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Tag: June 12

  • June 12: Risen from the ashes (II)

    Abacha’s anti-June 12 decree was in such terribly ridiculous taste, even the junta’s Secretary for Information who announced its promulgation, Comrade Uche Chukwumerije –although he was rumoured to carry the one-page document wherever he went- was probably ashamed beyond that to propagate it, let alone, to work out an effective mechanism for its enforcement. In fact by this time then, June 12 had become such a discomforting albatross on the neck of the military establishment that it did not know whether keeping Abiola endlessly in jail was an incentive to its effort at consolidation or a disincentive. And worst, still MKO’s trial had soon also drifted into a conundrum, with two senior lawyers –FRA Williams and G.OK. Ajayi- locked in an unending legal battle over who had Abiola’s leave to represent him in court. Williams insisted that both Abiola and his family members had briefed him to take over from Ajayi, who insisted that he needed to be properly briefed by his client, Abiola, to drop out.

    The government on the other hand gloated over the impasse and expectedly therefore was not about to bring the accused, Abiola, to the open court so that the representation issue could be resolved once and for all. Nor was the government ready to allow access to MKO in his prison cell by either of the senior lawyers since doing so would unwittingly provide an avenue to resolve the representation saga. In fact at this time even Abiola’s doctor, Ore Falomo was no longer allowed access to him. This inevitably stalled the treason trial –as government had wanted, and now endlessly kept Abiola in jail with the pleasant implication that there was no more bad press for the government each time he was brought to the court in Black Maria –and especially with the police always having a hectic tear-gassing time with stones-throwing protesters including curse-bearing nude old women around the court. Nothing could be more terribly de-campaigning for the Abacha junta on the international scene.

    But if the government had thought that stalling Abiola’s trial would translate into relief for it from the prying eyes of local and international media, it soon found out the contrary, namely that keeping Abiola in jail endlessly without trial was equally as worrisome to the international community. Thus Abacha had soon found out that neither continuing nor discontinuing the high-profile trial could save the government from the outrage especially of an international community which had made it clear it was waiting eagerly for a just closure to the June 12 debacle. Nor was releasing Abiola –even if on conditional- bail a palatable option. Because the government evidently was not about to risk freeing a man such as MKO who was not only armed with a popular mandate but who had already proclaimed himself president.

    Read Also: June 12: Risen from the ashes (I)

    Faking a bail

    Soon as the no-trial period dragged, the government came up with what turned out to be a deceptive bail offer to Abiola which perfection was obviously intended to be mired in the controversy of who was the legitimate legal representative to execute. Since discrediting the June 12 struggle was high on the government’s immediate objectives, the impasse between the two senior lawyers over legal representation provided a perfect opportunity to spin an un-executable bail-grant. And so, that infamous bail offered Abiola by Justice Abdullahi Mustapha of the Federal High Court was after all a carefully choreographed ruse never intended to be executed. It was informed by the junta’s desperation for some breather from the harangues of an international community now pushing for the release of MKO. Granting Abiola bail and then alleging that he had spurned it or that a disagreement between his lawyers was in the way of perfecting it, would kill two birds with one stone: first it would revitalize the worsted image of the junta internationally and then it would now shift the onus of resolving the June 12 impasse off Abacha to the courts.

    Many had wondered why, amidst a surfeit of judges in Abuja, a particular one of Niger State extraction, Abdullahi Mustapha, would be flown in a Presidential jet from his Benin base, to Abuja on a Saturday to grant bail in such a hurry -on a treason charge- to an accused person who previously was not even allowed a leave of court to have access to his lawyers or personal physician. Those who ordinarily should celebrate the prospect of that bail were suddenly apprehensive of a conspiracy to release the man and then get him bumped or sniped on the outside; -a bail which could not wait just two more days to the next Monday and at the grant of which there were neither clerks in court nor Abiola’s lawyers, except some curious-looking Abacha foot soldiers (Adedibu and Pascal Bafyau) who presented themselves as ‘representing Abiola interest’. The question was asked: ‘if Justice Mustapha so urgently needed to convene his court on a Saturday to grant a bail that could not wait just 48 hours to Monday, why was it not equally necessary that the beneficiary of the bail was as expeditiously served the bail papers? Needless to say that Abiola was never released; nor was he even aware that he was to be released. In fact after FRA Williams eventually took over Abiola’s case from G.O.K Ajayi, a fresh attempt by him to perfect the bail was vehemently opposed by the same government prosecutors on the grounds that the bail documents were ‘forged’.

    Averting the worst

    Earlier, a grand design to plant a voluptuous female as one of Abiola’s cell guards who was detailed to compromise him carnally had been frustrated via a quick warning note to him by Lisa Olu Akerele through a regular channel which we had maintained, of sympathetic –even if regularly paid- security informants. Had the government’s plan succeeded, Abiola was to have been a lone porn star in a video cassette which would be delivered to major embassies of the world hopefully at last to discredit the June 12 struggle by showing that while the international community was on top of it, the arrowhead of the struggle himself was busy violating the sanctity of his detention facility to titillate himself. If memory serves right, on a very bad day thereafter, something terribly went wrong, as with all high-risk security channels like this, and this avenue was busted by El-Mustapha’s men, leading to the arrest of so many agents including Akerele himself. But this would’ve been the worst blow ever that the June 12 struggle may never have recovered from, if it had been successfully delivered. Olu Akerele almost paid the supreme sacrifice for paying to maintain the very channel which averted this.

    The ‘cat’ with the nine lives (June 12), had not only survived the antics of its worst traducer, namely Abacha who had suddenly died, ironically in nearly as compromised a situation as he had plotted for Abiola, but little did we know that the ghost of June 12 in fact had the resilience to survive even its alter ego himself Abiola, who was assassinated by the Abdulsalami regime in the foolish hope that at last this wandering ghost seeking to be rested would be content with the bodies of the two major contending gladiators interred. By the way General Abdulsalami, when he took over, was a little more imaginative. He chose to hand over on May 29th as a ploy to make that date our ‘Democracy Day’. He needed only have waited some 13 days more to do so on June 12. But no! As the gods would want it, June 12 had also been fated to wrestle and to overcome even the more insidiously subtle antics of the man who superintended over the assassination of Abiola.

    From GCFR to C-In-C

    June 12 at last has risen from the ashes. It has taken the centre-stage of our democratic narrative. There is no stopping it, it seems. Until our ‘Democracy Day’ becomes also our ‘Handover Date’. Until the late MKO is recognized, posthumously as having been elected –and thus taking his rightful place as President and Commander in Chief.

    In June 23, 2016 when I wrote ‘Ode to MKO: A Parody of Shakespeare’, I was as prophetic as I could be when I said: “we grieve not, knowing that he died so that the essay of our new dawn may be made legible. Lie still in thy muted grave my liege MKO. Thy rest is nigh; thy repose will soon come. Thy tongue-less tomb will soon be laced with a waxen epitaph; and it shall proclaim: ‘Here lies the President who, in Heaven before the angels, took his oath; and posthumously on earth, is crowned ‘Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”.

     

    • Concluded.

  • June 12: a postscript

    Done deal – 2019, and June 12 formally became Nigeria’s national Democracy Day!

    But the strong ripples of just desert, clashed with the no-less-rippling currents of futile denial, in an exhilarating drama of good finally trumping evil.

