Applause for June 12
If a man sees a snake and a woman kills it, the important thing is not who killed the snake but that the reptile is dead.
For a quarter of a century we waited to see how much longer our self-deceit about the 12th Day of June would last. On that day in 1993, Nigerians consigned our usual fault lines of ethnicity and religion into the cesspit by voting for a Muslim/Muslim presidential ticket in a country where Islam and Christianity are equally widespread.
President Buhari was right to declare June 12 as our real Democracy Day. The conferment of the highest National Award of Grand Commander of the Federal Republic on Chief MKO Abiola and GCON on human rights lawyer Chief Gani Fawehinmi was equally spot on. I refuse to allow the inclusion of Alhaji Babagana Kingibe, who abandoned the mandate but got rewarded all the same, to dampen my elation.
Some have accused the president of opportunism. I confess that I would probably have done the same too, if I were Buhari. The annulment of the freest and fairest election ever held in Nigeria was one of our worst moments as a nation. It was a stab in the jugular of our collective existence. Abiola’s only offence was that he contested and won the presidential election of a country he loved so dearly. According to unofficial results, Abiola scored 8,341,309 (58.36%) while his opponent, Bashir Tofa got 5,952,087 (41.64%) of the votes nationwide. He was arrested like a common criminal, clamped into solitary confinement and died in very suspicious circumstances.
Thousands of people were to lose their lives as the Abacha regime descended on sympathisers of the June 12 cause. The dead are obviously too many to mention, but one easily remembers Abiola’s wife, Kudirat, who was gunned down in broad daylight; Bagauda Kaltho, Chief Alfred Rewane …. Many others, like Bola Tinubu and Air Cmdre Dan Suleiman escaped into exile. Those who remained behind were targeted: General Alani Akinrinade’s house in Lagos was bombed; Chief Abraham Adesanya’s car was sprayed with bullets but the old man escaped unhurt. Rear Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu, Wole Soyinka, Balarabe Musa, Ovie Kokori and many others kept one step ahead of the rampaging assassins.
Many activists and journalists were kept in solitary confinement with some losing their sanity. One of the finest officers the Nigerian army has ever produced, Col. Abubakar Umar Dangiwa, was retired summarily for insisting that the June 12 mandate be restored in the interest of Nigeria. Col. Yohanna Madaki too.… And to add salt to injury, the government said the June 12 problem had become a Yoruba agitation. Talk about demonising the victim! Anyone interested in more intimate details of the annulment should read Omo Omoruyi’s book, The Tale Of June 12: The Betrayal Of The Democratic Rights Of Nigerians.
All June 12 activists, dead or have my respect for all time!
Time is a great healer indeed. But some people are still firmly stuck in the concrete mix of ethnic advantages derivable from power. Such people have their own definition of justice which excludes equity and fairness. However, most Nigerians, for once, agree that Buhari has scored a bull’s eye with this one. It is a long time we ever achieved near-unanimity on anything. Buhari has demonstrated the needed courage to rise beyond parochialism and confront one demon that had stalked our nation for a quarter of a century.
The swamp of injustice can’t be drained in one fell swoop. But it is important to continue draining it if we must build a cohesive nation. I think Prof. Humphrey Nwosu, chairman of the electoral body that conducted the June 12 election deserves a national award. So does his predecessor and mentor, Prof. Eme Awa, who stood up to the military when they tried to direct the electoral commission by remote control and other undemocratic devices.
Historically, swamps are drained to reduce or eliminate mosquitoes which thrive under such conditions. Politically, we probably have more than our fair share of self-created swamps and that is why the mosquitoes of injustice are spreading fevers of division all over the land. In the same spirit of confronting the demons of our unsavoury past, and in furtherance of what I dubbed on these pages last week as “Reconciliation Nigeriana”, the time has come to acknowledge the contributions of the first African to win a Gold Medal with a record-breaking jump of 6ft 8in in the high jump event at the 1954 Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, Emmanuel Ifeajuna.
“Forgiveness does not change the past but it does enlarge the future”, says Paul Boese.
Nor are we trying to downplay the political ramifications of PMB’s move. Yes, with one stone, he has hit two birds - Ibrahim Babangida, the ‘annuler-inchief’, and Olusegun Obasanjo, the ultimate beneficiary of Abiola’s supreme sacrifice. Both must be envying Buhari now.
The presidential order may have added to Buhari’s popularity but it may not be sufficient to make the Southwest geo-political zone deliver their votes en bloc to the president in 2019. To turn the whiff of positivism around the Buhari brand into a gale that would give him unassailable victory in the Southwest in 2019, nothing less than kick-starting the process of restructuring Nigeria to achieve true federalism will do. Even his implacable enemies from other zones would be hard put to neutralise that kind of masterstroke. alive,