency, insecurity and infringement on human rights, which he described as capable of derailing the nation’s democratic journey.
“June 12 was a watershed in the annal of history of Nigeria political life when religions and sectionalism couldn’t clog the reasoning of the people in electing our leaders.
“But unfortunate despite the sacrifices paid by Abiola and other martrys, Nigeria democracy is still wandering in the wilderness of uncertainty. We are still very far from where we ought to be as a nation. It is evident that all the barometers of socio-economic development were in the negative mode.
“However, government should do what’s right. Democracy is not handled well. Justice need to be the watchword. We should have an electoral system that works and not by happenstance. And governance should be political office holders priority and not polity”, she added.
Also, a member of the Senate, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, has said a deep reflection on the ill-fated struggles for the actualisation of democratic rule for Nigeria through the June 12, 1993 presidential poll, confirmed that the bond of unity among Nigerians was strong and invincible.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, said the lingering crisis that trailed the annulment of the Nigeria’s freest and fairest June 12,1993 presidential election, was devoid of religious and tribal sentiments, which he said signposted that Nigerians were fantastically united in thought and spirit.
Saluting the martyrs and victims of the presidential election in a statement on Friday commemorating the Democracy Day Celebration, Bamidele described the supposed winner of the botched election, Chief MKO Abiola and other pro-democracy Nigerians who lost their lives as the real pillars of the country’s democracy.
“The June 12, 1993 was so symbolic in Nigeria’s political history. It represented a day when all Nigerians eschewed ethnic and tribal considerations and voted a candidate of their choices in the most recognisable democratic fashion.
“The fact that the late Abiola of the Social Democratic Party and a Yoruba man of the Southwest extraction could win in Kano, where his Chief opponent , Alhaji Bashir Tofa hailed from, indicated that the poor masses cared less about ethnicity and tribalism.”
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