There was a massive turn-out on the Election Day and 25% total votes must be cast in at least 1223 of the states in Nigeria for a winner amongst the two who must also garner a majority vote of all votes cast across Nigeria, to emerge.
Chief Abiola, by fulfilling these conditions, secured the mandate of Nigerians and was supposed to be declared as the winner by the election umpire. That was not to be.
Chief Abiola loomed larger than life in the consciousness of Nigerians as he savored his victory having been given a popular mandate, the best so far in the annuals of Nigerian history. The government of the day led by General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida played hanky-party with the mandate.
Exhausted in patience, Chief Abiola consulted and made speeches here and there. Eventually, he crowned himself without the authority of the incumbent government. That was the beginning of his problems and hide-and-seek game with the government who saddled him with charges of treasonable felony and intent to subvert power from a constituted authority.
The hid-and-seek game ended up in his arrest, eventual arrest, incarceration, and death in prison custody during a stake-holders ‘meeting’ arranged by Mrs.
Gonozalez Rice, the then Regional Director of CIA in Africa and the Middle East.
General Sani Abacha had tactically maneuvered himself to power after displacing a hushed Interim National Government (ING) led by Chief Ernest Shonekan. Both Chief Abiola and General Abacha died in the struggle for June 12, and General Abdulsalam Abubakar was to jump-start Nigeria’s democracy by handing over his brief-tenured transition government in 1999 to Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who, kept in prison custody for possible liquidation by General Abacha, was brought out to sit at the hot seat of Nigeria’s Presidency.
Because Chief Abiola has become the central figure in the June 12 presidential election annulment for which annulment he paid the supreme sacrifice, we shall also be looking at some areas in his life which may, per chance, have been responsible for the visitation of sad fortune, the capricious feminine element that moderates the excesses of men, upon him and his presidential mandate. We are starting out with a statement credited to one of the sons of Chief M.K.O Abiola.
Jamiu Abiola, one of the sons of the acclaimed democracy champion, Chief M.K.O Abiola was quoted to have said that his late father would have implemented the same agenda as the current President, General Mohammadu Buhari is implementing in the country, if his father was allowed to live out his Presidential mandate. Jamiu made the statement in an interview to commemorate the 2020 June 12 Democracy Day.
Let us quickly recall that after reviewing the issues pertaining to June 12 1993 successful Presidential election held in Nigeria, the current President Mohammadu Buhari declared that date as the true Democracy Day to be observed by all Nigerians every year.
Jamiu Abiola did not tell Nigerians in which areas the agenda of his late father, if he had been sworn-in as the President of Nigeria, would have been the same with those of President Buhari.
Nevertheless, Nigerians responded in different ways to Jamiu’s statement. Some people condemned him for ‘selling out’ his father, others said that he is a bad representative of his father, while another set of people opined that if the agenda of Bashorun Abiola was to be the same thing as that of President Buhari, then, Nigeria may have been saved by God without the knowledge of Nigerians.
I restrained myself from making a comment immediately on the matter because I am a believer that history is not written in a hurry.
My knowledge and experience has instructed me in this regard. I had made this observation in some of the works I wrote in favor of Bashorun Abiola during the heat of June 12 annulment as referenced below:
1. “Swan-song of Unity” (Reflection Column: The Guardian on Sunday, October 10, 1993).
2. “Solving Nigerians Political” Equation’ (Reflection Column: The Guardian on Sunday, February, 13,1994).
3. “A Case Against Kleptocracy” (Reflection Column: The Guardian on Sunday, May 8, 1994).
When the biography of the Military President General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida was launched with fanfare, pomp and pageantry, I had observed in one of these works that, guided by the group consciousness and aspirations of the people for whom it is written, history is the summary of the events that occur along the road to the ultimate condition desired by a group of people.
These events include the gains, on one side as well as the difficulties and hurdles surmounted along the path of achieving these goals and conditions of the people, on the other side.
To this extent, every piece of information at the disposal of the people as the process of the writing of this summary of their lives (history!) goes on, is not useless. It eventually becomes a part of the history that is being written.
This is why the writing and re-writing of history is an everyday, on-going, and continuous process.
By this, history, as all historians know, is an open-ended process. This favors no one who aims to conceal it, re-shape it, or out-rightly destroy it.
No matter how long it is suppressed, the salient components of history strengthen up and shape themselves like a jigsaw puzzle as time unfolds. This is how resilient history can be, and the reason why I am personally suspicious of the expunging of the teaching of ‘History’ as a subject in the educational curriculum of young Nigerians’
In the place of ‘History’, future generations of Nigerians will be indoctrinated in religious knowledge, which sadly, has replaced the study of ‘History’ as a subject. In time to come, there will not be people like me who will track history and tell us how and where we have gone wrong. Karl Max observes this to be the conquest of the mind, which gives access to the resources of the people whose minds are being conquered. I am suspicious of this government in this regard.
As a public Affairs Analyst and Commentator with special flair for historical antecedents, I picked interest in the statement of Mr. Jamiu because it may after all assist me to sort out a riddle which has been going on in my mind for several decades now.