    First, the news hit the wires: all the former heads of state were absent at the epochal event; the apocryphal “owners of Nigeria” – Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibrahim Babangida, Abdulsalami Abubakar and even Ernest Shonekan, the craven head of the pitiful Interim National Government (ING).

    Even the one that should be part of them; and yet was clearly not with them on the June 12 debacle: Gen. Yakubu Gowon.  Good, old Jack was reportedly undone by old age flu!

    Aside from Gowon who made his own stand very clear with an earlier statement, were the rest unpleased with June 12’s beatification; and so stayed away?  Who knows?

    The anti-Buhari lobby, with a penchant to play politics with everything, could convert to warmth that cold comfort, in these excruciating wintry times, for a totally lost cause: the so-called “owners of Nigeria” were displeased!

    Still, that stay-out could be a quiet but powerful rite of passage.  Can you be present at your own burial?

    The old order fadeth — and its religious minders fall quiet!

    Little surprise: on June 12’s rehabilitation, mum has it been; from the once rambunctious polemics chamber of Father Hassan Kukah, Catholic Bishop of Sokoto.

    The bishop’s was one of the most luminous minds, all through military rule; and through the Obasanjo-led old order of the 4th Republic (1999-2015).  It appears the holy priest is getting progressively mute – and muted.

    Changing seasons, changing voices!

    Still, among the fading order, you just must think of Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar.  On the June 12 debacle, his is a mixed bag.

    MKO Abiola died under his watch, after Sani Abacha’s sudden expiry, in what many have alleged was calculated killing to clear the deck.  But then that honourable, if painful, death earned MKO the martyrdom that hauled him right back to glorious life today.

    Also under Abdulsalami’s watch, Obasanjo got sprung from gaol; and raced, after a pardon, to a two-term elected presidency, in what the inimitable Fela would have dismissed as Army Arrangement (AA).  Yet, the same Obasanjo endures life; but hardly enjoys seeing all he erected get trashed!

    It is a powerful paradox that must tame the mighty, excite the witty, and buoy the weakling!  Yet, Abdulsalami may yet earn the soft side of history.

    His post-power grace-cum-carriage is a model in comportment; for many less endowed but far louder.  Then, the military would perhaps have wished an Abdusalami, not an IBB, or an Abacha.

    His short-and-sharp transition could have left a military-fleeing-from-power with some institutional grace; but hardly curbed it of its tragic messianic delusion.  Again, it’s Abdulsalami sweet and sour!

    But all sour – no sweetness? – was Gen. Obasanjo, mourner-in-chief, as Carnival June 12 hit town.  Yet, the old fox pointed towards another direction: the brewing political crisis in neighbouring Benin must be nipped in the bud.

    That is no bad call, for tiny Benin taught mighty Nigeria the democratic ethos.  Its sovereign national conference (SNC) still fires here, many a federalist romantic; while delivering, in Benin, a seamless democratic transition, in which government and opposition alternate power.

    Yet, latest beneficiary, Patrice Talon, after trumping the ruling party’s Lionel Zinsou in a run-off, just sunk an anti-democratic talon – an amendment to the electoral law that all but banned the opposition from bidding for parliament.

    To boot, a protesting former President, Thomas Boni Yayi, is clamped under house arrest!

    For once, a good call from Obasanjo, even if Talon appears a Benin manifestation of Obasanjo’s own grave anti-democratic flaws — witness his “do-or-die” general elections of 2007.

    Ghana’s John Kuffour, his advertised partner in this new Benin campaign, is a study to Obasanjo himself, in how a former president must comport himself – calm, graceful, dignified and non-meddlesome.

    Boni Yayi’s restriction might just be a crafty Obasanjo projection, of what he fears just might be his lot, should his reckless meddling continue, even as his political world crashes in a cascade!  But the Nigerian government must not take the bait.  In this business, nothing is as satisfying as self-burial!

    But away from the fading order, to lobbies that cannot even claim their glory, no thanks to bad politics and politicking.

    Enter the Afenifere, who as a vibrant part of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), were much as anyone, brave, battle-tested and well-decorated June 12 veterans.  Yet, victory came, and all they could muster was a moan, not a whoop.

    But God, in His infinite mercies, gave them Ambassador Babagana Kingibe, to vent their spleen – Kingibe, the co-owner of the MKO mandate that abandoned the battle midstream, yet shared in June 12’s full glory!

    A leading voice of that lobby, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, pummelled Kingibe without let – and fairly so; for reaping where he did not sow.

    Yet, better to admit the unworthy than entirely deny honour that is due.  Didn’t the Bible say it was better to let go a relay of the guilty, than punish a single innocent soul?

    Still, a strain of Yoruba ultra-nationalism tried to find its voice, at the peak of the June 12 carnival, staging what it called the “O to ge” rally.

    It was the voice of the natives against kidnapping, banditry and allied violent crimes, which had spiked in Yorubaland, as it had in the rest of the country.

    Yet, that rally, as legitimate as it was, would have mocked the June 12 principle.  June 12 earned its golden stripes precisely because some evil forces tried to ethnicize – and therefore bury – the Yoruba protest against a flawless presidential mandate handed MKO.

    Now, 26 years after June 12, some Yoruba lobbies tried to ethnicize a national plague: painting kidnapping as a sole Yoruba menace, deliberately inflicted by the Fulani.

    Just as well it all turned a damp squib; for it was a big negation of the June 12 spirit.

    After the June 12 experience, that is no way to go.  Justice – as crime – has no ethnic flavour.  It is a blessing – just as crime is plague – to all!

    Besides, the kidnapping story, hitherto a fanatical anti-Fulani tale, has mutated in twists and turns: Yoruba pastor-turned self-kidnapper for ransom; Fulani herdsmen-turned rescuers of Yoruba captives from home-brewed kidnappers!

    Kidnapping, nationwide, has turned an all-comer, equal-opportunity criminal racket, which the local authorities, must partner with the federal authorities to crack.

  • June 12 and the rebound of truth

    When he wrote In Julius Caesar that the evil that men do live after them, legendary writer, Williams Shakespeare, was alluding to the fact that evil deeds in history are often more easily remembered than the good ones. A cursory dip into any history book will confirm this. In Julius Caesar, one of the purposes of Mark Antony’s speech is to mitigate any evils that Caesar may have committed while highlighting the good that he did.

    It is often said that history is written by the victors. In the immediate aftermath of Caesar’s assassination, it is the conspirators who are the victors. And as such they are keen to rewrite the history of Caesar’s rule to their advantage. Mark Antony’s speech is a subtle attempt to stop them from doing this. Not only is he absolutely determined to ensure that Caesar’s good name will live on, he is also going to do whatever he can to make sure that the evil of the conspirators, their bloody act of treachery, will not only be punished, but never forgotten.

    In the annals of our country’s political history, June 12 remains a watershed. That is the truth that some do not want to hear. But then, truth does not become truth because it is validated by man. No matter the depth of denials, truth remains what it is: The truth.

