One of the enduring campaign jingles of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), under which Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, MKO, contested and won the presidency in 1993, was: “Nigeria is on the march again.” MKO’s campaign was weaved around the story line that Nigeria was on the march again to greatness. And that story was believable, because of Abiola’s extraordinary philanthropy and visibility across the length and breadth of Nigeria.
But, applying military shock and awe, the presidential election which Abiola won, fair and square, across tribe and religion, was annulled by Gen Ibrahim Babangida. That regime, which annulled June 12 election, had in a palace coup, in 1995, sacked the government of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, now the civilian president. Twenty-five years after, applying the same military shock and awe, the Buhari government has acknowledged the injustice done to MKO and is seeking to ameliorate it.
Many have accused President Buhari of playing politics by the sudden recognition of Abiola’s political martyrdom, few weeks after praising Gen Sani Abacha, who incarcerated Abiola, instead of returning his mandate, as he allegedly promised, when he sacked the interim government instituted following the crisis that engulfed the country, after the annulment. With the 2019 election starring the APC led government in the face, some have even tagged the act a desperate effort to save the sagging image of the party.
While the accusations may be right, I think it is still a good politics to play. No sane person will deny that a grave injustice was done to MKO and his associates. How on earth, contesting and winning an election could become a criminal offence, leading eventually to a suspected state murder is difficult to fathom. But that was the lot of Abiola, and the consequences for his family and political associates have been very devastating.
So, this column congratulates the president for accepting that his colleagues in power then, acted criminally. Thankfully, he has started the process of healing that part of our national wound by giving MKO the highest national honour (GCFR) and promising to make June 12, as against May 29, the Democracy Day, from 2019. The controversy, whether such a posthumous national award can be giving, will rage for some time. I however agree with the sound and logical argument of Femi Falana SAN, on the controversy.
The next step is to release the full result, and seek legislative action to de-annual the election to grant MKO the full rights of an ex-president. Of course, it is not going to be easy, but the president should immediately throw in an executive bill to de-annual the election. If the president has the courage, he should order a judicial panel of enquiry, to examine the circumstance surrounding the annulment, and recommend those culpable for sanction, including trial for any infraction.
To rest the ghost of June 12 won’t be an easy task, just as the consequences have been far reaching. While the bandit-elite that annulled the election may have done it for their selfish interests, the impression it created was that the northern section of the country, was not willing to allow a person from the south-western section of the country, indeed, any non-northerner become the president of the country. Of course, it was to disabuse that notion that the military government engineered to have two persons from the south-west run as presidential candidates, in 1999 election, which President Olusegun Obasanjo eventually won.
If President Obasanjo was sagacious enough, in dealing with the June 12 imbroglio, he could have on the wave of the special arrangement that brought him to power, tried to de-annual the election and give Abiola, a deserved posthumous recognition, as a duly elected president of the country. Unfortunately he didn’t. Now that he has fallen out with Buhari, the ghost of June 12 has been summoned by his adversary to haunt him. How he answers to the challenge, we shall see. But more importantly, it will be naïve for the president and his handlers to see the recognition of June 12, as a magic wand that will cure the failings of his regime.
The harsh retort of Chief Ayo Adebanjo is a pointer. And his statement that Yoruba’s do not have ‘cattle brain’ is not coincidental, neither his reference to the concentration of power, in the hands of a section of the country. For this column also, the twin challenge facing the president in his campaign for re-election is the federal government’s shoddy handling of the Fulani herdsmen’s audacious impunity across several states of the country, and the concentration of key national security appointments in the hands of a section of the country.
But for these two severe impairments, the Buhari presidency would have it easy, winning a re-election, relying especially in the areas it won handsomely in 2015. Of course, there are very little efforts to court the south-east and the south-south. Perhaps looking at the demography of election participation, and the tainted national census estimates, the handlers of the president feel giddy that once it placates the south-west, it will be able to win in 2019. How placated the south-west is, and how the permutation will pan out in 2019, will be seen.
But assuming the president is truly imbued with a new spirit, and is on the march to reclaim a national consensus badly traumatised under his presidency, he could still make bolder efforts to start the process of national healing. As audacious as it may sound, the president should revisit the injustices of 1966. While military coups are intrinsically unlawful, the first and second military putsches in 1966 were doubly tragic because of the killings.
As criminal as both actions were, the second coup was primed against a section of the country on the false premise that the first coup, was orchestrated by that section even when history abundantly says otherwise. Even more tragically, that false narrative has with the connivance of the dominant elite been elevated to the status of national ethos. In my humble view, that falsehood and the consequent alienation of the south-easterners in key positions is at the heart of the agitations that perennially rock the national boat.
Considering the president’s argument and attitude to the region since he assumed power in 2015, any suggestion on appeasing the region could be viewed with disdain. Regardless, I urge the president to rekindle the march to a new nation by taking justice to the memory of Major General J.T.U. Aguiyi Ironsi. Just like Obasanjo may have done, on Abiola, President Buhari can ignore the advice, but I hope he won’t rue the lost chance, should the march to that part of national reconciliation begin sooner than later, after he leaves power.
In the meantime, I passionately appeal to the resurgent Minister for Works, Power and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, SAN, to save the threatened Miliken Hill side, of the Enugu-Onitsha Expressway.