By SUNNY IKHIOYA

It is important that we get the message of June 12 right and situate it on the proper side of history.  The heroism of Chief Moshood Abiola in the whole scheme of things was just an accident of history. It was a situation of two bosom friends at different ends of a struggle and innocent bystanders finding out who is on the right side and deciding to stand on the side of truth. 

Abiola became the symbol of the struggle because everybody was fed up with the Maradona tendencies of the military as represented by General Ibrahim Babangida, who kept shifting the goal post and making it glaring to all that he was not ready to leave office as military head of state. The civil society groups, the labour movement, the student union, and even ethnic and religious bodies were just waiting for the right time to vent their spleen. And, by the time the June 12, 1993 presidential election came, they were ready. 

President Babangida had dribbled himself into a cul-de-sac, and there was no place to turn to. The  interim national government which he set up, after he was forced to step aside, was just a face-saving interregnum, which his friend Sani Abacha took maximum advantage of. 

Should we be celebrating Abiola? I believe a lot has been done in that regard and is still being done to keep his memory alive. Abiola was great in his wealth, his generosity to all causes, both religious and secular. He was also very intelligent with great impact in the international sphere of business and politics. Abiola was larger than life during his lifetime, garnering chieftaincy titles from all parts of the country, including women which expanded his harem. He was a pillar of sports in Africa, and that also made him great. 

But all of these would have been nothing to the memories of Nigeria if  there was no June 12 . Abiola’s name is sounding greater than the founding fathers of Nigerian democracy: Nmandi Azikiwe, Ahmadu Bello, Obafemi Awolowo, Tafawa Balewa, Anthony Enahoro, and other greats. Abiola is now the rallying name for democratic struggles. People gather to protest against government’s excesses in his name. This is the extent to which history has been kind to him. He was a hard-core capitalist,  contractor to the Federal Government, and good friend to the military leaders. 

Beginning from the regime of the late Murtala Mohammed, Abiola has been close pally to the military boys. Rumours have it that he was privy to the multiple coups that took place in the country from the seventies through the eighties. He was their biggest supporter. And so Abiola reportedly encouraged,  caressed, took part in the heists engaged in by the military boys, and in the process became stupendously rich. He had gotten money, but something was missing,  the power that  money could not provide. He has been close to all of them and his family has become close to the Babaginda family that there was rumour of potential spousal relationship amongst the children.  But all of that fell apart after the June 12 debacle. 

Abiola was not amongst the Progressives, as exemplified by Chief Obafemi Awolowo. In fact, Kabiyesi Olu Falae alluded to this in his interview with Arise TV on June 15, 2025, when he said that Abiola was not in their camp. But they had to support him to ensure the sanctity of the June 12 election and to help restore Nigeria to a stable democracy.  Did they succeed? He said as far as we have witnessed uninterrupted civilian rule since 1999, the struggle was worth it but a lot has to be done in fine-tuning the electoral processes to be more ideological based and free from money bags control. 

Journalists of that time were heroes, some died, others are still alive, hoping and waiting for their dreams to be actualised. The civil rights groups fought tooth and nail to remove the military from power and in the long run  they all handed over power to the same military apologists, cronies and carpetbaggers that they were trying to do away with. They thought that they had won the battle. Unfortunately, the war did not end. It continues to this day, and the same hegemony are in power, retired military personnel, and their friends and cronies. 

How will President Bola Tinubu navigate this?  First, we have to go back to the roles everybody played to get us where we are today. We are already 27 years of civilian dispensation, in the name of democratic government, and struggling in all ramifications. Those who partook in the struggle left others to take over; whatever jejune reasons that they have given, it was a totally wrong strategy. Apparently, they have all been outsmarted out of the mainstream and became pereferal in the affairs of government.  Some of them have been compromised and settled, so the whole essence of June 12 is lost on everybody. 

We are only hearing of MKO Abiola; June 12 holds more significance than Abiola and his role in the whole drama. It represented the symbol of democracy in its truest form.  The best and most transparent election ever held in the land with the Option A4 system, a process that made people openly line up behind their favourite candidate. It represents the emancipation of our retrogressive values, neither tribe nor religion counted in a Muslim-Muslim ticket of Abiola and Kingibe. It promised more, but, as with  Franz Kafta, of idiots who do not care about the consequences of their actions on themselves, family and the nation, they truncated the process and things have never been the same again in this country. 

It is not just about Abiola, many patriotic individuals lost their lives to this cause; June 12 was the date the people gave out their mandate in the freest election that took place in the country, and when the mandate was withdrawn by the military, the people stood up to fight for its retrieval. And, Abiola became a symbol of resistance and democracy by accident. 

We must accord same honour to other worthy heroes: The late Gani Fawehinmi, the late Beko Kuti, the late Frank Kokori, who used his union to shut down oil production in the country; the late Yinka Odumakin, the underground fighter. Notable media organisations like the Tell magazine led by Nosa Igiebor, The News magazine with the likes of Babafemi Ojudu, Kunle Ajibade and Bayo Onanuga. Regrettably Onanuga appears to have become a different person under the present regime. 

We must also not forget Col Umar Kangiwa, Uba Sani and Shehu Sani and the rest of them. We must not forget the late Pa Alfred Rewane and his NADECO colleagues. All of them must be duly honoured. Their stories should be written and placed in our school curricula and historical museums. These are the true heroes of our time.  President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was in the midst of that crowd.  He should do the needful 

PS: As I was putting this piece to bed, the news flashed that the President has conferred various categories of awards to some of these heroes, including our very own Uncle Sam Amuka Pemu. This is more like it, although some prominent names were still left out.

  *Ikhioya wrote via: http://www.southsouthecho.com