    The truth is that, no matter how hard its antagonists try, for many reasons, June 12 will continue to be a defining moment in the annals of our nation’s political history. It was the day that Nigerians expressed a strong resolve to chart a new course for their beloved country. It was the day that Nigerians redefined and reshaped the nation’s political scenery. Prior to that time, our politics sharply reflected our palpable religious and ethnic divides.  But on June 12, all that changed. Chief MKO Abiola, who was the presidential candidate of the defunct SDP, had more votes in the northern part of the country than Alhaji Bashir Tofa, his northern challenger from the defunct NRC.

    One other remarkable feature of the June 12 election is the electorate’s disposition to religious sentiments and concerns. In 1993, the defunct SDP was bold and daring in its conviction that fielding a Muslim-Muslim ticket (Abiola and Kingibe) would not jeopardise its electoral success. The party went ahead with its conviction and recorded a resounding success at the polls. But for the annulment of the poll’s result, such audacity could have effectively checkmated religious contemplations in our political scene.

    Several calls for the immortalization of Chief MKO Abiola, the acclaimed winner of the June 12 election, were continually rebuffed. Same goes for the calls to recognize June 12 as the nation’s official Democracy Day. Certain individuals who should have stood by the truth and be counted as defenders of the right of the people simply decided to look the other way. Some of them, for personal reasons and out of sheer ego, embarked on a futile mission to ‘kill’ the truth and advance the course of falsehood.

    But like it is often said, truth is constant. Though it can be suppressed for quite a while, it cannot be permanently obliterated. Truth has a way of coming back.  Over the ages, ruthless men have variously tried to repress the truth. Some murdered those they thought hold the key to the truth. Others proscribed mediums they believed could help in preserving the truth while others did everything they could to silence the voices of truth. But then, historically, conspiracies against the truth have always failed woefully.

    Autocrats, tyrants and despots in various parts of the world, and over diverse ages, have tried very hard to silence the promoters of the truth. In some cases, scores of individuals who were unrepentant custodians of truth have been killed, maimed, jailed and dehumanized by despots whose main goal was to stifle the truth and uphold deception. Such abounds in quantum in Africa, Asia and, to a large extent, some nations in Eastern Europe, especially during the cold war era.

    But then, no matter how long falsehood has been in circulation, it cannot really take the place of truth. Truth has a way of always rebounding. It is, therefore, exciting to note that June 12 has today become a rallying point for democracy in the country and Chief MKO Abiola has finally been immortalized. This week, the country witnessed the very first national celebration of June 12 as the official Democracy Day.

    For us as a people, the renaissance of June 12 has become a metaphor for the constant nature of truth. It is, therefore, imperative for political elite across the country to always stand by the truth and eschew all forms of deceit, especially in the way they manage the affairs of the country.

     

    • Ogunbiyi is of the Lagos State Ministry of Information and Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja.

  • Why Nigerians should celebrate June 12, by Osun APC

    The Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has explained why Nigerians should always celebrate June 12.

    Acknowledging June 12 as Democracy Day, the party described it as a strategic battle won.

    In a statement by its spokesperson Kunle Oyatomi, APC said: “The war for genuine democracy in Nigeria still rages on.

    “There is good reason to celebrate Democracy Day nationally today (yesterday) for the first time; but there is also a strong reason to be alert and conscious of the lesson of perseverance, which the day’s event teaches.

    “We cannot afford to ignore hindsight, to recall that the struggle to secure a firm foundation for democracy in Nigeria has been on for more than a quarter of a century.

    Read also: Sanwo-Olu, others hail Buhari for honouring Abiola, June 12

    “It is only just today that Nigeria came to acknowledge the relevance of June 12, 1993 to the establishment of democracy in the country.

    “Since it took the country as long as 26 years to accept the inevitable,” the party argued, “June 12 was allowed to morph into a relentless storm that is creating turmoil in different directions.

    “And until all its fundamentals are allowed to take effect, democracy in full flow with all its benefits may well take much longer to be actualised.”

    The ruling party urged Nigerians not to forget the dozens of people, including the icon himself, the late Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (M.K.O.) Abiola, who was suspected to have been murdered in the attempt to stifle democracy in Nigeria.

    The party said: “Not only that concerted efforts were made by powerful people to prevent Nigerians from recognising the June 12 event as a watershed moment in the struggle for democracy.

    “We in Osun are so proud to have been one of those in the forefront of the battle to actualise June 12.

    “Part One of our success came in 1999. Today, we celebrate Part Two, which has to do with national acknowledgement of that day as a memorable juncture in our quest for democracy in Nigeria.

    “However, it is not yet Uhuru. The war for freedom, justice, equity and peace still rages on our streets, in our forests, cities, towns and villages.

    “Until we can win the peace, security of life and property; until we can guarantee the safety of our communities from the rampaging herds of armed murderers and bigots, and until we can civilise our political culture, we would be a long way off from democracy.”

  • June 12: Risen from the ashes (I)

    Preamble

    Two days ago the President, Muhammadu Buhari assented to the ‘Public Holiday (Amendment) Bill’ which amended the ‘Public Holiday Act’ to replace May 29 with June 12, as Nigeria’s new ‘Democracy Day’. Meaning that, that bland, uneventful date (May 29) chosen by those who wanted us to forget our democratic history, has now been replaced by a grand, historic date, June 12; -a date filled with the story of democratic sacrifice and martyrdom. At last the rejected stone has become the ‘head corner stone’. May 29 now ceases to be a holiday even though it retains its –yet unearned- status as a ‘handover date’. If you ask me, the Constitution should be amended soonest, to return even this constitutional duty to June 12 so that it also serves as ‘hand-over date’, in addition to being both a holiday and a day to remember the life of that one, MKO Abiola who, not only won Nigeria’s freest and fairest election on that date, but whose tragic State-plotted assassination now symbolizes the struggle which ended military dictatorship and installed a lasting democracy in Nigeria.

    Last year also at a grand Special National Honors Investiture at the State House Aso Rock, the late MKO was posthumously conferred with the highest honor reserved only for occupants of the highest office in the land, name the Grand Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic, GCFR. What is now left to complete the national political healing process is to declare him President-elect and to swear him, posthumously again, so that he takes his rightful place as one of the democratically elected leaders of Nigeria. But even if that remains in the realm of future struggle, yesterday’s re-naming of the Abuja National Stadium after the late MKO, is a pleasant omen that puts no cap to what Buhari’s APC Government is willing to give to heal and to make whole again. As I listened to the President make that announcement yesterday, the only comrade-at-arms that came to my mind was my senior colleague and fellow aide to the late MKO, Mr. Lisa Olu Akerele.  There are quite few June 12 comrades I know whose daily preoccupation is to see the political ghost of the late MKO fully pacified and its spirit eternally rested. Mr. Akerele is one of them.

    The cat with line lives

    The British writer Mathew Arnold, was the one who described the ‘cat’ in the glowing poetic of an animal that is at once “composed and bland” even as it is always “inscrutable and grand”. But my concern here is more with the ‘composed’ and the ‘inscrutable’ than it is with the ‘bland’ or the ‘grand’. To be composed is not just to be ‘cool, calm and calculated’, but it is also not to be agitated or distracted. These must have been the feline qualities by which the ‘ghost’ of June 12 had tarried all through two decades and six, biding its time as morbid ash and hoping someday to rise from the dead and to take its rightful place in the annals of our democratic history. And which it has now virtually done. Former External Affairs Minister Bolaji Akinyemi two days ago on Channel Television put it as I also see it –that President Buhari has brought June 12 from a distant back-burning issue to the front burner of political discourse in Nigeria.

