June 12 anniversary: Atiku, Tinubu, Soyinka storm Abiola’s residence

MEMORIES of the June 12 will be rekindled in Lagos today when some eminent politicians and activists converge at the family residence of the late Chief MKO Abiola, in Toyin Street, Ikeja.

On Saturday, the organisers of a special programme to mark the 24th anniversary concluded arrangements to ensure a hitch-free ceremony.

According to a statement by the chairman of the organising committee, Rotarian Olukayode Salako, the 4-hour programme, which will start at 8am, has the theme, June 12 and the Hope of Equitable Restructuring for Nigeria.

The chairman of the day is Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, while the distinguished key note speaker at the event is former vice-president, Alhaji Atiku Abubarkar, and the father of the day is the Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka.

“If there is anything, which has changed our country for the better today, it is the resolve of some Nigerians to make sacrifices or even die for democratic governance for Nigeria. MKO Abiola was one of these heroic Nigerians, who paid the supreme price with his life for us all to attain the present civil rule in Nigeria,” the organisers stated.

Meanwhile, Alhaji Abdulkarim Olola Kasumu, who is the president of the Afonja Descendants Union (ADU), has decried that the nation appeared not to have learnt anything from the June 12 annulment with the enormous sacrifice Nigerians made to restore democracy in Nigeria.

“Political dishonesty still continued among politicians and the political class. We can say it well that Abiola died in vain completely. It’s still the same thing as it was: betrayal, disappointment, disagreement, sectionalism, tribalism, ethnic jingoism and all that. It’s quite unfortunate. Until we have a rebirth, I am afraid that’s how it’s going to be for quite a long time,” he stated.

Relating his new stage play, Distant Cries, to the present situation in the country, Professor Olu Obafemi, an acclaimed playwright, columnist and Professor of English at the University of Ilorin, said that the anomie portrayed in the play, which actually happened in Plateau State, was a reflection of the larger macro problems of Nigeria society.

Similarly, a stalwart of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), Segun Apara, an engineer, said the elite had not “learnt any lesson, given the level of misrule in the land and violence that characterised electoral processes.

“We have enjoyed uninterrupted 18 years of civil administration; kudos to June 12 struggle. The election of 1993 which was massively won by MKO Abiola and annulled was packaged to ameliorate peoples’ suffering. Today there is suffering in the land and government lacks the will to change the trend to bring succour to people. Going by the way Nigerians came out in 1993 to cast their votes for MKO testified to the fact that Nigerians were prepared to work together under credible leadership. That the existence of this country is being threatened today shows that the June 12 struggle is in vain,” he stated.