I do not know Jamiu, and would not know how old he would have been in the eighties and nineties. I would not also know if he would be able to know what happened that time because something happened at that time which gives a clue that the statement for which he is being condemned might after all not be lie. He may have talked from the heart, addressing an audience, a religious audience, who understood what he was talking about. I will adduce my reasons for saying so.
If Jamiu was not old enough to have such knowledge as to know what the agenda of a President of a country would be in the eighties and nineties, it would not be out of place to suspect that Jamiu laid hands on some of his late father’s documents as to know what his father would be doing in office as the Executive President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria if he had been sworn-in. This later assumption is both possible, plausible and most likely because Chief M.K O Abiola was known to be a meticulous businessman in his enterprises, a caring husband to his numerous wives, a responsible father to his many children, a trusted confidant and ally to his political associates, and a faithful believer and frontliner of Dawa’a activities in his cherished Islamic faith. Apart from these noble qualities, Chief M.K.O Abiola was also a generous and erudite pioneer in the businesses he engaged in, having been groomed in a humble background. His philanthropy too, traversed all the nooks and crannies of Nigeria.
I started reading the Newsweek and Times Magazines in 1977. As a matter of fact, I still have hundreds of copies of those two magazines in our country home, covering the period between the seventies and nineties. That was the active evangelism time of Scripture Union, SU, the Gideon’s, and ECWA (Evangelical Church of West Africa) evangelism. These Christian organizations, together with the Assemblies of God Church took Christian evangelism seriously, distributing Holy Bibles across African. As young men, we saw Bibles in hotel rooms and other public places. Bibles were generously given to anybody who cared to read by these organizations.
That was the golden era of Christianity in Nigeria before the ardent of the PFN, and emergence of mercantilist Christian religious leaders who preferred to acquire jets, mansions, cars and universities than distribute Bibles.
International Christian donor agencies together with these Christian organizations took Christian evangelism seriously distributing Bibles across Africa.
Up to the present day, Elders in Christianity specifically in Nigeria but generally in African regard this period between the seventies and the eighties as the golden era and harvest period of Christian evangelism in Nigeria.
Archbishop Benson Idahosa who mentored all the old generation General Overseas of churches, who, themselves mentored the new generation of General Overseas of Nigerian Churches was one of the architects of this golden era of Christian evangelism and harvest.
During this period, a certain ship belonging to a group of ship owners was hired out when ITT and some of her directors were operating a Shipping Line. The ITT was a telecommunication company founded by Chief M.K.O Abiola.
Some members of the ECWA in Kano State and some other parts of Nigeria had contributed money to print Bibles and Hymn Books overseas. They were assisted by some international Christian donor agencies who were interested in evangelizing Nigeria. The Bibles and Hymn Books, many of which were translated in Hausa Language, were destined for Nigeria.
That consignment which was boarded in the said ship never arrived in Nigeria. It sank in the high seas. What was not clear was the relationship of Chief M.K.O Abiola who was the Chairman of ITT in Africa and the Middle East as well as a notable Islamic Dawa’a chief and a foremost link between OIC (Organization of Islamic Countries) with the sunk ship. It was alleged that the ship was bought for that purpose and deliberately sunk by the owners to botch the safe arrival of the Bible consignment, in spite of the huge cost to the owners.
After reading Jamiu’s confession/revelation and with this story in my mind, I telephoned Dr. Charles Edeogu, a friend of fifty years from Dennis Memorial Grammar School, (DMGS) Onitsha who, yielding to our childhood passion, studied International Relations at the University. Both of us had steady supplies of our Newsweek and Time magazine from a newspaper vendor. This information was carried by the International press and widely echoed in the local media.
Dr. Edeogu, now an Associate Professor, was my closest Paley in our secondary school days because we shared the same passion for reading, information gathering, politics and international relations.
I called Dr. Edeogu to be sure I understood what Jamiu was talking about. I re-introduced the topic to him and he remembered it quite well. We refreshed our aging memories and quickly re-established contact with Citizen Seidu. Citizen Seidu is still alive with the ECWA church members. Some of the members, he said are dead.
Citizen Seidu, now elderly like us, still remembers. He still remembers that after contributing money with which they bought Bibles and Hymn books, they were told several months later that the ship which carried their precious cargo got sunk in the high seas. He also remembers that they also were aware of the information I have already narrated about the Chief and the ship.
According to him, several years later, they were suspicious of what will happen next to their Christian faith when Chief M.K.O Abiola contested and won the Presidency in Nigeria. But he quickly added that he and his colleagues prayed and were not surprised when the Presidency did not materialize.
All these things happened within the period that Nigeria, a secular state by her constitution, was ‘smuggled’ secretly as a permanent member of the Organization of Islamic Countries, OIC.
