ABUJA – True to his earlier declaration, President Muhamymadu Buhari yesterday, formally confered on late Ch7ief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, the Commander of the Federal Republic as the winner of the June 12, 1993, Presidential election, that never was.
This is even as the President apologised to the family of the presumed winner of the June 12, 1993, presidential election, Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, for his travails after the election.
Kola, the eldest son of late Chief Moshood Abiola, received the national honour on behalf of his late father.
President Buhari presented the insignia to him after the citation of the late politician was read at the venue of the well-attended event holding inside the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Also honoured were Amb Babagana Kingib, late Abiola’s running mate and late Chief Gani Fawehinmi for growing Nigerian democracy.
The conferment of the honour on the late Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola comes 25 years after the election, which is recognised as the freest in the country’s history.
It came almost 20 years after Abiola died in detention after being jailed by military dictator General Sani Abacha for trying to claim his mandate.
“On behalf of the Federal Government, I tender the nation’s apology to the family of late MKO Abiola, who got the highest vote [in the election], and to those that lost their loved ones in the course of the June 12 struggle,” President Buhari said before getting guests to observe a minute’s silence in honour of those who died.
The decision to honour MKO Abiola and to declare June 12 Democracy Day followed years of clamour by the activists, statesmen, groups as well as the family, associates, and friends of the late businessman and politician.
President Buhari believes it is important for Nigerians to accept the decision “in good faith” and help the nation move forward.
“We cannot rewind the past but we can at least assuage our feelings, recognise that a wrong has been committed and resolve to stand firm now and ease the future for the sanctity of free elections,” he said.
“Nigerians will no longer tolerate such perversion of justice. This retrospective and posthumous recognition is only a symbolic token of redress and recompense for the grievous injury done to the peace and unity of our country.”
According to the President by moving past the negatives of the struggle, Nigerians would be able to fully benefit from June 12.
“Our action today is to bury the negative side of June 12 – side of ill-feelings, hate, frustration, and agony. What we are doing today is celebrating the positive side of June 12,” he said.
However, in what looked like a day of apologies, Abiola family took their turn to apologise to President Buhari, for whatever wrong their patriarch, MKO Abiola could have inflicted on President Buhari at any time in history.
Hafsat who tendered the apology, told the audience that her father, Abiola, was already rehearsing how to deliver his inauguration speech as the President before the election was annulled.
In an emotion-laden voice, she said her late mother told her how Abiola was standing before a mirror to rehearse his inauguration speech.
“Because MKO Abiola was a stammerer, I was told he never went beyond ‘Fellow Nigerians’ in the speech,” she said.
Also speaking, Femi Falana (SAN), asserted that by the conferment, President Buhari has announced the result of the annulled June 12. 1993 presidential election and urged the President to direct security chiefs to restore the rights of all Nigerians.
In his veiled reference to late Gen. Sani Abacha, the maximum ruler who clamped Abiola into prison, Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, enjoined President Buhari to stop admiring and displaying loyalty to an unnamed individual whom he referred to late MKO “Tormentor-in-Chief.”
Although Soyinka did not mention Abacha’s name specifically, the Nobel laureate said it was confusing for Buhari to honour Chief Moshood Abiola on the one hand, and be admiring the late politician’s “Tormentor-in-Chief” on the other.
He wondered why President Buhari will continue to display loyalty to a man he described as “one of the worst dictators in the history of the country” and who should be having his days in court for crime against humanity.
Soyinka said that in a private meeting with Buhari, he had also raised concerns over how the President could be saying his administration was fighting corruption, whereas a major road in the Federal Capital Territory is named after a “corrupt former leader.”
He said he was not satisfied with the response he got from Buhari.
He called on the President to consider establishing a Hall of Shame for those who have wronged the country, just as he puts up Hall of Fame for the nation’s heroes.
Apparently elated at the recognition for MKO, a national leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, noted that President Buhari deserved a second term and that he would work for his victory in the 2019 presidential election.
While highlighting some of Buhari’s achievements, Tinubu claimed that Nigerians are no longer paying for darkness, giving an indication that electricity supply has become stable under the present administration.
He also lauded Buhari for the school feeding programme, a component of the government’s Social Investment Programme.
Also at the event, letters of apologies were received and read from former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who was said to be in far away Norway for an international engagement. He wished the Abiola family well with their new title.
A letter of apology was also received from former Gen. Ibrahim Babangida for his absence at the ceremony.
On June 6, 2018, President Buhari declared June 12 Nigeria’s new Democracy Day and announced that Abiola, and his running mate Babagana Kingibe, as well as human rights activist Gani Fawehinmi, would be honoured along with other heroes of democracy.
Although some have questioned the motive behind the move, the President rejected the claim.
“The decision at this event is not mean to be, and is not, an attempt to open old wounds but to put right a national wrong,” he said.
Nigerians, of their own free will, voted for Chief MKO Abiola, and Babagana Kingibe – the presidential flag bearer and running mate of the Social Democratic Party in the 1993 elections.”
He accused the government of the day of cancelling the elections when it was clear who was going to be the winners.
Although the 1993 general elections received widespread acclaim and have been adjudged as the freest and fairest elections in Nigeria’s history, military Head of State at the time, General Ibrahim Babangida annulled it.
But Chief Abiola who contested under the Social Democratic Party and held a massive lead at the polls before the annulment insisted on his mandate and that the outcome of the election be upheld.
As a result of his fight for justice, military President General Sani Abacha jailed him in 1994 after he declared himself the lawful president of Nigeria.
Despite calls in Nigeria and abroad for his release he was not released from prison and died incarcerated on July 7, 1998.