    And although the annulment of the election was callous, and the assassination of the winner tragic, the effort especially by successive PDP regimes to bury the memory of June 12 and to prevent the remembrance of its iconic martyr, Abiola, has been nothing but ludicrous. Only a political administration abandoned by ‘providence’ and rejected by the political gods would fail to have seen the immense political capital inherent in appropriately –even if posthumously- recognizing June 12 and in restoring the late MKO to his rightful place in the political history of Nigeria. Only the politically undiscerning would not have seen that a great electoral watershed such as June 12, no matter how long it tarries like a genie in time forgotten, it is bound someday to come out of the gourd, resurgent. And which is what June 12 has done. It is now self-evident that the ghost of June 12 has not wandered the forest of a thousand demons all this while in the personification of a helpless rotted spirit-person. It has done so as a stealthy cat ‘composed and ‘inscrutable’. It has proved itself the mysterious ‘cat’ with the proverbial ‘nine lives’. Just when you think you have killed it, you have to prepare to kill it all over again.

    And so Mathew Arnold’s poetic rendering of the cat as enigmatic reminds of the mystique of June 12 at last rising from the ashes of death to a towering picturesque Eiffel Tower of sort which now commands the attention, reverence and awe of friends and even of foes alike. Once in the checkered history of betrayals and counter betrayals of the June 12 cause, the refrain was either ‘On June 12 We Stand’ (by proud comrades ready always to put their lives on the line) and ‘On June 12 We Sit’ (by those who had given up on the struggle). But the worst thereafter were those who proudly –even if shamelessly- began to proclaim ‘On June 12 We Eat’, suggesting that they had not only abandoned the struggle, they now fed ravenously from betraying it. Some of these included the Afenifere elders that El Mustapha has been threatening to expose.

    The comrade’s military decree

    No sooner had they created the monster of June 12 than it had to be their abiding preoccupation all through our checkered democratic history to tame its genie and to rewrite the history of our democratic odyssey. Under the contraption which had made a civilian, Ernest Shonekan Head of a so called Interim National Government, ING, and General Sani Abacha the Commander in Chief, the late ‘Comrade’ Uche Chukwumerije who was that government’s Secretary (Minister) for Information, had in fact announced the signing of a one-page Decree outlawing the mere mention of ‘June 12’ in public places. We were almost on the verge of our own version of a McCarthy era, a period in America’s democratic history when its fear of communism led it into a most ridiculous paranoia as a certain Republican Senator, McCarthy, led a mysterious hunt down of alleged communists in the American government. The American playwright, Arthur Miller, caricatured this period of America’s democratic history in a play titled ‘The Crucible’. Nigeria had almost slipped into her own species of ‘communist witch-hunt’ with June-twelvers becoming such pariah that we came short only of being lynched on the streets.

    In retrospect after the Shonekan-Abacha decree outlawing the public mention of June 12, I remember writing an unpublished piece titled ‘To Hell With June 12’ in which I satirized Chukwumerije’s Military Decree. I suggested that the best way to erase the memory of June 12 was not just to decree it out of public mention, but to yank it completely off our calendar: “yes, let’s create our own Nigerian calendar so that from June 11 we just jump straight to June 13. Let’s pretend that June 12 never existed. Let it be treasonable henceforth for any printer to produce a calendar bearing June 12. We won’t be the first to rebel against the global calendar. The Julian Calendar authorized by Caesar was replaced by the Gregorian Calendar on the authority of Pope Gregory the XIII because the former, as his scientist claimed, was 11 minutes, 14 seconds too long. Besides, the white man because he is superstitious about the number ‘13’, whenever he numbers –especially hotel rooms- he either jumps ‘13’ to ‘14’ or he simply uses ‘12b’. Someone should tell ‘Comrade’ Chukwumerije that we can have a Nigerian Calendar that either skips June 12 to June 14 or one that has June 11b in its place.

     

    • To be continued.

  • June 12: Barbers at work

    You cannot shave a man’s head in his absence—MKO Abiola, winner of 1993 presidential election.

    I am reproducing this piece I did when we were all falling over ourselves as officialdom announced it was, at last and belatedly, embracing June 12 as a national event and not a regional or ethnic phenomenon. Nothing has changed to alter my stand: federal recognition or not, June 12 derives traction from its own sanctity. It does not require robes of bureaucratic crutches to stand! Here goes:

    It is unlikely that a resurrected Bashorun MKO Abiola would hail President Muhammadu Buhari for attempting to honour him and the mandate he received on June 12, 1993 the way most citizens have done. The applause the Abiola family and a section of the human rights community are giving the recognition is also not sufficient to conclude that they have spoken for MKO. True, the struggle for the fulfilment of June 12 was beyond Abiola, his family and the activists. It was (still is) Pan-Nigerian and would appear to require all hands, including government, to give it restitution of some sort.

    These, however, are inadequate levers to achieve a sense of closure on our unpleasant experience. We need to address the matter of redeeming that day and the victory it gave the people from a catholic consideration, not merely from the narrow angle of proclamation of a few people as heroes and a day as democracy day. These may form part of the larger picture we desire. But they pale beside the substance of fundamental recognition that accommodates what Abiola sought: good governance that would in turn deliver the good things of life to the ordinary citizens.

    Simplistically settling for a national award for MKO to retrieve June 12 from seeming obloquy amounts to the case of a student who produces the answer to an algebraic puzzle without the arduous, exciting and brain taxing process of working out the formulae and key to arrive at the solution. The student would incur the wrath of the teacher and be charged with malpractices that carry heavy penalties. How did he get the correct answer without evincing labour for it? Did he steal it by playing giraffe? Is he making a mockery of the dignity of scholarship? Is he giving the impression his teacher was so incompetent he wouldn’t guide him through the exciting process of sweating for the QED?

    As long as these posers crop up with no convincing responses, the society can’t accept what emerges from the exam hall. If we allowed it to stand, we would have compromised and be classed in the same league as the student who sought success without sacrifice.

    Now these are some of the concerns of those who seem not to be at home with the decision of a president who has given us what we’ve all clamoured for, but with an anti-liberal and undemocratic temperament. Most citizens mistrust his motives.

    What most observers insist is that a dignifying rehabilitation of Abiola and his sacrosanct mandate together with the date is only possible if the activists of that history and their successors are at the centre of the restoration move. Some members of his family, selected June 12 activists, notable politicians across the divide and a good number of persons drawn from the public could be brought together in a committee to discuss these noble objectives. All Nigerians would be encouraged to participate in the debate via the media and town hall meetings.

    The late politician’s manifesto and speeches when he campaigned on the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) would be recalled for scrutiny. These were weighty documents that looked beyond June 12. I recall his My covenant… with my people speech on June 8 1993, shortly before the historic poll. There were these nuggets out of many he dropped: I shall renew hope in the Nigerian dream through the articulation of a new vision of a great Nigeria. I am determined to replace doubt with optimism. We must reconstruct our society in all its ramifications to make life easier for our citizens. All Nigeria needs is one transformer to end its endless power interruptions.

    According lasting honour to June 12 and Abiola also entails going the whole hog. We must hear from the horse’s mouth (Ibrahim Babangida) why the election was cancelled. We must go back to the era of Sani Abacha who arrested Abiola and tortured him till he himself died. Abubakar Abdulsalami who succeeded Abacha needs to talk to Nigerians. Abiola died in his custody.

