By Rotimi Fasan
JUNE is the month of Nigeria’s controversial election that was held in 1993, precisely on 12th,  a day many Nigerians believe was specially set apart to make all that was wrong with electoral matters in Nigeria right.

The fact that all that could go wrong went right on this day made the annulment of the election and the controversy it generated thereafter all the more remarkable.

The truth really is that no Nigerian election has been controversy-free. Many times the foundation for the controversy would have been programmed into the elections right before the first votes had been cast. It’s therefore always easy to see and read bad faith into the management of such elections by those disfavoured by them.

Late Chief MKO Abiola

The manner the Jonathan administration has been manipulating issues within and outside the PDP, for instance, makes clear that the 2015 elections will suffer credible problems if nothing is made to steer the President and his supporters off the path political misconduct.

The taste of power has become irresistible for our so-called reluctant politician and everything, both fair and foul, is being done to stir trouble in the PDP, their Governors’ Forum and among the opposition.

When all manipulations have been exhausted and indeed done with, the coming election for which all arsenals have been deployed would have suffered irreparable moral deficit.  It was different with the June 12 election.

Then the usual drama that accompanies Nigerian elections had been played out fully with incessant shifts in the military transition having come to an end. The field was then left for such key players as the ABN, Third Eye and Arthur Nzeribe, among others.

These too would play themselves into exhaustion such that on the day of the election only the supernatural, a definite ‘act of God’, could have stalled or disrupted the election. But on this day there was neither an earthquake nor was there a tremor.

There was neither violence nor threat of any. All went well. Until the military intervened and the pre-election actors that had been silenced were jolted back into action. Twenty years on and the book is yet to be closed on the matter. It might never be fully closed.

The 20th anniversary of the election has slipped in quietly. And although I knew the date was around the corner, indeed, it fell on that day of the week this column appears, I had a different point to talk about. Yet I didn’t think the 20th anniversary of such a day as the June 12 election should go unremarked, hence my return to it.

This anniversary was another opportunity for comrades in the fight to validate the electoral mandate given Moshood Abiola, the winner of the election, to come together.

These activists took time out to mark the 19th anniversary of the Epetodo Declaration during which MKO Abiola declared himself president after the military failed to do so following months of political stalemate. In the Yoruba-speaking states of the South-West, the day was marked in different ways.

While some declared public holidays, others organised symposia and discussed the significance of that election in Nigeria’s history. As usual there were calls for proper recognition of Abiola as symbol of the election. The civilian administration of Obasanjo failed remarkably to do anything by way of recognition of Abiola or the victory that the June 12 election represented.

Indeed, the declaration of May 29, the day Obasanjo was sworn in as Nigeria’s president after 16 years of military rule- declaration of this day as Democracy Day has been seen by many Nigerians as indication of Obasanjo’s aversion to any kind of recognition for Abiola.

The attempt by the Jonathan administration to accord Abiola recognition was as self-serving as Obasanjo’s declaration of May 29 as Democracy Day.

The administration renamed the University of Lagos, Moshood Abiola University without consultation with the university community. Having failed to follow due process in renaming the university, the administration soldiered on determinedly, arguing it has the right to do as it pleases in the matter.

The entire episode was a fiasco as it only brought unwanted and indeed bad publicity to the administration.

The insensitivity displayed by the Jonathan administration during the renaming episode is only matched by that displayed by the so-called head of the Abiola family, Mubashiru Abiola, who on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the June 12 election announced that Ibrahim Babangida has been the pillar of the Abiola family, providing financial and moral support whenever this was needed.

Mr. Mubashiru Abiola spoke in a manner clearly meant to counter the general perception that Babangida bore personal responsibility for the annulment of the election.

But more than this, the statement from MKO Abiola’s so-called brother portrays him as one whose sole concern is about how much economic or financial advantage could accrue from the annulment of the June 12 election, the death of Abiola and his wife, Kudirat to the Abiola family if not Mubashiru himself.

For Mr. Mubashiru also made loud complaints about failure to compensate the family for the financial loss suffered by the family (Abiola?). While he may be right to demand compensation for losses deliberately brought on Abiola’s businesses by the military, the self-appointed spokesperson of the Abiola family has no business talking as if his membership of the extended Abiola family confers on him special rights to speak on the larger issues concerning the June 12 election.

If as a friend of  Abiola, Babangida has been of assistance to Abiola’s family, it is insensitive of Mr. Mubashiru to make this point at the same time people, many of who suffered serious losses, including bereavement and bodily harm- it is crass of Mubashiru to choose the time such people and others are calling attention to more fundamental issues raised by the June 12 election to announce Babangida’s generosity to him or his own part of the Abiola family. For it is now clear Mubashiru couldn’t have been speaking for the entire family.

If the June 12 election and the battle to accord MKO Abiola recognition has been dogged by controversy, it is statements like Mubashiru’s that complicates what should ordinarily be a simple matter. He has turned a serious matter of principle into one of cheap pursuit for lucre. The disgrace is his and the so-called family he claims to speak for.