Today, 12 June 2019, Nigerians celebrated Democracy Day, made so by the enabling law signed by President Muhammadu Buhari. It was a day to mark the 12 June 1993 presidential election which was won by the late MKO Abiola, but which was cancelled by military President, Ibrahim Babangida. At the Eagle Square, Abuja, Buhari addressed the nation. Part of what he said was that he renamed an Abuja national monument as Moshood Abiola National Stadium. At the venue with him were his Vice, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo; President of the Senate, Ahmed Lawan; Speaker of the House of Representatives; Femi Gbajabiamila; the Acting Chief Justice, Justice Tanko Mohammed; Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, an old war horse in the actualisation of the struggle to actualise the June 12 electoral mandate of Abiola. Many visiting Heads of State and members of the diplomatic community were also present.
Indeed, all the participants in today’s event were beneficiaries of what Abiola died for. And they, especially, President Buhari, did a great honour to the man. An individual who was conspicuously absent was former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the greatest inheritor of Abiola’s huge sacrificial investment and the struggles of pro-democracy activists, students, human rights lawyers, journalists and many others who died on the streets while the struggle was hot.
For eight years when he was in power as President, Obasanjo who the military brought from prison and made the Nigerian leader to compensate the South West, in a manner of speaking, did nothing to honour Abiola on whose wing he sat on the throne. What could be the reason? Hatred, envy or inferiority complex or a combination of the three? Indeed, Obasanjo must be a classic case of that Bible quote: “The heart of man is deceitful above all things and it is desperately wicked”. His mind will be a great specimen for Psychologists studying how a man ought not to treat his friend!
An explanation was offered by Chief Frank Kokori, a former Secretary-General of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers and a leader of the June 12 movement. He once told The Punch: “We all thought it would happen immediately we were released from prison or detention. At that time, the civil society groups were very strong and we had a militant press. NADECO, Afenifere, NUPENG and others pressurised the government at the time. We thought Abiola would be released and declared winner but when he died, we started the struggle for democracy day. Then, Olusegun Obasanjo became President and then unilaterally declared May 29 as democracy day. So, since then, the battle has been on and we believed Obasanjo should have been able to do it in those eight years but we did not know that Obasanjo had this pathological hatred for people who he felt would be his rivals. He did not want anybody to shine like him. He had that phobia which I call inferiority complex.”
By Ademola Adegbamigbe
