Guardian

Dr. Ore Falomo, personal physician to the late Moshood Abiola, speaks with GBENGA SALAU on the philosophies of June 12 and if there had been efforts to sustain them 20 years after.

No doubts, the mass movement that came with June 12 must be a product of philosophy that Abiola symbolises, what will you say this is?

The philosophy was nurtured as far back as 1982, when some people told Abiola that presidency was not for sale. He told them that he was not going to buy the idea, and the people would give him the mandate. He felt that to execute his philosophy to the fullest, he had to be president. Abiola knew it was the president who had power; the constitutional backing and claim to put into practice what would transform the country.

So, he had already started it that time when he left the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and later joined the Social Democratic Party (SDP) during Babangida’s transition programme. He saw that the conservatives were not listening, and always wanted to do things their own way. This did not go down well with his philosophy. This was why he pitched tent with SDP in 1992. For June 12, he decided to go to the people.

Of course, during the campaign, he laid before the country what he was going to do from food product, creation of jobs, lowering prices of clothing, oil, infrastructure –– maintenance and building of new ones, oil –– to the point of telling the people how much kerosene would be sold to allow the poor benefits and the refineries. Everything. The records are there, as he used different platforms to project these ideas, television, newspaper, and it is even in government custody what he said he would do. And this showed that he had done his homework very well.

One of the things he said was that he would probe all the military officers who had been corrupted, it was one of his campaign promises. Abiola actually put his opponent out of consideration because you could see that Tofa did not prepare. It seemed as if they just went to pick him to be presidential candidates because in every respect, Abiola outscored him. Though Abiola showed him respect as they both were going into a field of unknown. From that field, Abiola religion must not be an obstacle, which was why he chose another Muslim to run with him. It had never happened. Yet they won the election convincingly.

However, we thank God and Jonathan for having the courage to say it out. It is assumed by some people that Musa Yar’Adua would have done the same thing because he promised so before his death. Fine, but let us thank the man who did it, who said, it is true that he won. He won convincingly and extraordinarily, that must be accepted and acknowledged by the government, though some people thought they were annulling a reality. It is a reality, because he won. Annulling means as if it did not actually happen. That is in their own theory because it happened. So, we thank God and Jonathan for that. Where do we go from there?  The people who took over from then have not practiced the philosophy of June 12. And who are the people to emulate Abiola, they are the presidents we had, General Abdulsalam Abubakar came in to fulfill a mission and he said he was not going to do anything new.

The things he did to fulfill some of the philosophies of June 12 was that the rumples in the country, between Abiola and the army, was resolved. They brought in two Yoruba to contest and they thought Obasanjo was the better person because he is their senior in the army. Obasanjo came in, did eight years. Yar’Adua came and we have Jonathan and these are Obasanjo’s protégés. None of them had touched on Abiola’s programme. At least, to start implementing it, to see how it would go and then received by the people or benefit them. So, none, for reasons best known to them, had gone to that position of president and exhibited the watchword of Abiola, not for me, but for others.

How do you think the June 12 could be made a national issue?

It is going to be difficult to replicate June 12: the conduct, how it became so free, even the two opposing sides were talking to each other when everybody lined up to vote. There was no rain on the day, no rigging; everything was open and transparent.

It could not have been a Southwest thing because it was not only the Southwest that voted. The celebration will be on forever. It is an issue that cannot just go away. It is only that the Southwest has been the mostly stable to accord it. What is May 29? Obasanjo’s selection! Obasanjo was not the one who brought this democracy; he was in prison at that time. It was because some of us aroused and alerted people that Obasanjo was going to be eliminated that saved him. The people who brought democracy are those who fought the military. He was part of the military, only that he stepped on the wrong toes by trying to demonstrate that he was the best military man ever, which annoyed Abacha. It was because of that he was arrested and tried.

We also have to be fair to Obasanjo that it was God’s way of doing things that he was given the chance to redress some of the things he knew were very bad. And nobody was better suited than somebody who actually saw it at close quarters; he was lucky to still be alive. So, I do not begrudge him for that because I do not think any civilian would have been better suited than what Obasanjo and Danjuma did for the country. And we would always refer to it and be grateful to them.

How do you think that philosophy can be institutionalised from the federal level?

Whoever becomes the president, should swear on oath and accept that as long as s/he is in that office, s/he would not do things for self, but for others. That would be the watchword before s/he takes a decision, just like the Rotary, is this thing fair to everybody, if it is not, do not do it. The summary is, do not think for yourself alone, if it is not good for other people, discard it.

As the president, you have your salary and pension for life, what else do you need? Let people know that God has put you there, and so, you are going to make sure that people can say this was the position they were when you got into office and when you left, they had moved upward. And the person coming after you would have no reason to do less, it is either s/he maintains the tempo or a higher one; then we would know that we have woken up.