Now that another June 12th anniversary’s come and gone

He didn’t initiate the crisis, but he found himself bearing its greatest political burdens when he took over from the tottering Interim National Government, headed by Chief Ernest Shonekan on November 17, 1993, the country was literally on the verge of disintegration. The storm clouds of war were so dark and unmistakable that Nigerians were […]

He didn’t initiate the crisis, but he found himself bearing its greatest political burdens when he took over from the tottering Interim National Government, headed by Chief Ernest Shonekan on November 17, 1993, the country was literally on the verge of disintegration. The storm clouds of war were so dark and unmistakable that Nigerians were forced to adjust to the reality of the inevitability of the military intervention.
In fairness to Abacha, he didn’t cancel the results of the June 12, 1993 presidential election results, which favoured the late Chief Moshood Abiola. Unfortunately, however, he inherited the political burdens of the annulment of that election, which was widely presumed to have been   won by Abiola. In fact, Abiola himself told BBC in the interview that “the cancelation of the June 12 election is like aborting a pregnancy after the child has been delivered.”
In other words, with the results of that landmark election already known to Nigerians and the   international observers, it was absurd for the Babangida regime to have cancelled the election for flimsy reasons, which still remain unconvincing to discerning Nigerians. When General Abacha overthrew the Interim National Government, which was declared illegal by a Lagos High Court because it was conceived in illegitimacy, Nigerians didn’t have any difficulty appreciating the circumstances that brought Abacha into power.
General Abacha’s immediate achievement was his ability to stabilize the country, which was overtaken by uncertainty and fear of war. Thanks to the immediate fallouts of the annulment of the June 12 presidential election results, Nigerians became captive of fear and many were leaving in droves back to their States of origin. Many abandoned their businesses and sold their property to return to their home States because of the fear that the country was at the verge of a break-up. Mercifully, thanks to Abacha’s courageous handling of a difficult situation, he held back the country from the brink of disintegration.
It is always tempting for the June 12 warriors to overlook their own faults in complicating matters for Abiola. Their biggest miscalculation was asking Abiola to declare himself   President when a military ruler was in effective control of power. Diplomacy and political negotiation would have been a better approach than telling Abiola to declare himself President with a sitting military ruler in full control of power and authority.
In retrospect, it was naïve for members of the defunct National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) to advise Abiola to declare himself President. When Abiola was thrown into detention for his suicidal decision to declare himself President, the naïve assumption of the NADECO members was that the international community would automatically announce diplomatic recognition for Abiola “government”. Their expectations were dashed because none of these Western nations declared diplomatic recognition for Abiola.
Instead of learning a lesson from their disastrous wrong advice to Abiola, the NADECO members again bungled Abiola’s bail offer from the Abacha administration in 1995. Perhaps Abiola could have lived longer and survived the crisis if the NADECO members hadn’t misled him to reject the bail offer.
In fact, the rejection of the bail offer from General Abacha was NADECO’s biggest political blunder. They didn’t stop there; they also encouraged his late wife Kudirat to reject the bail offer. However, Abiola’s eldest son Kola appeared to be more realistic towards the bail offer. He went to court to stop Abiola’s lawyer, the late G.O.K. Ajayi, from representing his embattled father. Kola Abiola has wanted freedom for his father, he didn’t want his father to die an avoidable death in detention. In fact, Kola went to the extent of disagreeing with Kudirat over the proper legal representation of his father.
The unfortunate thing was that NADECO leaders and Abiola’s lawyer were dealing with the bail offer academically instead of approaching it within the context of existing political realities. Whenever the June 12 advocates observe the anniversary of that momentous event, they do so with poor or selective memory, pouring vitriol on the memory of General Abacha, and conveniently forgetting how their own naivety and miscalculations had cost Abiola avoidable death. You cannot logically observe an anniversary by re-writing history to bury your own follies and play up the flaws of your perceived enemies.
Abdulkarim wrote in from No.77, Kofaridua Street, Zone 2, Wuse, Abuja.