By
Reuben Abati
This day, June 12 will always be remembered by those who have defied the culture
of silence and conspiracy against a significant moment in Nigerian history, to
remind us of how today, 23 years ago, the battle against the exit of the
military from power was fought at the ballot by a determined Nigerian people.
It is indeed sad that apart from the South West states of Oyo, Ogun, Lagos and Osun which have Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abioladoggedly continued to celebrate
the hero, and later martyr of that battle, , there has been studied indifference to the June 12 phenomenon by
the Federal Government and remarkably, the rest of Nigeria.
|
*MKO Abiola |
This
is sadder still because MKO Abiola was not an ethnic champion: he was a man of
pan-Nigerian vision and ambition, who went into politics to give the people
hope, to unite them and lead them out of poverty. His campaign manifesto was
instructively titled “Hope 93- Farewell to Poverty: How to make Nigeria a
better place for all.”
When
Nigerians voted in the presidential election of June 12, 1993, they chose the
Muslim-Muslim ticket of MKO Abiola and Baba Gana Kingibe under the platform of
the Social Democratic Party (SDP). MKO Abiola not only defeated the
Presidential candidate of the National Republican Convention (NRC), Bashir Tofa
in his home state of Kano,
he also defeated him “fairly and squarely” with “58.4% of the popular vote and
a majority in 20 out of 30 states and the FCT.” That election was adjudged to
be free and fair, and peaceful. But the Ibrahim Babangida-led military
government had been playing games with the transition-to-civilian rule, and so
it chose not to announce the final results of the election, and later on June
23, 1993, the Presidential election was annulled.
This
was a coup against the Nigerian people, and an act of brazen injustice, but
June 12 will go down in history as the birthday of the revolution that swept
the Nigerian military back to the barracks. The media began to refer to MKO
Abiola as “the man widely believed to have won the June 12, 1993 election”, or
perhaps, “the undeclared winner” but those who played key roles at the time,
including Humphrey Nwosu, the chief electoral umpire, have since confessed that
“their hands were tied”, and that indeed MKO Abiola won the election. General
Ibrahim Babangida, then Head of State, has not been able to live down that
error of judgement. It was the final error that also consumed his government,
forcing him to “step aside”, and as it turned out “step away”. 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, 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.