Tag: kill

The ghost is still abroad. Now 20 year old, it has been with us these years traipsing about town taking prisoners, causing commotion and even handing favours to some. Remember Saturday, June 12, 1993? In fact let’s do a bit of ‘where were you’. Where were you that bright, rain-defying Saturday when Nigerians trooped out to vote? ( if you are 20 years or below, you were probably in your mother’s tummy whereupon you were most likely on that long queue by proxy as mummy waited to vote). Where were you that day Nigerians tried out that anachronistic voting system called option A4; a method in which we had to queue behind the candidate, rain or shine, and we had a physical head count as was done in the days of King Herod?

Where were you when Nigerians unanimously queued behind a certain MKO Abiola in an option that left his opponent no option than to accept electoral defeat before the votes were counted? Where were you that day Nigerians voted against religion, against tribe and against the soldiers? Where were you 20 years ago when Nigerians in their majority refused to let go of their mandate which they freely gave to MKO? Where were you all through the silly machinations of the gap-toothed general who actually did not want to leave power but who had to run when come came to become and the ghost of June 12 refused to be exorcised? Where were you when the joker in Aso Rock was installed and the goggled general swiftly nudged him to a crashing fall like humpty-dumpty?

Where were you that morning when Alhaja Kudi Abiola was gunned down along the expressway by Oregun? Where were you the day the ‘small’ general finally kicked the bucket on a most unremarkable date that even Hardball cannot readily remember now (but how can we forget that he packed up relishing delicious Indian apple flown in directly from that oriental land of the great Taj Mahal)? And where were you on that historic day of July 10, 1998 when news filtered out most eerily that MKO Abiola had died in detention or if you like, on that day MKO was believed to have been extirpated?

June 12, 1993, well, for those who were not born, was the day a certain hardy businessman-turned politician stood election to become the president of Nigeria. The stuttering Egba man, from Ogun State in Nigeria literally took Nigeria by storm and had them cast off their religious and tribal incubus to vote as one and perhaps for one Nigeria for a change. It was the day MKO, the one who spoke in parables and riddles; the moneyman who loathed to see a man cry and who spent money as if he owned a plantation of money trees, won the freest and fairest election this land has ever seen. It was the day the boisterous and chivalrous hurricane of a man cast a spell on Nigeria and had her on a train to fairyland but was stopped short in its track and Nigeria was disembarked and left to wander about, now a ghost, now a loony and now a tramp, 20 years on.

The ghost of June 12, or shall we say the ghost of Abiola still walks our landscape and cries us awake every night. It refuses to be rested because many of those who betrayed him are still around reaping from their evil enterprise. Not a few were his friends, many climbed to prominence through his magnanimity. But they still strut the land and worst of all they deny that he won that historic election even 20 years on. But the more they deny and equivocate and dance refusing to make atonement the more we are all sorry. And the ghost stalks still.