27 years ago…a national dream was aborted…
By Dapo Falade
Who knows, the Nigerian narratives would have probably changed for the better by now. The man came prepared, knowing what he wanted. He started out with the most sophisticated political campaign machinery ever to be witnessed in the polity.
Unlike the campaigns of calumny, mudslinging and character assassination that we are being inundated with in our contemporary politics, his campaigns were issue-based, deep, penetrating and touching the very fabric of our multi-faceted national problems.
He drew global attention to the prevailing issues in the country then. He meticulously explained how he would proffer solutions to those myriads of problem besetting our long-suffering Sovereign Motherland, called Nigeria.
A man of knowledge and native intelligence, he was able to convince Nigerians across ethnic and religious divides that he had an answer to the then collapsing economy, stunted educational development, prevailing infrastructural collapse, near absence of social comforts, bad roads and our near-hell transport
system and uniting a people who have been divided on the altar of religious and ethnic differences.
Armed with an impressive credential, but intimidating even the imperialists and their local collaborators, he led Nigerians, of all religious beliefs, ages and ethnic biases, out to exercise their franchise in the march towards entrenching the aborted Third Republic.
The support was massive, the turnout quite impressive as Nigerians…men and women…young and old…in their millions, defied the scorching sun to vote for the candidate of their choice in the June 12, 1993 presidential election. The exercise defied all political calculations as the people massively voted for a Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket on the platform of the then Social Democratic Party (SDP).
The then electoral umpire, the National Electoral Commission (NEC), was being showered with all forms of accolades and encomiums for organising a successful election devoid of violence (the first and only of its kind so far in the country’s history of elections), using the Option A4 system of voting.
The effects and impacts of the election were already being felt across the country…prices of foodstuffs and essential commodities began to drop increasingly, when it was becoming quite clear that he was coasting home to a sweet victory. Even his opponent in the election, Alhaji Bashir Tofa, had reportedly called to congratulate him on his apparent victory.
People, within and outside the borders of Nigeria, waited with bated breath for the announcement of the final results of the election and the eventual declaration that he was the winner of the acclaimed freest and fairest election in the country.
But this was not to be…the bubble burst and alas, the victory song was never to be heard… It became a mirage ever consigned to our national history of ignominy. The angels of darkness, in military uniforms and their cronies in flowing agbadas and babarigas, struck and thwarted what should have been the first real attempt at attaining national unity and cohesion, a sui generis yet unmatched.
The election was annulled by the devil alternatives… The hero of the democratic process, the late Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola, was denied his well-deserved victory. He began the longest tortuous journey that ended his life.
Instead of being heralded into the sweet seat of power, he was rail roaded into prison. Beaten and broken but not cowed. The national hero of democracy insisted, even from the four walls of the prison, on standing on his mandate, freely given to him by Nigerians on that fateful June 12, 1993.
MKO Abiola paid dearly for ‘stubbornly’ acting on his conviction and insisting on his mandate or nothing else. He eventually paid the supreme sacrifice as the angels of darkness snuffed the breath out of him, some five years after he was denied his electoral victory.
Unarguably killed by the state, on July 7,1998, the mysterious death of the multi-billionaire business mogul and globally-recognised philanthropist, has remained a monumental national tragedy.
Gone with the late Abiola was the mandate to, possibly, free Nigeria and Nigerians from the shackles and manacles of stagnation, retardation, oppression and retrogression.
Above all, the aborted Abiola Presidency would have charted a positive course in the democratic process, providing a leeway in the attempt at organising and conducting an election that would not only be said to be free and fair, but also seen to be free and fair.
Indeed, gone with the aborted Hope ’93 was genuine attempt at attaining a true national reconciliation and forging a country that, in all essence, belongs to all…a country in which the people will not be judged by their socio-economic status or religious beliefs but by the content of their characters.
Since the murderous murder of a mandate freely given on June 12, 1993, things have fallen apart for the country and its people are no longer at ease, as the centre cannot hold.
Sleep on, the great late martyr of our democracy, even as the hope for a greater Nigeria lies deeply buried in the underbelly of a dream that refuses to die…namely, achieving a pan-Nigeria where all the people will be true and equal citizens.
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