June 12: A Complicated Story
Aday after I joined THISDAY from Concord Press in February 1999 as deputy editor of The Sunday newspaper, I was directed to proceed to Kaduna to cover the presidential primaries of the All Peoples Party (APP) then chaired by the late Senator Mahmud Waziri. As I recall, some of the aspirants jostling for the party’s ticket were Chief Arthur Nzeribe, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, the late Dr Abubakar Olusola Saraki, Dr Ogbonaya Onu and Chief Harry Akande who added razzmatazz to the occasion by flying into the city in his private aircraft which was parked at the airport and said to be loaded to the brim with bundles of new naira notes!
However, for three days in Kaduna, we were treated to a most bizarre political drama. From Hamdallah Hotel to Airforce Club to the Ahmadu Bello Stadium, the party leadership took us (journalists, party delegates and aspirants) on a merry-go-round as to when the convention would hold and where. At a point, a frustrated Saraki accused Waziri of attempting to rig the process and in turn, the APP chairman called a press conference where he displayed the copy of a cheque for N30 million with which he said Saraki tried to bribe him.
At the end of all the shenanigans, we witnessed no primaries but that is no problem for Nigerian politicians. The name of Onu was announced as having secured the party’s presidential ticket. 24 hours later, the same APP leadership announced in Abuja the name of Chief Olu Falae—who had earlier been picked as the Alliance for Democracy (AD) presidential candidate by a conclave of 21 Yoruba elders who sat in Ibadan after administering an oath of secrecy—as their joint presidential flag-bearer for the election.
Meanwhile, when the local government elections were held two months earlier on 5th December 1998, the electoral guidelines had clearly stipulated that for any party to be registered, it must score at least a minimum of five percent of the total number of votes in no fewer than 24 states. Yet, despite the fact that the AD did not meet this particular threshold, it was registered as one of the three parties by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), essentially to secure the buy-in of the South-west in the political transition programme to which many Nigerians were very suspicious. It was against this background that Onu ceded the APP presidential candidacy to Falae and it became very clear that some forces, especially within the military establishment, were pulling strings along a predetermined direction.
That became even more evident when a certain General Olusegun Obasanjo, who ordinarily should not have been allowed to contest the primaries if there was strict adherence to the provisions of his party’s constitution, became the candidate of the majority Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The party’s guidelines had specifically stated that anybody who failed to secure his ward for the party would be disqualified from contesting. Not only did Obasanjo lose his ward, he lost the polling booth where he voted in all the elections. And for the first time in the history of our country, the two candidates for a presidential election were from the same ethnic group (Yoruba) and both were Christians.
Nobody needed to be told that the 1999 presidential election was contrived to appease the Yoruba people for the injustice done to the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola, the acclaimed winner of the 12th June 1993 presidential election. But the trouble with the arrangement was that, with all the cards stacked in favour of Obasanjo, majority of the political elite in the Southwest saw the 1999 election as a deliberate act of provocation, especially where June 12 and the memory of Abiola were concerned. And it proved to be so because if there was anything Obasanjo never wanted to hear throughout his period in office, it was Abiola and June 12. For him and his enablers from the north who helped him to power, both Abiola and June 12 should be consigned to the dustbin of history.
What the foregoing says clearly is that there have been some cynical attempts in the past to deal with the June 12 challenge by those who misread history and its varied lessons, even though some find convenient excuses in the contradictions in the social, political and business life of Abiola (and there were many). Then came President Muhammadu Buhari, the last person you would imagine could honour Abiola or remember June 12, given what transpired after that election in the north aside from the fact that he had made some uncomplimentary remarks about Abiola in the past. But, in a way, it is also providential because Buhari is perhaps the only northern leader with sufficient clout for such a decision without any serious political backlash within his traditional support base. The question is: Why did he do it?
Before I go further, let me say very quickly that drawing up a list of those to honour for June 12 is a delicate business since it is now very sexy to be associated with the date. In the past, it was not so. On Tuesday, Falae said those Buhari invited to Aso Rock were more his party members than heroes of democracy or June 12. “Where is Alani Akinrinade whose house was burnt? Where is Dr. Amos Akingba? Where is Chief Ayo Adebanjo? My house was the headquarters where NADECO meetings were held; Abiola’s speech was written in my house. What are they talking about? I was in detention for 20 months, Akinrinade was in exile. They are only recognising as heroes of June 12, those who participated in the struggle and are members of their party.”
Falae has a point. Why, for instance, was Olisa Agbakoba not invited to Aso Rock on Tuesday? On the day the late General Sani Abacha, then as Chief of Army Staff but based in Lagos, ordered troops to mow down hundreds of citizens protesting the annulment of June 12 on the streets of Lagos, Agbakoba was the poster boy for the resistance with an iconic photograph of his bloodied face (after he was brutalized by the military) taken by the AP published in several newspapers across the world. How can we forget Colonel Abubakar Dangiwa Umar, one of Nigeria’s most respected officers with a glittering career, who resigned his commission because of June 12, a decision that could jolly well have cost him his life under a different circumstance?
And then we have the patrons of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO). Chief Cornelius Adebayo and the late Chief Anthony Enahoro were arrested and detained for years before their release after which they fled to exile to join others. What about Prof Bolaji Akinyemi, Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu, Ms Gloria Kilanko, Chom Bagu, Chima Ubani, Festus Iyayi and several others who risked their lives confronting the military over June 12?
Even within the armed forces, there were heroes. Both Admiral Alison Madueke, then Chief of Naval Staff and General Mohammed Chris Ali, Chief of Army Staff, were removed by Abacha following a tense Provisional Ruling Council (PRC) meeting where they broached the issue of Abiola’s continued detention. Chief Ajibola Ogunsola revived PUNCH newspaper after the death of the late Chief Olu Aboderin yet on June 12, he put everything on the line. In fact, on the day Abacha was proscribing Concord and PUNCH to render many of us redundant for several months, his anger was directed at the latter. “Concord I can understand since it is owned by Abiola so it is human that his boys would be attacking me but PUNCH; what is their own?” asked Abacha that day.
While there will be a day to remember those who fought for our democracy, including some upwardly mobile men and women then in their thirties and forties who acted as ‘Concerned Professionals’ (Atedo Peterside, Pat Utomi, Oby Ezekwesili et al), let us deal with the speculations as to why Buhari honoured Abiola and make June 12 Democracy Day.
what President Buhari has done on June 12 is not only significant, it has shown very clearly that he has the capacity to rise above certain narrow and clannish interests to do the right things, including rallying the entire country for the healing and reconciliation that is very much needed across board, if we must attain peace and prosperity