Afenifere Renewal Group has called on the Federal Government to release the official results of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, which was presumed to have been won by late Chief M.K.O. Abiola.
In a press statement signed by its chairman, Mr Olawale Oshun, to commemorate the 23rd anniversary of June 12, ARG said President Muhammadu Buhari, as the beneficiary of a ballot revolution that mostly mirrored that of 1993, owes Nigerians the duty of declassifying the results, particularly now that 23 years have elapsed and the Official Secret Act can no longer be binding on the document.
ARG, according to the statement, believes this will “reverse the stigma occasioned by the foolish act of cancelling that election, adjudged to be the most peaceful in the history of Nigeria. It will also open up the hypocrisy of military rule and help project democracy as a better form of government.
“June 12 is no longer a struggle but now an obligation. The people have played their own part. It is now the obligation of the beneficiaries of that struggle to set the country on a truly democratic path by deliberately replacing every stamp of military rule on Nigeria’s nationhood, including the imposed governance structure and constitution, through democratic rights and tenets. There is no alternative way to deepen democracy in Nigeria,” the statement said.
“Let nobody be deceived. Until the Federal Government takes conscious steps to restructure Nigeria, the country will continue to wobble from one crisis of nationhood to another. To continue to ignore this necessity is a tacit support by elected officials for everything that transpired during the military era and this is why military rule has transited to ‘do or die’ politics and citizens now believed they have a right to take up arms against their country.”
ARG therefore called on President Buhari, “as a former military ruler and now a self-confessed democrat, to see himself as best poised to help Nigeria make this transition. This can be his best legacy and the starting point, we dare say, is to release the June 12 presidential election result and its winner appropriately recognised and honoured.”
Meanwhile, Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Honourable Mudashiru Obasa, has described the June 12, 1993 presidential election as the fountain from which the present democratic dispensation derived its source.
Obasa gave this assessment in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Musbau Rasak, on the 23rd celebration of the election.
“It was a historic election which was adjudged the freest, fairest and most peaceful election, not only in Nigeria but also on the continent of Africa. It was indeed a watershed in Nigeria’s political history; a moment of joy for the people; the ultimate triumph of the people’s will over brute force,” the Speaker said.
According to Obasa, perhaps without June 12 election and the struggle to actualise it, the country might still be under military dictatorship. – Tribune.
