File photo: This photograph was taken at the occasion sometime in 2018, where President Muhammadu Buhari validated the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election; declared the late Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, who won that election, a former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; conferred on him posthumously the GCFR National Honor usually reserved for only Presidents; and declared June 12 Nigeria’s New Democracy Day. From left to right: Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka; Secretary to the Federal Government, Mr Boss Mustapha; Ambassador Babagana Kingibe; Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo; President Buhari; Mr Kola Abiola; a woman; and Senator Bola Tinubu
I was so happy when the news broke on Nigeria that good times are coming back again. I have joy in my heart.
No, I am not referring to happy times in terms of more material abundance, or cheaper food and housing. That will be elementary, rudimentary happiness. While one is entitled to be happy, or proclaim happy times, due to a better economy giving rise to cheaper food and material articles on which many base their happiness index, I am not referring to those. Not close.
Truth is basis of real happy times.
I was not anticipating the good news to lead to cheaper price for the mostly imported items of vanity that many of us cherish – the fuel-guzzling big cars, the badly sown revealing dresses that cost the earth because they carry what is called a designer name; the ordinary looking shoes and handbags that can cost some people’s annual salary not because of quality, but purely as a result of hypnotic marketing; the carcinogenic chemical concoctions which are unloaded on our women as cosmetics; and not leaving out the shame of creating a whole industry that sucks billions of Naira from our economy through the perfectly legal trade in human ( body?) parts- the imported hair trade. A sin, self denigrating sin on the part of our women that stands all on its own.
I know if there are news that any of the foregoing has become cheaper, (and alcohol too), that is when some people (a majority of us actually) will break out into yodels of joy.
But this my joy is not about any of these. It is the joy that at last, Truth, abandoned and sidelined in Nigerian public life for decades now, is gradually making a comeback. Yes, truth was abandoned in this country at a definite time.
Around the time PMB was overthrown, and the prison gates containing both political detainees as well as hardened economic criminals and looters were thrown open and they were all unleashed anew on our society. All their loot was returned to them. That was 1985.
January 1, 1983 The effort to administer harsh justice on the early looters of 1979-1983 represented a chance for us to put the brakes on impunity. Jail terms of up to 100 years were handed out by Chairmen of Special Tribunals with impassive and sometimes pained eyes. The experience shook some people up. At the time we still had a moral shyness for corruption and many people applauded the move. We had not degenerated to now where instead of outrage, people whose patrimony are being looted will accept bribes to go demonstrate against the government for trying a criminal. While their elite collaborators will fill media space with a false narrative and excuses to muddle the issues.
At that time, only the illustrious Gani Fawehinmi (GCON) had the courage to break from the elite conspiracy and add additional validity to the trials by appearing before the SMTs (Special Military Tribunals). Those SMTs along with the War Against Indiscipline, would have set our path as a country on a better trajectory than the one we eventually followed.
August 27, 1985
Yes. The valuable duo that were championing a return to Sanity after the carefree days of the devil-may-care, happy-go-lucky type of ‘non-administration’ visited on our country by the visionless NPN were removed just a year and eight months of leading the moral rebirth. They were accused of “rigidity, and arrogating all knowledge to themselves”. As said above, the new helmsman had no interest in a moral rearmament or instilling discipline.
With the highest and most public example possible at the national level, that of rehabilitating convicted looters by returning their loot and overturning,- without judicial review- their convictions, the gates were opened for people with corrupt tendencies to gain ascendancy in public and private life.
Fraudulent behavior, otherwise called 419, formerly done secretly, became a glamorous crime. In public life, civil servants and politicians (some already convicted under the former rigid moral regimen for betraying public trust, sized the public space, becoming the poster boys and girls, of the high life, degrading our public morality. A new elite of emergency millionaires and billionaires were created. Fake and fraudulent Finance houses sprang up around the country, especially Lagos, created from the bubble of looted money and international fraud.
