When President Bola Ahmed Tinubu chose this year’s Democracy Day on June 12 to celebrate heroes of the anti-military coalition and other pro-democracy activists his critics, mostly the usual suspects of opposition elements who have turned political criticism into a career in finding faults by seeing nothing good about the President and his government, not only spoke too soon but from both sides of their mouths. Their initial reaction was to say there was nothing to celebrate in the country and then went on to slam the list of honorees as a roll call of Tinubu’s lickspittle, people who have been blinded and corrupted by the largess from the man’s famed storehouse of wealth. It was clear they were satisfied to remain in the mourning mood they had plunged themselves into since May 29, 2023.  

When their criticism didn’t seem to stick, the critics shifted their attention to the names on the award list, either questioning their contribution to the struggle for the revalidation of the June 12 mandate that was given MKO Abiola by Nigerians or demanding to know why there was a preponderance of Yoruba names on the list. They knew the answers to their question but in their usual way of engaging in needless provocation, they pursued a line of argument that feeds into a particular narrative that opponents of the struggle kept alive even in the heat of the struggle. Namely, that the Yoruba had turned the fight against anti-democratic forces into a Yoruba affair. They said this to justify their decision to watch from the sideline where they were not actively in bed with the military junta. The June 12 struggle was a pan-Nigerian struggle that brought together Nigerians, both the elite and others, from all parts of the country and across ethnic, sectarian and religious boundaries.   

But let’s be clear, the overwhelming majority of those who spearheaded the struggle and bore the brunt of it were for very obvious reasons Yoruba. The likes of Pa Alfred Rewane, Olorogun Alex Ibru, Alfred Ovie Kokori, Bagauda Kaltho, Chima Ubani, Chief Ndubuisi Kanu, Commodore Dan Suleiman, Air Vice Marshall Ibrahim Alfa and many more who were targets of state-sponsored terror and sanctions were not Yoruba. But to everyone of such persons we can identity three to four Yoruba that came under Sani Abacha’s terror watch. Even though he was given a pan-Nigerian mandate, the winner of the election was a Yoruba man and when push came to shove it was the Yoruba that took the lead in fighting for the reclamation of the mandate. It didn’t have to have been so but that was the situation in which the peculiar character of Nigerian politics and the natural order of things placed all of us.  

Who but the Ogoni and others placed in similar circumstances could have led the fight for environmental justice? It doesn’t mean others couldn’t have led the charge or that the Ogoni or others from the Niger-delta should be left to take on the fight as some Nigerians thought but only those directly affected by the issues would feel called upon to act with decision where others pussyfooted. In the case of the June 12 struggle, Yorubaland was also the ground zero of the struggle in the same manner as it was the theatre of the nationalist movement and fight for independence.    

Aside from the question of ethnicity, the Nigerian intellectual and political elite had their base in Lagos in the Yoruba-speaking South-West. The leading media organisations as well as their operators had their base in Yorubaland. Should a similar struggle begin today, it is a no brainer where the vanguard of that struggle would be located considering the human and non-human resources we would have to draw upon. Except that Nigeria’s political character, misshapen as it, has been radically redrawn in the wake of the 2023 elections and the fiercely identitarian politics it has birthed. Unless conscious effort is made to redress things, the days when Nigerians come together to prosecute a common cause may be behind us already.   That prosecution of a common cause that was, nevertheless, led by a majority of Nigerians from a particular part of the country was what some wanted to ‘badmouth’ with their rejection of the June 12 National Award List and with it their attempt at rewriting the history of that era.  

The latest of that gambit was played by Alhaji Sule Lamido, a former governor of Jigawa State. Lamido in the fault-finding mood of opposition politicians sought to rewrite the history of that struggle by claiming Tinubu supported the annulment of the election as a supporter of Ibrahim Babangida, the military leader that annulled the election that was considered the freest and fairest in the country’s history. Only Alhaji Lamido know the obscure point he wanted to prove by his hairsplitting explanation of Tinubu’s role during the election. For him, Tinubu only became relevant in the fight after the emergence of Abacha. 

How long was that annulment before Abacha took over to warrant this kind of convoluted explanation? The fact of the matter is that contrary to their public censure of the list of awardees, many of the President’s critics would have been glad to be recognised. That this is not one of those so-called “bogus” list in which every Tom, Dick and Harry has their name is one reason why some are angry about it. It didn’t give them a genuine excuse to condemn it. You have to have contributed something to be on it. What is worse, none of the awardees has rejected their award which is not good news for the critics who would have made a meal of it had somebody, especially somebody with sympathies for the opposition, rejected it with loud if political justification for why nobody needs to be celebrated in these hard times.  

Yet it has to be said that, this year’s list is largely political. It’s for persons with political connection or media visibility. There are also others with obvious media visibility that have been overlooked. One can only hope that their recognition would come may be in another year as everyone can’t be recognised at once. The majority of Nigerians who paid dearly for fighting against the military during the time in question are either in unmarked graves or lack media attention. They must be separated from those who openly or discreetly connived with the military. Those must seek their recognition elsewhere. We know those who provided both intellectual and legal backing for the military. Those who thought the struggle was a payback time for both the real and perceived sins of the Yoruba are also not unknown. Such must seek their own recognition elsewhere.