June 12 As A Tragic Metaphor

BY SIMON REEF MUSA

On June 12, 1993, the fate of Nigeria hanged precariously over the outcome of an election that looked crucial in a transition that had become almost endless, no thanks to the ever-changing display of then Military President General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. Even before the results of the election from some of the states were released by the electoral, it was obvious that the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, was headed for victory. Not even the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the SDP could stop this victory.

In a curious decision that would hunt IBB thereafter, the election was annulled, and protesters, mainly from the South, promptly poured into the streets against the annulment. Since then, the June 12 struggle had become the dialectics upon which the quest for constitutional government were anchored.

The annulment of the June 12 forced the Northern ruling cabal to have a rethink, as wave of anger swept through the South and threatened to torpedo the Nigerian ship. For the unity of Nigeria which our leaders are wont to describe as ‘not-negotiable,’ the need to share power with the South that had then been quarantined from the presidency became imperative. If the ghost of June 12 was to be appeased, the ruling cabal thought, power must shift to the South. It was on this basis that the nation’s power elite, comprising mainly Northerners, reached out General Olusegun Obasanjo (retd), who then was in prison for allegedly plotting to unseat the military regime of General Sani Abacha.

The emergence of General Obasanjo in 1999 as president was in consonance with that deliberate strategy to ensure power sharing agreement. Throughout the eight-year tenure of Obasanjo, the Ota Farmer demonstrated a zeal to retrieve the country from the community of pariah nations and worked assiduously to pay off the country’s debt amounting to nearly $30 billion. Going against the forces that brought him to power, Obasanjo appointed Northern minorities to key positions and undertook reforms in various sectors of national life.

Despite hues and cries from the South-west to immortalise Abiola upon whose death he came to power, Obasanjo reneged and refused to be drawn into honouring the winner of the June 12 presidential poll. His alleged interest on the third term agenda would pitch him against his deputy, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar who was angling to succeed him.  The emergence of Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in 2007, who spent more time attending to his sick condition than providing leadership proved catastrophic for the country. Under President Yar’Adua, insurgency festered and the future looked bleak as the ship of state became rudderless.  When President Goodluck Jonathan in 2012 moved to immortalise Abiola by renaming the University of Lagos after him, he was met with storms of opposition and the bill was already dead on arrival.    

The coming of President Muhammadu Buhari in May 2015 witnessed renewed efforts at immortalizing the winner of the June 12 poll. Not only did Buhari approve the highest national honour reserved for presidents and Head of State, the post-humous award of the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR) to Abiola is a clear indication that indeed he won the annulled election, but was not allowed to rule. Also, the Buhari-led administration declared June 12 as a national holiday to honour his struggles for democracy.

It is 27 years today since the annulment of June 12 election, and so much have gone under the bridge. The essence of June 12 is all about democratic struggles and how different forces abandoned ethnic and religious platforms to realise democratic rule in Nigeria. Beyond the existence of democratic structures in the country, can we safely declare that our citizens are enjoying the dividends of democracy?

Democracy is all about protection of the rights to life and freedom. Can we in sincerity accept that Nigerians have access to such rights? Are we not witnessing worse and frequent abuses to freedoms of citizens under the current democratic dispensation than what we had during jackboot era?

Without a doubt, democracy has proven a nightmare of horror for Nigerians than providing a platform for the actualisation of national goals and development. If the true essence of government is all about the protection of lives and property, what then can we say is the essence of this democracy that has superintended over the killings of thousands of Nigerians and decimation of our communities? Why is the state incapable of confronting perpetrators of heinous crimes against defenceless Nigerians by bandits and herdsmen who are running riot over the country?

Can democracy be what it should be when elected representatives embrace silence in the face of irrevocable plot by criminal elements to decimate communities and kill members of their constituents? When a government that is incapable of protecting its citizens from the bullets of invaders bar its citizenry to embrace self-defence option, what type of democracy is that? When children and women, among other vulnerable groups, are killed in their sleep and the blame game continues, is democracy worth its stakes?

It is obvious that the bloody revulsions we see every day under this democracy was not what Abiola envisaged. Those close to the late business mogul knew that he dreamed of a society were doors of opportunities would be opened to all and the potentials of Nigerians would be realised through justice and equity. Can we say the present democracy is towing this line amidst cries of marginalisation and favouritism?

For those who are truly in sync with what June 12 stands for, today’s national holiday is a sham and display of national hypocrisy aimed at deceiving the world. Today’s national holiday should be a memorial to mourn the raping of democracy and not a day to celebrate democracy. The truth is that a few cabal, with membership from all the major ethnic groups, has hijacked our democracy and turn it into their own game. Power now flows, not from the ballot, but from the deep plotting of manipulators in serving their selfish interests.

It is in-congruent to link the June 12 struggles as symbolised by Abiola’s vision are in line with the present chicaneries of our political rulers’ attempt  in immortalizing the life of a man who served Nigerians across religious and ethnic divide. There’s no meeting point between what Abiola stood and what we are celebrating today as Democracy Day. Our so-called democratic leaders have turned Nigerians into captured citizens. To me, there is no greater fraud than to put chains on suffering Nigerians and demand they dance to the music of freedom that democracy symbolises.

Considering the strange manifestations of what governance has turned to in Nigeria, it is unarguable that the democracy we practise is very different from the one defined by former United States of America’s President Abraham Lincoln who said democracy is ‘a government of the people by the people and for the people’. Little wonder, we are where we are!