    Next the current central government must itself show strict commitment to the principles of June 12 and the man who symbolized it. Abiola stood for true federalism aka restructuring. He wanted a better life which a succession of Nigeria’s central administrations didn’t (and still are not presenting) offer the people. He also thirsted for one united nation untrammelled by sectarianism as shown by the Muslim-Muslim ticket he ran with and won.

    Not allowing these considerations in seeking to honour Abiola and June 12 can be likened to staging Wole Soyinka’s Kongi’s Harvest without bringing in Kongi himself!

    Or better let’s go to the man of the moment: One of his famous sayings is this: You cannot shave a man’s head in his absence. Tragically, what we’re doing now is that of a barber at work on the head of a man not on seat!

  • June 12!

    June 12!  Democracy Day!
    The day not a few prayed — and perhaps fasted — would never come is here!
    And, as it pleases the Almighty, those yesteryear gods are still alive, though not so well!  It’s the ultimate futility of playing god over fellow humans!
    Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, the self-named “military president” (whatever that meant), suffered the terrible delusion he could cancel the making of a real president; and live happily ever after, as they say in those moonlight tales!
    IBB, 26 years after his rash annulment, is not unlike a golden coin badly faded; or a once glowing, smouldering coal, now covered by grey cold ash!
    The haughty glow of military power and glory is vanished!  All that remains is the cold ashen folly of vanity — like bitter winter after sweet summer!
    At the ultimate triumph of June 12, our man that once boasted of dominating his environment, who had the power of life and death, and was not only in office but also in power, is all but a mere relic!  His is a living example of the ephemerality of power.
    Sani Abacha, the June 12 “friend” turned fiend?  The Khalifa that sustained the annulment, with blood and gore; pus and brine, long after the annuler had “stepped aside” in disgrace?
    Twenty-six years after the annulment and 21 years after Abacha’s sudden expiry, we are still assailed by the rotten ooze of his uncommon sleaze!
    There is this claim that the Yoruba hated Abacha, always demonized him and therefore played down his good side.
    To be sure, between Abacha and the Yoruba, there was no love lost.  However, the issue was more fundamental.
    Politically, by sustaining the annulment, Abacha was clear danger to Nigerian democracy.  That was hardly Yoruba sole business.
    Economically, his gargantuan greed, expressed by his sweeping sleaze, condemned many to a future of poverty and insecurity, as epitomized by the plague now ravaging Abacha’s native North.
    Sani Abacha might have had his good part.  But history would fairly remember him as a thief, a murderer and a plunderer. These negative traits exalt no nation.  If the yearly June 12 celebrations thumb down these evils, Nigerians would have had more than a public holiday.
    Still the pair of IBB and Abacha, by their June 12 debacle, gifted the polity an unintended pearl: no more looting and parasitic military, posturing as emergency saviours.  Twenty straight years of democracy is living proof!
    What of Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and Tony Anenih (both now dead), who mixed up settling personal scores with the inviolability of a people’s mandate, thus conspiring to trade MKO Abiola’s presidential mandate for the feckless Ernest Shonekan Interim National Government (ING) — brewed in perfidy, imposed by perfidy, collapsed in perfidy?
    Chief Shonekan is alive to witness the full glory of June 12, even if he cuts a sorry sight: a merry tool used to truncate the people’s democratic will!  That would be his lot in history.
    But the old man carries his cross with stoic dignity.  That can’t be said of his Egba kith and kin, the restless and restive Ebora Owu — but more on that presently!
    Yar’Adua (God bless his soul!) paid the ultimate price for playing politics with everything: he died in Abacha’s gulag, after conviction for a controversial (many would insist, phantom) coup attempt.  Might standing by June 12 have earned him a better fate?
    What became of Anenih, the national chairman of the victorious Social Democratic Party (SDP), that nevertheless traded away MKO’s mandate?
    For a moment, “The Fixer” ruled the roost: a ruthless turner of electoral fortunes – winners to losers; losers into winners; at the acme of PDP’s electoral heists!
    Still, he died a diminished electoral menace, eventually trumped by the sanctity of the vote.  At his fall in Edo, a triumphant Adams Oshiomhole declared that he had retired the Edo “godfathers”.  The PDP 2015 national fall marked his final political demise.
    Arthur Nzeribe, he of the notorious but cynically named Association for Better Nigeria (ABN)?
    Arthur! — As folks called him: half in dread, half in scorn was the name; Nzeribe was the man, in those heady days of halcyon mischief!  Why, he would even later in 1999 emerge senator, beneficiary of a democracy he strove so hard to scuttle!
    But today, good old Arthur, battling for health in his winter years, would wonder if all that swashbuckling infamy was worth all the while!  Glad he too is alive, if not so well, to witness the glory of June 12!
    Still, perhaps the most pathetic of the anti-June 12 elements, condemned to living to see its glory, is ironically its greatest beneficiary, former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
    Technically, June 12 gifted Obasanjo two elective presidential terms, to add to his three previous years as military head of state.
    Pre-June 12, Obasanjo’s was, near-universally, a respected voice, except among his fellow Yoruba, thus echoing the Biblical quip of a prophet not without honour, except in his own country, among his own people.
    Still, 26 years after June 12, diminution appears Obasanjo’s lot, no thanks to horrid personal choices.
    First, a rabid fear of June 12 perhaps drove him to supporting Atiku Abubakar, a former deputy he had traduced with venom, probably in last-minute desperation to stave off June 12 as Democracy Day, if Atiku had triumphed.
    However, with re-election going President Muhammadu Buhari’s way, Obasanjo, arguably the greatest southern beneficiary of “Fulanization and Islamization” – both made him military head of state and elected president – is busy dissing his northern patrons, with his latest opportunistic theory, clearly to divert attention from June 12 as ultimate political nemesis.
    But even then, Obasanjo ran into a crushing blow from Gen. Yakubu Gowon, the former commander-in-chief Obasanjo had left for dead in his Not My Will, Obasanjo’s post-military rule memoirs, throatily insulting the man and addressing him as “Mr. Gowon”.
    Honour fully regained, and never diminished by opportunistic meddling as Obasanjo is wont, the Gowon “Fulanization” rebuke, of June 5, came with biting severity:
    “They were all my juniors starting from Obasanjo,” Gowon said.  ”I know their characters more than anyone … Buhari is kind, most disciplined and most diligent in his responsibilities. Any Christian leader spreading propaganda of Islamization or Fulanization against the President is doing so at his or her own risk …”
    The ultimate rebuke might be Gowon’s.  But the ultimate irony comes from Obasanjo’s own Not My Will.
    In that book, a triumphant but callow Obasanjo pilloried Awolowo and Azikiwe as ending as tribal champions.  Now see Obasanjo, self-trumpeted Mr. Nigeria, who claimed MKO was no messiah, playing own “Fulanization” ethnic card, all because of June 12!
    Poor Ebora Owu! His May 29 Democracy Day Trojan horse not only gets buried from tommorrow, he is ending too as another ethnic hustler!
    June 12, the spiritual grave of many a plastic reputation!
    MKO and Gani Fawehinmi must be rolling, with loud laughter, in their graves!

