5 lessons from June 12, by BALLASON Gloria Mabeiam

It was billed to be a routine exercise in change of leadership.
The media was awash with the campaigns.
Every kid on the street knew the jingles: … SDP, MKO, Kingibe action, Abiola! Abiola!!Abiola!!! Progress! NRC will then come on board Tofa! Tofa is the answer!!,Tofa!!! Exciting political space it was –well, exciting because Professor Humphrey Nwosu did his best in leading a National Electoral Commission that kept Nigerians confident of what the outcome would be and there was the vivacious expectation of a civilian rule that went with that confidence.
Then came the long expected June 12. Everything was going on well. Suddenly, the exercise was intercepted by commotion.
There was no collation. Things went dumb until General Badamasi Babangida, the then Head of State, took to the podium to accede to the fact that there was free and fair elections but for compelling reasons the military was unable to support the result and hence the results would be cancelled. From that moment, Nigeria’s politics as we knew it took a down turn.
The freest and most credible elections that had been conducted was cancelled.
Many years have gone by yet the effect of that event has refused to be diminished by time.
We take a look at 5 lessons that could be learnt from June 12, 1993. Lesson one: Nigeria is greater than any individual.
The best quote that captures this lesson is from Aisha Yesufu, the co-convener of Bring Back Our Girls, who says No Nigerian is more Nigerian than any Nigerian. Amusing that an individual will assume himself to have the perpetual anointing to rule over others and not be ruled by another.
General Badamasi Babangida sought for a way to hold unto power perpetually but there was the pro-democracy movement and the air of democracy that swept across the African shores.
The tide was too strong for him yet the General found power too intoxicating and its trappings too alluring to be relinquished.
He therefore planned to temporarily sublet power and to subsequently do a come-back.
The Nigerian Civil Rights movement led by Beko Ransome Kuti, Olisa Agbakoba, Prof Wole Soyinka, Chima Ubani and others rose in unison and led Nigerians to resist the imposition of military dictatorship.
In the words of Prof Humphrey, the real winner of June 12 is not MKO Abiola but those surviving Nigerians who resisted the government. No man is greater than the people.
Takes us to lesson two: Change has to be just that-change. One of my favourite TV vox populi is on TVC where a smart street fellow says “If we want to change, let’s change generally, let’s not change half(sic)”.
Change does not mean anything other than change.
The thickened plot of June 12 was to put up a show on what looked like a transition from military to civil rule while holding the strings in the wings for an eventual comeback to power. The problem with deception is that it leaves in its trail a calling card.
It often ignores to cover that shaft that allows the streaming light that melts the darkness.
Today, a colleague of military rule, President Muhammadu Buhari has in 2018 announced the decision to assign June 12 Democracy day. That is a veiled admission of the facts of what transpired.
It would have been more poignant if the government had released the results and declared the winner posthumously.
Such a move would, in my humble opinion, provide a platform for the total redress of that ugly bit of our history.
Change has to be total. Flowing from the second lesson is the third: Forgiveness Follows Admission.
The 9th March, 2018 meeting between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Opposition leader Raila Odinga marks a water shed in the history of African politics. It was difficult for those who watched the event to keep dry eyes.
After many years of mudslinging which exacerbated ethnic fault line and put the supporters of both leaders at logger heads, the key actors engaged in talks. They both promised to address the deterioration of relationships between communities and aggressive antagonism and communities.
Odinga and Kenyatta had experienced a light bulb moment that made them see the implication of the zero-sum ethnic politics of the country. It remains to be seen how the acknowledgement of the challenges and admission of guilt will lead to healing but that both politicians could look at each other and say sorry sets in motion an era where in Africa, politics of bitterness will be a thing of the past. Nigeria needs to grow to that point. Some of the principal actors who played ugly roles on June 12 are still alive. Nigerians deserve an apology.
Those actors need to be human enough to admit the pain they caused our country and to seek forgiveness.
In the words of Prof Humphrey Nwosu, the act of declaring June 12 as democracy day and awarding honours to certain people is not requiem enough. Admission precedes forgiveness and healing. Stand by principles is the fourth lesson.
The courage of Prof Nwosu in the eye of the storm will go down as heroic through generations.
Although he was appointed by the Babangida administration, he refused to pander to the schemes of the government that appointed him. He was not only a passive protector of the votes, he confronted the General Sani Abacha on the need to declare the elections and allow for civil rule.
Not so Alhaji Baba Gana Kingibe.
He abandoned the June 12 struggle and accepted to serve as minister of foreign affairs under the Abacha government, a government that vehemently denied the credibility of the election results.
Nothing is more telling than a man or woman who can fall on their sword for what they believe in for in the end, honour is its own reward. The fifth lesson is drawn from the heroine of June 12.
Love costs everything. On the 4th of June, 1996, Kudirat, wife of the undeclared winner of 12th June, 1993 elections was gunned down in her car along LagosIbadan expressway allegedly on the orders of the late General Sani Abacha government.
Kudirat was before her death on the frontline of the fight for the release of her husband and the confirmation of his elective mandate. Her death sparked a nationwide protest.
She was just a wife who did not like how her husband was being treated and sought justice through her advocacy for his release.
A version of the role she played has it that once, Kudirat and Maryam Babangida, the then first lady, engaged in fisticuff over the disagreement on the role of their husbands. Kudirat paid the supreme price of love.
Love sometimes makes a call on us and it’s a call that could cost everything.
Another June 12 story On the 12th of June, 2018, Prof Chidi Anselm Odinkalu the former Chairman of Human Rights Commission and an irrepressible human rights fighter turned 50.
Prof Odinkalu was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1988 and obtained his PHD in Law from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Odinkalu has been a lecturer at Harvard Law School,a senior legal officer responsible for Africa and the Middle East at the International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights in London, Human Rights Advisor to the United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone and is a Brandeis International Fellow at the Centre for Ethics, Justice and Public Life of the Brandeis University,Waltham, Massachussets. Odinkalu is a consultant to the United Nations, the African Union, ECOWAS and the World Forum. He seats on the Board of Global Human Rights and is the Chairman International Advisory Board of the Molluma Medico-Legal centre on Medical Malpractise and Mass Atrocities. Although Odinkalu is a global citizen, his life may be summed in one phrase: Servant of Justice.
We wish Prof many healthy years of fighting for the oppressed. May his dream for a just Nigeria be a reality in his life time.
Happy 50th Birthday Prof. Every blessing!