So, the scenario was complete: elders were looting from the National treasury, and from our resources handed over to them on a platter during ‘privatization and commercialization’ of public enterprises. Oil licenses were handed to, not real, competent oil prospecting companies with expertise or resources to exploit the fields; not state governments who could benefit everyone, but to individuals. Yes, the country degenerated so much that oil prospecting licenses were handed over to individuals, friends and concubines of the ruling junta who immediately became stupendously rich without lifting a finger. Bubble wealth muddled the landscape. The young were recruited into finance houses of fraud where they saw, understood and learned from the impunity with which finance houses, instead of being used to jump start development, were just avenues for fraud. Almost 500 or more finance houses sprang up, with Allen Avenue in ikeja and Adeniran Ogunsanya in Surulere looking to become Wall Street, judging by the number of finance houses that built or acquired glittering head offices in those streets.
That scenario led us down the path of floating the Naira and the hitherto strong currency gradually lost its value, impoverishing the proud, hardworking majority of our people.
The Naira never recovered till today from that process that was unleashed on the country in 1986. Today, we can reflect on the value of the Naira and analyze what the country has gained from the exercise (floating the Naira) in the intervening decades. The Naira is today about 350 to the dollar. It was at par with it or thereabout as at August 27, 1985. Now, all the promises of the Structural Adjustment Program which was used as the pretext or justification for this economic holocaust, where are they? Over thirty years later?
The Naira, marginalized
The result is that a transfer of our common patrimony to private hands was effected, and we the people were left to carry the can of impoverishment. The Naira became a marginalized currency and majority of our people became marginalized also. Economically. Those crying marginalization today should look well and decide whether the economic marginalization does not trump the political one they are crying about.
That marginalization of the Naira led to many things. A collapse of our moral values, distortion of the public space, as people became suddenly rich as if a genie brought money to them. And these are people whose products can not be pinpointed. It became a norm that somebody can become rich overnight without years of serious hard work. Or contribution of Value to the Society. Youths started emulating the sudden wealth possibility. That alone did great violence to the ethics of hard work, deferred gratification, and getting something for hard work and sweat; and contribution of value to get rich.
It was thought to be possible to get something for nothing. Fraud thrived. Fraudsters became celebrities with lifestyle publications promoting their filthy wealth in junk magazines.
Failed Bankers
Then the phenomenon of owners of banks deliberately looting their banks to complete ruin, to complete collapse came in. Once unbridled greed was unleashed, there can be no end, unless something intervened. That was why the issue of failed banks developed in the Nigerian banking space and it was left to much later, to the unpredictable Abacha to institute the Failed Banks Tribunal to close the floodgates.
Fraudulent political process
It was in these chaotic social and economic circumstances that a dubious and convoluted ‘Transition to Civilian Rule’ was launched. Elaborate and grandiose plans to return the country to civilian rule were announced, half -heartedly pursued and discarded. Politicians were banned, unbanned and re-banned. In the process, the terminal date for military rule was set at 1990, then shifted to 1992, and then to January 1993, and finally to August 27, 1993. And efforts were made to shift even that.
June 12, 1993.
So it was that a presidential election, meant to be the culmination of a transition program, was fixed for 12 June 1993.. amidst tensions about the intentions of the crafty helmsman, politicians campaigned and threw up two candidates for the two parties regulated into existence by decree fiat. Flamboyant businessman MKO Abiola emerged in one party and Bashir Tofa, another businessman, emerged for the other party.
Nigerians went to the polls and elected the Abiola team. Jubilation ensued among Nigerians that our votes counted.
In that election and its aftermath, many things were conclusively proved. Among them: that Nigerians don’t care so much about religion or tribe in terms of who is in power. If the elites would present a person and promote him in terms of competence and ability, Nigerians will demolish the false edifice of religious bias and ethnic affiliation to vote right.
This was shown by the victory of a Muslim-Muslim ticket, featuring a Yoruba candidate paired with a Kanuri running mate. The so called Hausa Fulani ignored the ethnic divide and handed victory to a ticket that had no Hausa Fulani in it. Meaning that the common Hausa Fulani were ready to countenance the possibility of 8 years for Abiola, and maybe eight years for his deputy, who are both non-Hausa Fulanis. To draw it further, the common people in the North were ready to allow the possibility of 16 years without a Hausa-Fulani president! Their vote for Abiola proved this.
It also proved that the Christians of the middle belt and the South as indeed all of Nigeria were not against, and could live with the thought of Muslim-Muslim ticket ruling for eight years, followed possibly by another Muslim president!
These are some of the truly momentous statements made by the Nigerian people with the June 12 election. Knowing Abiola, he would have run an inclusive government that would justify the trust reposed in him to not exhibit any religious or ethnic bias.