  • Re: June 12, military cult and PMB’s ritual offering 

    Your column of June 4 made an interesting read. I must commend your progressive judgment in profiling the heroes and villains of June 12 in proper lights. For me, the greatest source of joy today is that characters like Ibrahim Babangida, Olusegun Obasanjo, Ernest Degunle Shonekan lived long enough to see the gross injustice reversed. It would have been perfect justice had MKO Abiola been alive to witness this day, but then we change history and it is pointless lamenting what cannot be changed.

    These villains of history will spend their remaining days full of shame and regret indeed for the heinous crime they committed against the Nigerian nation.

    June 12 offered a unique opportunity to grow Nigeria into a more inclusive nation in the sense that, in voting the Abiola-Kingibe ticket, Nigerians for the first time in history overcame the evil of ethnicity, religion and class. In Kano, for instance, Abiola defeated the homeboy, Tofa. In the predominantly Christian South-East and South-South, people also voted substantially for the Muslim-Muslim ticket.

    But it pleased the cabal of deluded generals to annul the outcome of that historic election, thereby plunging the nation into avoidable calamity and instability lasting another five years with heavy toll on the nation’s economy. Of course, Babangida’s support cast in the military then included quislings like David Mark and Nimyel Dogonyaro.

    There is however one general you did not quite spotlight in your otherwise profound analysis. And that is General Abdulsalami Abubakar, in whose custody Abiola died mysteriously on July 7, 1998.

    Part of the enduring puzzle is why Abubakar kept holding on to MKO several weeks after taking over following Abacha’s unlamented death. I think it is necessary never to gloss over this fact, especially for the education of young Nigerians who were not born then or who, to borrow your apt description, were too young to understand things.

    Whatever might be his defence, Abubakar will bear responsibility eternally for the circumstances that led to MKO’s death. For, if the man had been released earlier, perhaps his death could have been averted. Moreso, there were claims and warning before his death by “NADECO Abroad” that there was a high-level plot to eliminate Abiola to “even the political equation” after Abacha’s death. Could the reported pressures mounted on Abiola in custody by then United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Anang, and his Commonwealth counterpart, our own Emeka Anyaokwu, to drop his mandate unconditionally be a coincidence? Very doubtful indeed.

    While there is no contesting the fact that President Muhammadu Buhari has played superior politics by recognizing June 12 which Babangida, Sani Abacha and Obasanjo labored hard to kill, the general has also demonstrated a high sense of broadmindedness with this action considering the role MKO had played in his ousting in 1985. For this, I think Buhari has acted well as a true statesman.

    Looking back, one cannot but salute the steadfastness of a number of Nigerians who refused official inducement or intimidation and sustained the June 12 till the very last. I refer to the likes of Professor Wole Soyinka, Senator Bola Tinubu, Balarabe Musa, Odigie Oyegun, Colonel Dangiwa Umar, Ovie Kokori, Femi Falana, Ndubuisi Kanu among others.

    Dr. John Ighodalo, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Edo State. 

    Well, now that Nigeria has started to know the truth, the truth shall set her free; and shall set her on the path of greatness! A sin was committed, atonement has been made. The dark cloud hovering over the country will begin to clear.

    Makinde Matt Falowo

    According to you, “Truth initially hurts, but it ultimately heals.” You have spoken. Thanks for your audacity and courage.

    Vincent Akindele

    I read with admiration your article on June 12. My prayer is that God Bless you, Protect and Increase your knowledge the more and Give you courage to continue to stand by the truth.

    Ajadi S. A.: 08053408935

    Visionaries don’t see with their eyes, but their minds.

    Tony Izevbekhai 

    Odion always makes my day. May the God of Truth and Light always guide you. Your opinions almost always tally with mine. And even when they don’t, I respect them and the mind behind them. Our humanity and integrity, I believe, should unite us more than any other thing (religion, race etc).You are my brother, though we never met. I can also never forget that story you told of that bus conductor who won an unexpected kiss from a lady, then burst into tears. For me, anyone who sincerely abhors Babangida and his ways is a sane person.

    Yemi Ogunsola 

    Nice one, sir. Nigerians need to know more about their history. It is only then the change needed will be possible. God Bless you, sir.

    Umehzurike Chimezie Donatus

    Re: APC and its midnight children

    I read your edition of May 28, 2019 and observed that more than half of the edition was about Senator Ibikunle Amosun and I was wondering why didn’t you devote the entire piece and the headline to him. I remember reading a similar headline of your column devoted to him many weeks ago.

    In this last edition, I read some falsehood about “digging hole around city of Abeokuta”. I am not clear with what you mean by that. There have been massive construction in many parts of the state capital. Thus, the phrase “digging hole” is not proper and misleading. I live in the city, as well as in Lagos. What many people have said of the administration of Amosun is that he transformed Abeokuta significantly and his administration will never be forgotten. Their wish is that other governors or leaders should do likewise and leave lasting legacies. Indeed, the advice by a group of technocrats is that the new governor- Mr Dapo Abiodun, should make efforts to surpass him in this regard for posterity.

    To my mind, columnists should write from the point of information and not rely on hearsay or unverified comments. You may not like the style of a politician, as some people detest the approach of Amosun on some issues, but the outcome is what matters. Almost all the items you raised, which in your veiw made him qualified as a “midnight child” are things that happened between the third and fourth week to his exit from government as governor. Whatever has happened in Ogun State in the last eight years is now history. So what would have been the focus of your column that week, if all the issues you raised did not occur?

    Ordinarily, a column like yours should be unbiased and be used in gauging the feeling, including the nuanses of the people but then if they are pedestrian and political, then they become of less value. There should be a way by which columnists can drop the toga of their political leaning, otherwise they will be seen as mere politicians whose views are contaminated and self-servicing.

    I want to see more vibrant peice from the Bottom Line column, where issues are examined

    dispassionately. The politicians will always have contentions. That to me is part of the core elements of resource allocation or sharing, which give value to politics. Politicians will always have alignments, groups or coalition. Such cannot be the calling of a columnist.

    Moses Ogunleye, Fnitp, Flead, Mnes Central Business District, Alausa, Ikeja Lagos: 08023401480

    I agree with you to an extent on your submission. But I think the greater blame should be laid at the doorsteps of the party leadership which failed to provide leadership due to double standard and the reported “dollarization” of the primaries in most if not all the states. The result was the contentious primaries that you had. Under that circumstance, there was no way you could have harmony again in the party. So, the issue of what you aptly described as “ominous whistling by the APC’s midnight children” was not avoidable.

    It is very regrettable that APC lost many states in the last elections. This was clearly avoidable. I think it is now public knowledge that out of the 29 states contested, APC won 14 while PDP won 15.

    With what happened in Zamfara in which the party lost every thing by the Supreme Court pronouncement despite having won the general elections by landslide, one can only hope and pray that the party leadership realizes that there is no alternative to obeying the rules of the game or shifting the goal-post in the middle of the game and shunning the temptation of dollars, thus giving the Buhari administration a bad name. The primaries of Bayelsa and Kogi are just a question of time now.

    Will history repeat itself again?

    Tanko Ahmed Yusuf, Asokoro, Abuja.

    It is sad ending indeed. APC, as a party, has to define its mission with power from inception to its candidates so that tales like this would not come up.

