- Time to officially acknowledge Abiola’s aborted presidency and draw closure on this historic injustice
On June 12, 1993, the late Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, business mogul and plucky philanthropist, won the Nigerian presidency. But the denial of that mandate and the ensuing resistance almost brought Nigeria to her knees. Until Chief Abiola’s presidency is officially acknowledged, the ghost of that treachery will continue to haunt the polity.
Unlike the March 28 presidential election, where destructive campaign on hate, faith and ethnicity nearly tore the country apart, on June 12, 1993, Nigerians eschewed religion, ethnicity and other divisive tendencies. The election, the best ever in Nigerian history, simply gave power to a man, North, South, East or West, perceived best for the job: to lead Nigeria from military ruin to the democratic rebirth.
But then came the Ibrahim Babangida military junta’s “annulment” (until then, a strange word in the Nigerian troubled political lexicon); which ensured MKO never served his presidential term. Worse: he served his four-year term in gaol, under detention by the usurping Gen. Sani Abacha.
Abiola’s “crime” was declaring himself lawfully elected president of Nigeria, at an event called the Epetedo Declaration in Lagos, on June 12, 1994. Abacha arrested him for “treason”. Abiola never made it out alive, as he died, under mysterious circumstances, on July 7, 1998, on the reported virtual eve of his release. Abacha himself had died a month earlier on June 8, 1998. Kudirat Abiola, one of Abiola’s wives and foremost campaigner for the mandate had earlier, on June 4, 1996, been assassinated in Lagos by agents of the Abacha government.
So, for winning a free election, Abiola and wife died in the ensuing struggle. Their children also became untimely orphans. That is a monumental blot on Nigeria’s institutional conscience; and a savage siege on her institutional memory.
Ernest Shonekan, a former managing director of UAC Nigeria Plc, was appointed interim head of state, by the exiting Gen. Babangida, following the post-annulment crisis. But a court later ruled his government illegal, since he neither staged a successful coup nor won an election. Though Abacha, who shoved Shonekan aside would later, with a decree, revalidate Chief Shonekan’s tenure, each time Shonekan parades himself as “former head of state”, the harsh depth of injury to Abiola resurfaces. That would continue to haunt the country, and the principal actors in that plot, Babangida and Shonekan, as far as they live.
There is even a continuing institutional but fraudulent anti-Abiola campaign, hiding behind crass legalism but which is no more than plain sophistry. It is the phrase, repeated mostly as programmed cliché by the media: that Abiola “was presumed to have won” the June 12, 1993 election. It is the ugly face of a country wilfully telling itself a blatant lie.
It is true the official results of the June 12, 1993 election were not fully released. But that was exactly why the annulment was criminal. Still, the results were public knowledge — already declared and ratified at polling centres nationwide. Humphrey Nwosu, the professor who was National Electoral Commission (NEC) chairman during the election, confirmed that much in a book he later released. Besides, arguing that because a final result was not officially announced is tantamount that no one won that election is akin to saying because a child is not christened, that child was not born. It is not only disingenuous, it is plain stupid.
But the long and short of this matter: on another anniversary of Abiola’s stalled mandate, Nigeria must come to terms with, and make amends for, the grave injustice done this eminent Nigerian — and the Nigerian electorate.
For starters, the new Buhari Presidency should set in motion processes to officially recognise Abiola as an elected president, who nevertheless was brutally denied his rights. That should come with an official apology.
We also suggest June 12 be declared a national holiday, on which nationwide activities should be organised to underscore the inviolability of the vote, in free and fair elections, as the very minimum for democracy to thrive. In the alternative, Eagle Square, Abuja, could be renamed MKO Abiola Square, such that each time national and Democracy Day celebrations are being held there, the spirit of Abiola would roll with the occasion.
Nigeria will do well to bring the June 12 injustice to fair closure. It is high time we dealt with that dirty past, so we can, with a clean mind, face a challenging future, of equity, fairness and justice.