Think of the possibilities! Nigeria would have buried the ghost of two powerful emotional demons plaguing us since independence: Religious and Ethnic bigotry which our elites have been milking for decades (till now) for their own selfish but visionless ends. Abiola did not campaign for the presidency on a Muslim or Yoruba ticket. He campaigned on universal values: end to poverty, universal education, efficiency in government and love for all.
Retrogression from June 12
June 23 1993
But the individual at the helm as head of state and the forces that launched Nigeria onto the path of perfidy and untruth in 1985 would not allow this. The victory of June 12, 1993 was, for them, an unintended and unanticipated outcome. In a crude manner that betrayed insincerity from the start, and the surprise at the direction the votes of the people had taken, the election was annulled with the most flimsy of reasons.
And the achievement of that election was lost in one fell swoop.
The chaos that followed that annulment re-calibrated our country back to before the election: the cleavages of decades before resurfaced. Sections of the Press, and the malignant elite (typified by Association for Better Nigeria of Chief Francis Arthur Nzeribe) turned truth on its head and started fanning the embers of discord, both religious and ethnic, which Nigerians had decisively buried with their voting pattern on June 12 1993.
‘Living a lie’
Now since that day, we have been living a lie as a country. Refusal to acknowledge June 12 and what it holds for Nigeria was living a collective lie. Shonekan handled the lie and dropped it. Abacha held on to it for longer because of brute force. He didn’t live to write “His Watch”. Abdulsalami lived up to his name “ son of peace” by dousing the lingering tension surrounding his ascendancy to supreme power; released many incarcerated innocents, and hurriedly dropped the hot coal. Staying less than a year.
From prison house to state house
But it remained a lie nevertheless. The person to have started walking us back to the path of truth of June 12, 1993 was OBJ. Against All Odds, he took a remarkable walk from prison House to state House on a trip that surpassed all previous miracles of modern Nigeria.
That journey was enough miracle to shock anyone into moving Nigeria towards truth. But no. Things were patched up a bit, and a lie continued to be told, and lived. Blunt refusal to recognize both the date and the martyrs that were murdered for the sake of that Truth ruled supreme through 16 years of indifferent PDP rule. A rule characterized by the first 8 years when yes, some efforts were made to reset our economy for greatness. The efforts ultimately failed because of lack of continuity caused by the fissure at the highest level of that initial team of 1999-2007. Then, from 2007, Nigeria seemingly lurched from one side to another in a directionless manner. The confusion was however lubricated by unprecedented high oil prices which hid some of the lack of control of the economy by those in charge.
We continued living the lie. The lie became bolder as it moved into the Centre of our Nation. Government officials and civil servants started behaving like demented demons, out to dismantle Nigeria economically. What was being stolen, especially between 2010 and 2015 was just senseless: beyond all sense of shame, obscene. Through looting. Impunity. Ignoring justice and truth. Through the delirium , scant attention was paid to restoring truth.
May 29,2015
Until President Muhammadu Buhari came on board, swept into office by the change! mantra and people’s distaste excesses of the preceding five years. He struggled to institute change for a people that are almost accepting evil as the norm.
At exactly 25 years, a whole quarter century after the event, it was at last possible to free ourselves from the prison of untruth in which we have been living. Imagine the loss!
Suppose an MKO Abiola had been allowed to run this country for eight years beginning from 1993, building a foundation worthy of his breadth of vision, his clear understanding of the history of the black man, and razor sharp appreciation of international economics and politics.. Just imagine him laying a foundation, and then his successors, even if it was Kingibe, would have built on it. For 25 years. How different things would have turned out!
Those 25 years would have launched us as a people into the world. Our place in the world would have been identified and established. Our economy would be running full steam, on a road that does not depend on fossil fuel to drive it.
Gradually, then, we appreciate the magnitude of the evil perpetrated on Nigeria and Nigerians on June 23, 1993 when an unsigned announcement was used to abruptly abridge our dreams, annul a free and fair election that was significant for its symbolic messages that was about to launch us on the path to true nationhood, devoid of ethnic or religious bias. A bright future was before us and the black man worldwide, before agents of darkness who have sneaked into our portals of authority turned our ship of state in another direction: into outer darkness.