    Nosa Omoregbe

    A case of a dancing lizard at the height of an Iroko tree… “Abiku” children at the night of departure.

    Tunde Esemikose

  • June 12: How will history remember Babangida?

    President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government laid the ghost of June 12 to rest when it declared the day as the authentic ‘Democracy Day’. Twenty-six years after the annulment of that presidential election by the then military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, it has become an important milestone in the country’s political history. Deputy Political Editor RAYMOND MORDI looks at the place of Babangida in history because of the role he played in the June 12 saga.

    AFTER 26 year’s struggle, history was made when President Muhammadu Buhari on June 6, 2018 declared that June 12 would henceforth become Democracy Day in Nigeria. On Thursday May 16, 2019, the National Assembly passed the amendment to the National Holiday Act to officially make June 12 Democracy Day. The Senate passed the amendment in concurrence with the House of Representatives, which approved the new date earlier in December 2018.

    This was done to commemorate the democratic election of the late Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola on June 12, 1993, in what has been adjudged as Nigeria’s freest and fairest election. It was, however, annulled by the then military President, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida; popularly known as IBB. Hitherto, Democracy Day was marked annually on May 29, which was the day the military handed over power to an elected civilian government in 1999.

    In a sense, the recognition of June 12 as Democracy Day would go a long way to right the wrongs inflicted on the psyche of the Nigerian people who trooped out to exercise their franchise on that day by the Babangida-led military junta. The annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election by the former military president is widely regarded as a colossal blunder committed by the man who could have gone down in history as the one who introduced the most radical structural changes into public administration, in response to pressing domestic and international economic realities.

    After his palace coup of August 1985, Babangida reigned over the country like a colossus. He had captivated many Nigerians with his charisma, particularly his toothy smile and could have gotten away with many of his perceived atrocities against the people, if he had not committed the ultimate blunder of annulling the June 12 presidential election — a decision which proved to be controversial and unpopular.

    During the eight years he served as head of state, IBB nearly succeeded in entrenching democracy in the nation’s polity but for a hiccup along the way. His regime sunk billions of naira into nurturing two political parties during his lengthy transition to civil rule programme. But, he truncated that transition midway, when results trickling in from the June 12, 1993 presidential election suggested that the late Abiola had won the contest.

    The election is widely regarded as a watershed in the country’s political history, because for the first time, Nigerians defied the culture of docility to vote for the exit of the military from power in a telling manner. In that election, Nigerians chose the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the late MKO Abiola and Baba Gana Kingibe who contested on the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). Abiola not only defeated the candidate of the National Republican Convention (NRC), Bashir Tofa, in his home state of Kano, he also defeated him comfortably with 58.4 per cent of the popular vote and a majority in 20 out of the then 30 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

    That election was adjudged to be free and fair, and peaceful. But, the Babangida-led military government, which had been playing games with the transition, chose not to announce the final results. Subsequently, on June 23, the election was annulled.

    Observers see the annulment as a coup against the Nigerian people and an act of brazen injustice. Many of those who played key roles at the time, including the chief electoral umpire, Professor Humphrey Nwosu, have since confessed that “his hands were tied” and that indeed MKO Abiola won the election.

    Since he was compelled to step down unceremoniously, Babangida has not been able to come up with a coherent explanation of what happened. Twenty-six years after, he has not been able to say precisely why he annulled the election. In his trademark maradonic style, he has been deliberately giving vague or misleading answers. In his June 23, 1993 broadcast, when he officially annulled the election, he said, among other things, that he took the decision as a favour to Abiola, because the latter would have been killed, if he was allowed to take office.

    In that broadcast, Babangida had also stated that his major objective of the transition programme was to build a lasting foundation for democracy. He added that the June 12 election, like the presidential primaries that were cancelled the previous year, did not meet the basic requirements of democracy: free and fair elections, un-coerced expression of voters’ preference, respect for the electorate as final arbiter in elections, decorum and fairness on the part of electoral umpires, and absolute respect for the rule of law.

    IBB said he had overlooked the breaches because of his determination to keep faith with the handover date of August 27, 1993. He said the breaches continued into the June 12, 1993 election, on an even greater scale, but the Nwosu-led National Electoral Commission (NEC) went ahead and cleared the candidates. He added that the courts were also intimidated and subjected to “the manipulation of the political process by vested interests, to the point that the entire political system was endangered”. He added: “Under these circumstances, the National Defence and Security Council (NDSC) decided to annul the election in the supreme interest of law and order, political stability and peace.”

    While acknowledging that he allowed the breaches to keep faith with the transition programme, he still blames Nwosu for clearing the candidates and the courts for being intimidated and manipulated by vested interests.

    Ironically, the late Abiola and IBB were bosom friends. He had sought IBB’s approval before joining the presidential race and it is on record that the then military president gave a go-ahead to the late MKO. It is also on record that the approval was not for altruistic reasons. First IBB saw it as a way of resolving the credibility crisis he faced in 1992 after the botched presidential primaries and so observers say it was a way of convincing Nigerians that the transition programme was still intact.

    The consensus of observers is that history would not forgive Babangida for deliberately toying with the mandate of the 14.2 million Nigerians that voted for Abiola and Kingibe on June 12, 1993. Many of those close to the corridors of power at the time say Babangida was compelled by ruling northern oligarchy to annul the election, to prevent power from shifting from the north to the south. Tofa was the first northerner to lose a presidential election to a southerner, even though the election was not a regional battle.

    The result of the election is believed to have shocked the northern establishment and their military cohorts and they prevailed on Babangida to annul it. The ruling class had hoped that the combination of Tofa, a Muslim from the North and Dr Sylvester Ugoh, a Christian from the Southeast, was a winning formula. But it did not work out that way. Nigerians gave their mandate to Abiola and Kingibe on the election day, without considering their ethnic, religious and regional backgrounds.

    Observers say there were two issues that were dreaded by the ‘geo-ethno-military-ruling-clique’. First, Abiola’s election would have led to a shift of power from the north to the south; second, the free, fair and credible election would have led to a shift of power from the ‘geo-ethno-military-ruling-clique’ to the Nigerian voters for the first time.

    Nigerians were also compelled to reach the escapable conclusion that the objective of Babangida’s long transition to civil rule programme was to transform into a civilian leader. The fact that he sought to return to power after the Olusegun Obasanjo era as a civilian leader lends credence to this conjecture.

    Nigerians had tolerated all sorts of whimsical ideas from Babangida during the transition. He kept shifting the goal post; he disbanded all the political parties that were in existence then, established and funded two political parties that were the only ones recognized to contest for elections, unilaterally disqualified many politicians and also cancelled primaries that did not meet up to his expectations. The annulment was the last straw that consumed his government and forced him to “step aside”. He left behind an Interim National Government (ING) led by Chief Ernest Shonekan who was handpicked for the assignment, but the ING contrivance only survived for 83 days; in November 1993, the late General Sani Abacha, who was in the ING as Minister of Defence, seized power. It was obvious that the military never wanted to relinquish power.

    June 12 brought out the worst and the best in the people: the worst in the military and its hungry agents. The injustice also released the people’s energy and capacity for protest. It brought out the best in Nigerians; progressive-minded Nigerians spoke in unison against military tyranny and the violation of their right to choose. The Abacha military junta, which had initially deceived Nigerians about its intentions, unleashed a reign of terror on the country: media houses were attacked, journalists were jailed, bombed, beaten, civil society activists were hauled into detention.

