With Uche Nnadozie
After the executive order by President Muhammadu Buhari last week over the status of June 12, 1993 election and the winner, Chief Moshood Abiola of blessed memory, some commentators went out in rage asking what the significance of the proclamations could be. Some questioned the motive behind such proclamation; while others had answers already.
They said it was to โbuyโ the votes of the South Western people preparatory to 2019 elections. This category of people already dismissed the gesture and arrived at a conclusion that recognising the man better known as M.K.O will not move votes towards Buhari. But again, this kind of assumption is pedestrian in my view. The gesture by the president has been overstretched and over analysed.
Personally, I do not see anything wrong even if it is with an electoral motive or as we will normally say here, politically motivated. Guess what, so if it is politically motivated, was the June 12 election not about politics. The motive behind the gesture can be explained in subsequent interventions but suffice it to say that June 12 election and the watershed that become have always attracted ferocious arguments on both sides. The emotions are usually high. But if you look deeper, you will find why some of us continue to venerate the phenomenon. For some of us who became young adults during the reign of Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha, we can tell the difference between military rule and democracy.
So what is the issue? After 25 years, Buhari having spent three years in power decided it was time to begin a healing process for an idea that has refused to fizzle away. In our country, there is always this tendency to allow events fizzle out. Instead of tackling a problem, we allow time and space deal with it. Sometimes, these issues drag on for too long; sometimes we do not get the closure we hoped for. For June 12 elections, the question have gone beyond the fact that someone won an election but the process was aborted, to a deeper significance. This is so because at some point in the 1990s it was as if the military was no longer going to quit governance. They were so entrenched and were enjoying the moment. Before June 12 election it was as if no southerner can win a presidential election in Nigeria.
June 12 broke many myths. Those myths are what make the election relevant. The insistence on his mandate by Abiola meant that the military could no longer sustain its rule. They began to plot an exit.
It also meant that the country, contrary to the myth that was peddled at the time could actually become whatever it chose. For example, a Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket was not thought to be possible, yet Nigerians voted for that ticket from around the country. The election showed that the myth about religion and ethnicity were just what they were- myths. It equally showed that the military with their tanks and guns and blood could be challenged by unarmed civilian populace. June 12 and Abiola showed that people, including the wealthy can put their lives on the line in order to preserve the union. Abiola died, his wife Kudirat died. And so did many others.
Such sacrifices were alien to this land; a land that people thought was a mere โgeographical expressionโ. June 12 brought home the fact that we have just one country. That people may desert you in times of difficulty but persistence pays. In the course of persistence, you may not get to the mountain top, but others will. The sacrifices and lessons of June 12 lies in the belief that this country is worth the entire headache if only we can try. Surely people ask if Buhari’s award of Grand Commander of the Federal Republic, GCFR or the declaration of June 12 as the new Democracy Day and a federal holiday was going to stem killings in parts of the country or provide food to the hungry. That is just being cynical. Public holidays have never provided food to anyone. And we have many public holidays.
GCFR does not stem killings and we have always had killings, even a civil war. What those awards do is to remove the burden of injustice from a family that gave its all and let the whole country bear the weight. By this the weight will be light when 200 million people bear it than were Abiola’s family was meant to bear same. It is important that we nationalise a national problem than to leave it to the South West alone. Now if the country recognises the importance of democracy having endured many brutal years of the military, if we must set aside a day to celebrate it, that day should be on the day that Nigerians, having voted in spite of all the issues with us, never gave up but fought like lions to reclaim our country from the dictatorship of the military. That day is June 12 and not May 29th.
The president has done well. Whoever advised him on this route did a good job and lifted a burden on all of us. We just could not afford to move on having spilled the blood of several innocent people. We could not afford to move on because we have become beneficiaries of what Abiola stood for. Yes, the country may not be in her best shape, but it’s a work in progress. For whatever it is worth, democracy spreads the commonwealth better than the military regimes we have had.
Democracy ensures that anyone by stroke of fate and votes of people can become anything. That’s why I support democracy and that’s why I endorse the honour bestowed on Abiola, June 12 and Gani Fawehinmi.