NO ONE, no matter how crafty and devilish should have been able to come to us in 2017 and successfully defended himself against charges of career criminality by claiming the dubious defense of fighting to PREVENT a Muslim-Muslim ticket as cause of his being accused. A Muslim-Muslim ticket that Nigerians already accepted back in 1993, twenty five years ago!
Better late than never : No Yoruba appeasement here
The revalidation of the June 12 election by Buhari is the most important event of the past quarter century of our Nation’s history. It is NEVER too late to do a good thing. The turn on the road that we missed on June 12, 1993 is where we are returning to now: A clear acknowledgement that we had something going 25 years ago as a people, as a country, that we all stated clearly that we are tired of ethnic cleavages and religious bigotry.
An acknowledgement that we are ready to move on as a Nation. That those that died for the June 12 event were national heroes. That what happened on June 12 1993 is a National Recalibration Day. A National Day of Renewal. It is an insult of historical proportions to talk about June 12 in any limiting form, religious limitation, geographical limitation, or tribal limitation, JUNE 12 IS A COLLECTIVE NATIONAL EVENT. Fight for the re-validation of the event was done by everyone from all parts of Nigeria.
Abubakar Rimi, Bala Usman, Balarabe Musa, Dan Suleiman, Chukwuemeka Ezeife, Allison Madueke, Ndubuisi Kanu. Iyorchia Ayu , Ame Ebute, are just some of the leaders of the people being insulted when this Return to Truth is called a political gesture to a section of Nigeria.
Remove Yoruba votes from the election and Abiola still wins. He won in all parts of Nigeria. East, North, Middle belt and South West. Apart from winning states in all parts, even in states where he lost, he still took substantial votes. This means he had the first truly pan Nigeria mandate. It is a sad commentary on the quality of our leaders of thought and public commentators when it is even suggested that the re-validation of such a pan Nigerian mandate is directed at a section of the country.
PMB returning us to the Path of Good Principles
President Buhari is sending us back to the path of Truth, thus sending us back to the path of God. This teaches all that no matter how long, truth will be restored. This will allow all of us to go back and reflect: why was the annulment even contemplated and carried out? What could justify such cruelty? Such lack of Vision to interpret the election as what it was: a great statement by Nigerians that we are at last becoming a Nation? What have we gained since then? What have we lost?
A set of leaders that could perpetrate such heist on their people, what is the proper name for them? The leaders that sustained that lie all these while, what does that say about them? Are they sincere? Are they to be trusted?
Now, this leader that chooses to come clean, declare the winner as a former president, and APOLOGIZED for the event, what does that say about him too? Do let us reflect on these things. Going forward, who can we trust our future with? A group of leaders that perpetrated a lie, and SUSTAINED it for a quarter of a century, or the one who came, broke with the conspiratorial elite consensus against the people and SPOKE and ACTED out that truth?
In the events of the past few days, something great is being unfurled before our eyes. A president chooses to go back to our history acting to correct a historical evil which led us to this path of perfidy and confusion. For me, that is a sign that the Almighty is starting the restoration of this country. When a prodigal son remembers the way back to his father’s house, his problems are seeing the beginning of its end. Nigeria is the prodigal son coming home.
I pronounce: this Restoration, the restitution, the Apology, the acknowledgement, the return to Sanity, the repudiation of evil and impunity, the pledge to stick to truth going forward, the humility shown, the courage, shows clearly that we are on our way to National Restoration.
So that is the reason for my joy. The joy alluded to at the start of this essay.
June 12 a special date?
But even international events make one have cause for cheer. And to wonder. For decades there has been tension in the Korean peninsula. And no chance of lasting Peace.
At long last, a meeting did take place between Trump and Kim Jong Un. As a response to the clarion call by many world leaders for dialogue between USA and North Korea, which President Buhari reitreiterated in his last speech to the United Nations General Assembly. So, like Buhari did for Nigeria, restoring peace, Trump and Jong Un have taken a step for peace in the Korean Peninsula, peace between the US and the Peoples Republic of Korea, and also another step towards denuclearization in the world.
So, on June 12 Matters arising, it is a case of Matyrs are Rising. worldwide.
On the same June 12!
Dance for Joy, oh my soul!!
This piece was written in 2018 and published by The Radiance under a different headline.
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