    The repression was nevertheless met with stiff resistance. The people insisted on the restoration of the June 12 mandate, the military’s exit and Abiola’s declaration as winner of the election. On June 11, 1994, in what is now known as the Epetedo declaration, Abiola declared a Government of National Unity and asked for his mandate to be duly recognised.

    He was subsequently arrested for treasonable felony, but that only added fuel to the protests. Abiola later died in custody on July 7, 1998, about a month after Abacha died.

    Without doubt, June 12 has undermined the place of Babangida in history. Otherwise, his regime witnessed a whirlwind of activities and more policy initiatives and fiscal measures than all other past regimes put together.

  • June 12: a balance sheet

    Surprisingly, seventeen years of elected governments have not alleviated the problems that arose from June 12.

    Two unrelated developments in actual and symbolic engineering of our polity in the last two weeks have encouraged republishing of this article which first came out two years ago under the title of “June 12 Plus.”. The first development is presentation two weeks ago of an executive bill that seeks to put management of surface and underground water solely in the hands of the federal government. The second development is President Buhari’s decision last week to enrich the ritual of June 12 by promising to move celebration of Democracy Day from May 29 to June 12 as from 2019 and the award of posthumous national honour to MKO Abiola.

    A well-deserved ritualisation of June 12 took place last Sunday. As usual, this year’s ritual of remembrance of the period of loss as a device to engineer reform went well in most of the Southwest states, leading to public holidays in some states, street marches in others, as well as reinforcement of twenty-three-year old call for true federalism in others. Today’s article is to remind readers of goals the June 12 struggle has not achieved and the new thorns thrown on the road opened by June 12 to re-federalization and full democratisation of Nigeria.

    Historically, the June 12 struggle had three goals: restoration of MKO Abiola’s presidential mandate given to him by the fairest and freest election in the country’s history; de-militarisation of the country’s polity; and return of federal system of governance to the country. After the death of Abacha and later of Abiola in circumstances that continue to raise questions till today, the struggle lost its first goal. The second goal was partially won at the time General Olusegun Obasanjo became president at the end of General Abubakar Abdusalaam’s transition to democracy in 1999. But Obasanjo’s presidential election was not guided by any visible constitution to let citizens and candidates know what they were bargaining for. And the third goal, re-federalisation of the polity, had been hanging in the air ever since. Even after four post-military presidential elections, Nigeria is still saddled with a constitution crafted behind closed doors by military rulers and with concentration of power in the federal government at the expense of subnational governments in a ‘federal republic.’

    Surprisingly, seventeen years of elected governments have not alleviated the problems that arose from June 12. On the contrary, the period of post-military rule has aggravated the unsolved problems left behind after Abiola’s death and the transition to civil rule that followed it. However, the narrative of re-federalisation remains alive even 23 years after annulment of Abiola’s election, but its retelling has been hobbled by confusion arising from several quarters. NADECO at home and abroad suffered some gradual hemorrhaging since some of its members came to political power in the Yoruba region. Only a few of the governors/lawmakers elected since 1999 and a few NADECO leaders remained vocal in calling for return to functioning federalism.

    The frustration of efforts to restore federalism has taken many forms. NADECO became war weary after the death of Abiola and became excited by the promise of return to civil rule by the Abdulsalami Abubakar government. The excitement of periodic elections in a country that had been denied such opportunities on-and-off for many decades of military dictatorship created complacency for uncritical voters. Some found creation of mushroom organisations as vehicles for demanding federalism and as a means of staying politically and socially relevant in their communities. Many others see June 12 as a fitting time to repeat the demand for restructuring while others would rather not be bothered for calling for the advantages that restoring a federal governance system can bring to regional and national development.

    Ironically, a former chieftain of NADECO-abroad, now leader of the All Progressives Congress, opened a hydrant on the fire of re-federalisation a few days before this year’s June 12 anniversary when he announced that federalism is not a priority of the new administration. Many who voted for a New Nigeria in 2015 are already feeling confused by the pronouncement of the chairman of APC and President Buhari’s media assistant who characterised the call for federalism as a distraction from the ruling party’s priorities. But the following statement in the highlights of APC manifesto: Initiate action to amend our Constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties and responsibilities to states and local governments in order to entrench true Federalism and the Federal spirit, does not suggest that an item in the highlights of the party’s manifesto is not a priority item. From information available to the electorate, the manifesto of APC emphasizes re-federalisation or reforming the existing largely unitary system through amendment of the 1999 Constitution. If the spirit to do what was promised is no longer there, it is important for the party to say so. And I believe doing so should go beyond an ex-tempore assessment of Buhari administration’s priorities by the ruling party’s chairman.

    More than two decades after NADECO’s struggles for democracy for electoral and cultural democracy, Nigeria is still largely at the same point that it was after the election of the first post-military government of Obasanjo. The partial de-militarisation achieved through election of Obasanjo as a civilian and of subsequent civilian presidents and lawmakers remains as limited as it was in 1999. The constitution that presents a unitary system as a federal one is still intact. And the largest chunk of the nation’s revenue is still going to the central government that has no direct constituents to service while states and local governments that house and provide direct service to citizens receive much less than the central government. The imbalance between subnational and national governance is even getting worse as petroleum fortunes become more unpredictable by the day. States are now leaving on bailouts and loans. Instead of constitutionally returning power and freedom to states to be more productive, they are now at the risk of losing power over water supply and management of water resources in their communities.

    ‘June-twelvers’ who have remained committed to the ideals and goals of June 12 deserve to be congratulated for not becoming despondent after two decades of a constitution that is afraid to come to terms with the demands of managing a culturally diverse country. Since 1966, Nigeria has been trying to find its way to the map of modern development. Rather, it has been moving from one crisis to the other, a situation that has degraded and continues to degrade the lives of citizens across the country.

    In another 48 hours, Nigeria will be marking with festivities the ‘commissioning’ of a new Democracy Day on June 12, 2019. Of course, finally turning June 12 into an intangible national heritage is likely to bring smiles to the faces of MKO Abiola’s wives and children, political associates, and even many activists for de-militarization of the country’s polity, the revelry of this year’s June 12 must not be allowed to eclipse the larger goal of consolidation and enrichment of democratic governance.

    For example, recent developments in the security sector should remind activists for cultural democracy about the problems of holding tight to many aspects of re-engineering of Nigeria that military dictators had done. That many parts of the country now live in fear because of kidnapping, in addition to Boko Haram’s terrorist activities in the North-East suggests that the problem with security may not be limited to inefficiency of individual policemen and women or lack of adequate technology for protecting lives and property of citizens. If anything, the fear of citizens to move in space in the interest of their livelihood because of the impish nature of kidnappers or violent herdsmen should call for new attitude and thinking. Political leaders at all levels need to see the need to ‘de-programme’ themselves of compulsive denialism in respect of over centralisation. Everything that is happening in many communities, especially the fact that many communities are infested by kidnappers that abduct or kill innocent citizens in the forest and on the highways without being caught calls for a new police system, to replace or complement the existing one that has been hobbled by over centralisation.

    Apart from the last paragraph in italics, today’s piece had appeared on this page before.