When Professor Eghosa Osaghae succinctly described Nigeria as a ‘Crippled Giant’, he was merely speaking the minds of many. That appellation, if we are to further interrogate it, describes everything that has been wrong with Nigeria since independence and in contemporary times. Nigeria is a contraption whose fuel tank has been filled with all sorts of liquid chemicals. For the fact that the only food the contraption called Nigeria need is fuel, having filled it with other kinds, we expect that its workability becomes ensnared. That is exactly what Nigeria and those who continue to hold it on its jugular, refusing to move it out of its lethargy, represents. Even when the late Chinua Achebe identified leadership as the bane of the country over three decades ago, leadership it is which continues to confound us. It is therefore, the reason why even as we bask in the euphoria of our nascent yet shaky democracy, those who are supposed to recognise democracy from where it was coming from have failed to give it the recognition it deserves.
It is quite shocking to know that June 12, a rather rare and unique day and one which marked perhaps the only day Nigerians forgot their differences, irrespective of tribe, religion and tongue, marks its 20 year epoch in our history, yet we are still undecided as to how to accord that day its rightful place in our political journey to democracy. Since 1999, all those who have tasted power at the top have refused to listen to wise counsel in identifying the June 12 struggle. They have continued to play politics with a very delicate matter which can never die with the past. How have we forgotten so soon that even when Chief M.K.O Abiola kept demanding for his mandate, reiterating how he would hold the day he became the president of Nigeria in history, faceless and yet to be identified groups and individuals seized his mandate, gagged and incarcerated him. As if that was not enough, at the height of his release, both national and foreign interests swiftly connived in a clandestine conspiracy to remove the head to cure the headache. If for nothing, that act itself should have appeared to those at the top as the height of injustice which ought not to be treated with kid gloves. Today, we have acted as if nothing had happened in the past and therefore, believe all is well. We simply forget that those who ignore the past are swiftly condemned by it!
June 12 may seem to those at the top as an irrelevant period in our history. It may appear as yet another useless eon that should necessarily be swept under the carpet like past ones which comes to us in fragments. It may sound to the Nigerian leadership as that period that must be suppressed, buried or even thrown in the dustbin of history, but we must not forget that the past always has its way of finding and haunting the present and future. Are we surprised that 53 years since independence and 14 years into our nascent democracy, we are still battling with electoral malfeasance? Are we not shocked that we are yet to find that good luck we have always yearned for even when ironically, good luck seems to be the norm peddled everywhere by political shenanigans and economic sycophants with little or nothing to show for it? Are we not seeing that ethnic tensions and religious intolerance which June 12 swiftly shoved aside have begun rearing its big and ugly head more than ever before in our political history? It is only the blind that would simply deny seeing the paintings on the wall. Even the blind in today’s Nigeria sees better than those with eyesight!
June 12 should not be yet another aberration in our means to move forward, if at all we are moving forward in a country bedevilled with resounding challenges. If for all the salt we are worth, we cannot give adulation to that day and the significance it envisages; then we are not worth celebrating our heroes past which Chief Abiola luxuriously belonged. It is most unfortunate that the democracy we all claim to enjoy today, even when there is nothing to enjoy, what with the myriads of challenges confronting us as a nation, is not seen from the angle of the June 12 insignia. We are blinded by our prejudices that we do not understand that one man, against all odds and who despite the wealth, fame and connections in his possession, which ordinarily should have been channelled towards personal comfort, decided to suffer and risk his life and all the good things of life to pay the price for the freedom we are quickly tearing apart today, if the imbroglio in the North is anything to go by.
Chief Abiola died for a cause and that cause marks 20 years this month. That itself should be the reason for those who hold leadership position in the country to grow some conscience within their hearts. We understand that the present administration is doing a lot in terms of giving Chief Abiola and June 12 a place in our contemporary history. We recognise the renaming last year of a university in honour of Chief Abiola, yet cannot fathom why a man whose name was imposed on the university community cannot be honoured better by making June 12 Democracy Day, rather than the one the military had imposed on us willy-nilly since 1999.
Renaming a national monument would have been the highest honour Chief Abiola could have gotten, coupled with the recognition of being one of the past presidents of this great country. Abiola meant a lot to all Nigerians and we must do his memory a lot of good, not by mere rhetoric or speeches, as we have witnessed in the last one year but by committing ourselves to acts that pursue equity and social justice for our nascent democracy and the vast majority of our people, after all, the democracy we all critique vehemently today was what Chief Abiola died for.
RAHEEM OLUWAFUNMINIYI is a social commentator and wrote via creativitysells@gmail.com
