By Stephanie Shaakaa 

In 1993, for one brief moment, Nigeria glimpsed what could have been a nation where the ballot triumphed over the bullet, where tribe, religion, and region bowed to unity and competence. That was June 12. The freest, fairest election this country has ever seen. And then, with a stroke of fear and arrogance, it was annulled.

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It was a day regional lines defied a fractured past and cast their votes not just for a man, but for an idea, a hope. Hope, symbolized by Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola  businessman, philanthropist, and the presumed winner of Nigeria’s fairest election. But it was hope that was stillborn. A silent coup was committed not with guns, but with a pen. That pen struck out the will of over 14 million Nigerians in one stroke of authoritarian arrogance.

The man who won it, Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, a Yoruba Muslim who won overwhelmingly across North and South, Christian and Muslim, never ruled. Instead, Nigeria spiraled into one of its darkest hours an hour we have never truly emerged from.

General Ibrahim Babangida took the fall, claiming it was a “collective decision” to void the will of the people. A euphemism for elite sabotage.

He said”We took the decision to annul the election in the interest of the nation.”

 What terrified them wasn’t Abiola,it was the idea that Nigerians could choose their leader without the blessing of the military-industrial elite.

What followed was more terrifying. Sani Abacha the same man who gleefully crushed opposition, jailed journalists, and lined his pockets,still managed to execute road networks, overhaul security, and instill order. Say what you will, under Abacha, Nigeria feared power. Today, power fears no one.

What came after 1999 our so-called

democratic rebirth was not rebirth. It was rot, recycled. Civilian presidents who stole more than military rulers. A National Assembly that’s the most overpaid in the world. Governors who became gods. And worst of all. A nation that stopped being shocked by anything.

June 12 is now a public holiday. Democracy Day. But the irony is painful. We honour a man we betrayed, celebrate a mandate we buried, and toast a democracy we have mutilated beyond recognition. Young Nigerians today say “Happy Democracy Day” without knowing that it was bought with blood, cowardice, and a cancelled dream. The tragedy of Nigeria is that we glorify intentions and never measure outcomes. MKO Abiola had both intention and ability. But the system, threatened by competence and unity, chose instead to unleash chaos.

So now, we ask ourselves.Was IBB right not to hand over to civilians? Did we waste June 12 only to crown charlatans in agbada? Has the blood of democracy become thinner than water?

Here’s the truth no one wants to say.

 We never earned June 12. We stumbled into it. We squandered it. And every June 12 that passes, unmarked by genuine reforms or reflection, becomes not a celebration but a confession.

A confession that the real annulment was not by IBB, but by every Nigerian who sees evil and calls it politics.

Let June 12 not just be a holiday. Let it be a vow. Never again should power silence the people. Never again should history be recycled as tragedy. And never again should Nigeria choose fear over freedom. A free and fair election is the breath of democracy, said Chief MKO Abiola.

General Ibrahim Babangida, in annulling the election, created a wound so deep that decades later, the scar still pulsates with anger and regret.

June 12 was not just a date. It was an awakening  the closest Nigeria came to crossing the burning bridge of division into a new national consensus. In a country often ripped apart by religion and ethnicity, Abiola a southern Muslim  defeated his northern opponent even in the North. He was not voted in because he was Yoruba. He was voted in because, for once, Nigerians believed someone could heal the festering wounds of inequality, misgovernance, and dictatorship.

But the old guard couldn’t let go. The same military establishment that ruled with decrees and suppressed dissent with brute force struck again,  not to protect democracy but to preserve its privileges.

Nigeria is not ripe for democracy. A phrase whispered in military corridors, now turned into state doctrine by action.

What followed was a downward spiral. Babangida “stepped aside,” handing over to the ghostly Ernest Shonekan, a powerless figure whose short tenure collapsed under the weight of national fury and rising discontent.

Then came General Sani Abacha, the man who, despite global outrage, ruled with iron fists and quick results. He jailed Abiola. He executed Ken Saro-Wiwa. He looted yes but unlike today’s civilian robbers in designer agbadas, he built. From the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) came hospitals, roads, water projects  still visible, still functioning.

When it comes to corruption, what civilians are doing today makes Abacha look like an amateur.  

Abacha was no saint, but compare his era of development amid brutality to the empty democracy that followed. What has this democracy offered the average Nigerian other than poverty, insecurity, and stolen dreams?

In today’s democracy, Nigeria negotiates with killers. Kidnappers have more negotiating power than trade unions. Terrorists sack towns, abduct children, bomb trains and get rewarded. Boko Haram fighters get amnesty. Their victims get silence. Under Abacha, this would have been unthinkable. Brutal? Yes. But predictable. Effective. And in some ways, oddly just.

Churches are bombed, mosques razed,  70,000 murdered and counting  and what did the “people’s government” do?

Paid them. Fed them. Rehabilitated them.

Meanwhile, soldiers died. Civilians died. And the insurgents regrouped. It is the moral equivalent of paying rapists to apologize.

A military government, for all its sins, would never have stood by while bandits abduct children in droves and vanish into forests.

No one has been punished. Not one Boko Haram commander has been publicly executed. Not one. What kind of country rewards terror? 

In a surprising twist of fate, it took another retired general  Muhammadu Buhari  to resurrect June 12 from the grave of collective amnesia. In 2018, he declared June 12 Nigeria’s official Democracy Day. Abiola was posthumously awarded the GCFR, the highest national honour, usually reserved for Presidents.

“We cannot rewind history. But we can atone for its injustice.”  President Buhari, June 12, 2018.

But was it redemption or political chess? An olive branch to the South-West ahead of elections? A symbolic act with no real change?

Either way, it stirred something. A reckoning. A return of history long buried.

To Gen Z Nigerians who only know military rule from textbooks, understand this.June 12 is the day your parents wept for a country that could have been. It is the day that Nigeria proved it had the maturity to elect a unifying leader and the day its rulers proved they didn’t trust its people.

It was the day a billionaire Muslim won in Christian enclaves. The day a Yoruba man became the candidate of the North. The day Nigeria stood tall  before being betrayed by the very custodians of power. June 12 is not just a memory. It is a mirror. It reflects the Nigeria that is possible and indicts the Nigeria we have.

And so, we ask.What is democracy without justice? What is voting without accountability? What is the point of celebrating June 12 while the spirit of it is still murdered every four years in rigged elections, violence, vote-buying, and ethnic baiting?

Until June 12 lives in our institutions, in our electoral processes, in how we treat dissent it remains a date, not a reality.

“You cannot shave a man’s head in his absence. Let my mandate be restored.”  M.K.O Abiola, 1994.

But Abiola never saw that day. He died in detention. A martyr.

Democracy is not a we ceremony. It is not an anthem. It is not a public holiday. Democracy is the courage to do what is right even when it costs everything. On June 12, Nigerians chose right. Their rulers chose power. And the consequences still haunt us. Have we betrayed Abiola again this time, not by annulment but by apathy?

Until we respect June 12 not just in words, but in how we govern, how we vote, and who we hold accountable, the struggle continues.

Let June 12 not be a tombstone. Let it be a starting line.