Guardian

AS has been the case since annulment of June 12, 1993 presidential election, the civil society in Edo State has lined-up a series of activities to mark the day that changed Nigeria’s democratic process. However, curiously, there has never been any deliberate programme on the part of the state government particularly since the coming into power of Adams Oshiomhole as governor.

The African Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), in collaboration with the Correspondents Chapel of the Edo State chapter of the Nigeria Union of Journalist  (NUJ), will hold a programme to mark the day, same for Conference of Non Governmental Organisation (CONGOS), whose president, Jude Obasanmi, told The Guardian the day remains the people’s Democracy Day. “That was the day people came out on their own to vote their candidate and were not coerced or begged to come out. They came on their own volition, so, to us, that day remains the authentic democracy day for Nigeria, not May 29, which we think it is for the bourgeois.”

In the same vein, Chief of Staff to Edo State Governor and former member of the House of Representatives, Patrick Obahiagbon, said: “The Nigerian political class has learnt nothing and forgotten nothing, save for an insignificant number of governors that are making revolutionary strides in the positive transformation of their respective states and may be this is the position because at the inception of this democracy, political scavengers and jobbers who were strangers to the history of the working class struggle hijacked the political process from those who gave their lives for the struggle to enthrone democracy.

“It’s my opinion that June 12 is our authentic democracy day. No doubts about that, at all, no matter to what extent apostles of political prebendalism and agents of atavistic conservatism shy away from this fact. So, for me, I have always called and would continue to call on the Federal Government to recognise June 12 as our democracy day I remain optimistic that this would be so when a progressive people’s party comes to power in this country.”

The President, Etuno Solidarity Forum (ESF), a body of young Edo professionals of Igarra extraction, Dr James Adanini, said June 12 remains sacrosanct to Nigeria’s democratic development.

President, Coalition to Save Nigeria (CSN), Dr Philip Ugbodaga, said: “Consolidating Nigerian democracy through the conduct of credible elections has remained an albatross since independence from British colonial rule and universally, election is regarded as the heart of representative and participatory democracy. A free, fair and credible election not only confers legitimacy on eventual winners, it is also important to the sustenance of democratic order and national development.”

According to the then chairman of June 12 Movement (Edo State), since June 12 1993, “we have been unable to get it right electorally. Nigerians have since retreated to their ethnic shells and allowed religion bigotry to becloud their sense of electoral judgment. Ballot snatching, illegal thump printing of ballot papers, multiple voting, falsification of election results and outright declaration of illegal results have since become our culture. All these electoral vices were absent in that election. It was a watershed election. Christians massively voted for a Muslim-Muslim ticket. There were no reports of snatching of ballot boxes and other electoral irregularities that pervade our conduct of elections today and to cap it all, the weather was very clement all over Nigeria.

“June 12 represented the victory of light over darkness, representative democracy over military dictatorship, truth over falsehood and optimism over opportunism. President M.K.O Abiola displayed unparalleled courage and uncommon candour in defence of the mandate reposed in him by 14 million change-seeking Nigerians who defied all odds to vote for him in 1993. The annulment of the June 12 election by a despotic cabal represents the greatest injustice ever done against the Nigerian people. That distasteful and cowardly act will continue to haunt us in our march to true nationhood and Nigeria may never really recover from it.

“We have carried on as a people as if nothing happened on June 12. The memory and the symbolism of that day cannot be wiped away from our memory. We should continue to celebrate June 12 as a day of freedom and national revival. We should entrench June 12 as a day of national rebirth and we should commemorate June 12 as our authentic Democracy Day.”

Ugbodaga proposed that the late Abiola should be proclaimed as a duly elected president of Nigeria “with all the paraphernalia of a former president and his photograph conspicuously placed at the council chambers in Aso Rock. The late Abiola paid the ultimate and supreme price for the entrenchment and consolidation of our democracy. Without his selfless and courageous struggle, we probably would still have been enmeshed in unbridled military dictatorship till now. It is very well known that the events that culminated in the historic election of June 12, 1993 are directly responsible for the enactment of Democracy Day by the ruling elite in Nigeria. The declaration of May 29 as the official celebration of Democracy Day by the Nigeria ruling class while relegating June 12 to the dustbin of history is a disservice to Nigerians and a monumental rape of our democratic evolution as a people.”

Former President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Professor Festus Iyayi, summed up the frustration that has bedevilled Nigerians developmental strides whenever it seemed set to start. “June 12 remains an inspiration to generations of Nigerians because if we have won on June 12, the destiny of the country would have been totally different. All these IMF, World Bank, this Okonjo Iweala programme of selling the country to foreign interest would not have been there because Abiola learnt his lessons after winning that election and while he was in prison. The situation would have been different.”

To former Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Edo State, and also, a presidential aspirant on the platform of the National Conscience Party (NCP), Osagie Obayuwana, “the principle that June 12 represents is the sanctity of the ballot box, the choice of the electorate, that incident of June 12 1993 marked a watershed in the political development of Nigeria whereby those who sought on account of inflated assessment of their wards to circumvent the clear choice and decisions of the electorate were met with protestations never before in this country and on account of that, the political fortunes of such characters became sealed for the present generation and for posterity. I know that if General Ibrahim Babangida had a second opportunity, if he knew that the people of Nigeria will be so resolute, he would have had a second thought so all this bravado of not apologising and all of that is just what it is; an attempt to put up a false impression, we know he regrets it.

“It is a sad testimony that our people are torn between marking May 29 as democracy day vis-a-vis June 12 as the authentic peoples democracy day. The fact that celebration of June 12 is now relegated to a section of the country, gives an impression of that heroic struggle as if it was sectional, it wasn’t sectional at all it will be my hope that programmes will be held in places other than the south-west.”