FROM the moment the June 12th, 1993 presidential election was annulled on June 23rd by former military president, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, it became a buffet of sorts.

So many people – both those who were part of the struggle and those who opposed it – have fed fat on it. Some have even transmogrified from virtually bankrupt chicken farmers to the ultimate leadership of the country from which they exited as “un-probe-able” sacred-cow overnight super-rich Nigerians.

After the annulment, some elements (Major General Shehu Yar’Adua and Chief Tony Anenih) in the Social Democratic Party, SDP, the platform on which the late Chief Moshood Abiola won the presidential election, quickly embraced a new transition to enable them bury Abiola’s mandate.

They went to the Constitutional Conference which General Sani Abacha, Babangida’s chosen successor, called to legitimise his government. Some were made ministers (example, Chief Olu Onagoruwa and Chief Ebenezer Babatope), and a top military officer from Abiola’s home zone (Lt General Oladipo Diya) was appointed Abacha’s Deputy. While some “ate”, some paid for it with their lives (Yar’ Adua, Abacha and Abiola) within five years, while some were totally disgraced (Diya, Onagoruwa).

Some of those who insisted on the revalidation of the mandate were either jailed (Chief Gani Fawehinmi) or escaped into exile (Chief Anthony Enahoro, Prof. Wole Soyinka, Chief Bola Tinubu). Some who remained at home kept low profile (Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe) but maintained the principles of the struggle. Others went headlong into confrontation with Abacha (Chief Abraham Adesanya, Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu, Chief Bola Ige and others).

When Abiola and Abacha were poisoned to death as the only means of resolving June 12 “amicably” by “unknown (foreign) persons” the biggest, hottest buffet arrived from the June 12 kitchen. Those who annulled the election saw that any attempt by them to produce another president could break up their colonial heritage, Nigeria. They panicked and decided to “give” the Presidency to a Yoruba man, using the newly-formed, pan-Nigerian political platform – the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

They went and brought out General Olusegun Obasanjo (a man marked for death by Abacha) from jail, pardoned him of treason conviction and sponsored him to hold the Presidency in trust for the cabal for four years and return it to them in 2003. This was definitely a partial realisation of one of the June 12 struggle’s primary objectives – power shift. It was just a temporary gift given to a trusted servant who obviously did not believe in the struggle for June 12 and its underlying core principles: power shift and restructuring of the Federation.

June 12 changed Nigeria in so many ways. It not only forced the North to give up the presidency six years after pushing for the annulment of Abiola’s mandate (albeit to their chosen agent, Obasanjo) it weakened the hands of the region in plotting coups.

Otherwise, Obasanjo’s retiring of 93 politically-exposed military officers shortly after assuming power would certainly have triggered a coup in 1999. But OBJ went on to rule for eight years and nearly grabbed an extra term for himself. But after his second coming, he faithfully returned power to the North. If not for June 12, the North would have swept aside Vice President Goodluck Jonathan after President Umaru Yar’Adua died in 2010.

June 12 also gave way to bold agitations by the Southern Minorities for self-determination and resource control. This later advanced into armed militancy with which they now exert enormous influence (including influencing Obasanjo to choose Governor Jonathan as Yar’ Adua’s VP over the more fancied and popular choice from the same Niger Delta, Governor Peter Odili).

June 12 liberated the Niger Delta to become a power bloc in Nigerian politics. June 12 made it possible for the Igbos and the Minorities of the South to detach from their master/servant “traditional alliance” with the North and work together in one political camp, and no more as mutual adversaries.

Meanwhile, many self-exiled June Twelvers returned in 1998/99. One of them, Bola Tinubu, jumped on the June 12 buffet table and grabbed the governorship of Lagos State. He used that prime position to install himself as the current political leader of the new Yoruba mainstream.

After Obasanjo destroyed the Alliance for Democracy (the political offshoot of June 12 especially in Yorubaland) Tinubu who refused to pander to Obasanjo’s self-serving political adventures took over leadership of the Yoruba mainstream. He continued to propound the principles of the neo-Awoist, June 12 struggle (especially restructuring and true federalism).

Tinubu was chiefly instrumental to the successful merger of political forces to form the All Progressives Congress, APC, which eventually dethroned the PDP. But in achieving this “feat” Tinubu unwittingly fluffed the vision and mission of June 12: power shift and restructuring. Buhari does not believe in it, though he allowed it to be used to gather votes for him in 2015.

When the National Democratic Coalition,NADECO, published its charter in May 1994, their demands included the swearing in of Abiola, who would implement power shift and restructuring. “Power shift” simply meant ensuring that power should be taken away from the cabal (and their allies) who saw Nigeria as a colony handed over to them by Britain at independence.

Before June 12, this cabal did not believe that a Southerner whom they did not “give” power would be allowed to lead Nigeria. That was the provocative logic of Abiola’s election annulment.

NADECO envisioned a Nigeria where every Nigerian would be free and equity would reign; and not a future where a President Muhammadu Buhari would, once again, enthroned Muslim/Arewa fundamentalism where Fulani militias would invade communities all over the Middle Belt and Southern Nigeria without check. It did not envisage a return to 1994 when the forces that annulled June 12 were unquestionable before the June 12 struggle came to challenge them.

Unfortunately, Tinubu, a brave soldier of the struggle, personally handed power back to the Northern reactionaries who annulled June 12. And he is not even talking about restructuring anymore!