June 12: How Tinubu can honour MKO Abiola — Okei Odumakin

As Nigerians look forward to marking the 25th Anniversary of death of winner of June 12, 1993 Presidential Election, Chief MKO Abiola, a right group, Women Arise (WA), has tasked President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to ensure his government impact positively on Nigerians by restructuring the country, among others, saying this would serve as a way to properly honour Abiola posthumously and also for the president to retain his National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) membership credibility.

NADECO was a platform used by pro-democracy groups in the country under the Military President, Gen. Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida and the late dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha, to press against the annulment of June 12 poll, and Tinubu, now the democratic president, was a very active leader of the group, which later secured the present democratic dispensation which the country enjoys from 1999 till date.

WA President, Dr. Joe Okei Odumakin, gave this task on Thursday in a statement titled: “25 Years between Hope ’93 and Hope Renewed ’23…The M.K.O. Factor,” copy of which was made available to newsmen in Lagos, noting that it would be intense moments if and when governance brings positive impact on the regular Nigerian, with issues of restructuring, security, economy, health, protected commonwealth, standardizing the Nigerian identity, among others, were addressed.

Odumakin, while making the call, noted that an enduring national conversation confronts an interesting context with the anniversary of the death of June 12 warrior, Chief Abiola, moreso that a key member of the NADECO movement in person of Asiwaju Tinubu, “sits in the office of Nigerian President.”

According to her, the office represented the prize over which blood was spilled, lives destroyed and anomie firmly established, based on the political struggle that later culminated into the current political dispensation in the country, just as she noted that Abiola, winner of the June 12, 1993, poll, whom she described as an unfamiliar angel of a different hue, was adjudged wrongly by the powers he was in contest with then.

“This anniversary of the death of June 12 warrior, an enduring national conversation confronts an interesting context.

“A key member of the NADECO movement sits in the office of Nigerian President. The office which represented the prize over which blood was spilled, lives destroyed and anomie firmly established.

“M.K.O. Abiola stood in the gap between light and darkness. An unfamiliar angel of a different hue who was read as too deep into comfort for a fight. But they read him wrong,” she said.

“Looking back 25 odd years after a drastically changed political landscape, what is left of the vision of M.K.O? The continental activist for reparations. The global quest for respect for sovereignty. He would ask…”we are a sovereign nation, or aren’t we?” The chorus. was a deafening “we are !!!”

“How does this moment then evolve? Abiola’s members, nay, members are holding the reigns. How much of the giddy past would the inheritors remember?

“How would a NADECO activist run town in an edifying memorial to the cause of a martyr and indeed a  cause he came to own. Could there be a greater quest than this? Was it Providence providing a wild tempt for the most effective Nigerian opposition to now be the one to be opposed? 

“Yes, there are issues of posthumous benefits which this President must treat to retain NADECO credibility. 

“It would be intense moments if, when, governance brings positive impact on the regular Nigerian…Restructuring, security, economy, health, protected commonwealth, standardizing the Nigerian identity…japa etc,” she added.

Joe Okei Odumakin, however, posited that all these tasks of restructuring the country and addressing economy, security and other challenges could not be attained in one fell swoop, but demanded that how much could be done should be done well “in a single dive.”

This was just as she reiterated her call that late Chief Abiola’s portrait should be hanged amongst those of former and sitting presidents, saying that if his portrait “could look down on this president’s table,” it was not impossible to imagine that the essence of his memory would be honoured. 

“Perhaps a fair measure before the next anniversary of that murder most foul!” Okei Odumakin further demanded.

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