Not all Nigerians suffer amnesia as pertaining to the probable causes of the underdevelopment of the country in certain sectors of the economy. It is possible that Nigeria may have gone beyond the present level of development in the telecommunication industry if the ITT, derogatorily referred to, by the Nigerian music legend and prophet, Fela Anikulakpo Kuti as something I will not mention here, met its obligations properly to supply state-of-the-arts telecommunication equipment as expected of it.
Rather than supply digital equipment, it preferred to supply analogue equipment most of which, not even installed, rotted away in the warehouses of the defunct NITEL, scattered across Nigeria.
Young and ferocious forensic newshounds who still care to work like journalists of yester years should get down to do thorough investigative journalism on these hidden parts of Nigerian history. This will add to the information already available in the public space about June12. Nothing should be concealed from the knowledge of the people. Besides, this exercise might reveal a few things about the evil intentions of some Nigerian leaders to destroy the country by imposing a certain religious standard on a country defined to be secular by her constitution.
Those politicians in Nigeria who, because of power for themselves, their families and ethnic nationalities, try to use religion, language or tribe to foment trouble in Nigeria should look at what happened to some of their past co-travellers in anarchy and what remains of the families of others who tries to toe along the same path of fomenting trouble in Nigeria.
For all I Know, Nigeria as a country is spiritually resilient enough as much as it is materially endowed to survive the excesses of evil leaders and throw back the evils of those of them who foment troubles for the country, to their families and their interests.
In life, what goes around comes around in a manner you will least expect. As a Christian mystic philosopher, who have studied and experimented very widely and deeply into many philosophies and religions including Islam. I find reasons everyday in my life, in the life of people around me, and generally in everything that happens around me, including Nigeria, my country, to believe in and concur with the universal concept of Karma as a primary regulator, in the short or long run, for all human activities.
This knowledge and versatility has actually given prophetic appeals to certain analyses I have made. I found out, like anybody who makes the effort will also find out, that life fits well into predictable patterns, if one understands how natural laws work.
If Jamiu Abiola revealed anything to Nigeria and Nigerians, he made no mistake as people thought. He was guided by the external master-brain which controls the Karmic wheel of justice that allows nothing to escape either reward or punishment.
People should not take God for granted. What goes around comes around. The law of Karmic, that is, the law of retributive justice, is very real. Men should be careful of what they do because sooner than later, Karma comes knocking.
Vehemently detesting and abhorring a comparison between the present democratic dispensations with what the leadership would have been in Nigeria with ‘President’ Abiola if his Presidential ambition was realized, many people were rude in their responses, asserting that it was good that the will of God smashed Chief Abiola’s ambition to be President.
An Igbo proverb says that we should believe everything that bites in the night to be a mosquito so that we can have our peace.
Since the Abiola’s do not want the sleeping dog to lie and quietly savior their fame rightly or wrongly earned, and allow Nigerians to nurse their wounds and move on, it is incumbent on Nigerians to once again re-visit this matter.
Voracious forensic newshounds, I repeat, should dig into this matter now to reveal the truth so that this story of the June 12 Presidential election annulment with its successful candidate will be complete. This forensic analysis is more important as it looks like the hand of the monkey is quietly taking the semblance of the human hand in the suspicious agenda of the administration which Mr. Jamiu claims is working in tandem with the aspirations of his father for Nigeria.
The unending struggle for survival and the subsistence economy of most Nigerian’s have taken a dangerous toll in shortening the life span of public memory. Nigerian leaders are well aware of this for which reason they keep on inflicting more economic pains on the people to take their attention away from how they are governed.
This is sadism and it has brought about collective amnesia on Nigerians.
Let me also recall another incident. This is the story of The Statue of the Risen Christ. Let people who care dig up the story of the imbroglio generated by The Statue of the Risen Christ’ – a Christian symbol erected at the University of Ibadan Chapel of Resurrection. The statue was almost destroyed by some Muslim faithfuls who fell uncomfortable because the statue stood in front of a Mosque, in spite of the fact that the statue had long been sited there since the early sixties before the Mosque.
There were remote and immediate causes for that confrontation. What were they? Who was mentioned?
I have always believed that Chief M.K.O Abiola is a symbol of democracy for Nigeria. For him to remain so, everything about him must be known to the people whose hero he shall continue to be. This much I have written about on several occasions as have been mentioned earlier including a terse work on his 60th Birthday Anniversary when he was in jail in 1997. I titled the work, “A TRIBUTE ON HIS BIRTHDAY”. I repeated this work with an addendum and a remark in an issue of The Authority Newspaper in 2019.
Apart from all these write-ups, I participated in some of the activities of CONCERNED PROFESSIONALS, an affiliate of NADECO, in the NEVER AGAIN project. Where was Jamiu when we were fighting for his father?
It is insensitivity to what Nigerians are suffering in the hands of this government – insecurity, poverty, impunity, corruption, embezzlement, high-handedness, insincerity, lies, undemocratic attitude, nepotism, ethnic cleansing in Agatu and the environs in Benue State, religious cleansing in southern Kaduna, Kaduna State, greed, ineptitude, wickedness, etc, – for Jamiu to tell us that the man we thought that would have taken us to Paradise actually had it in his mind to clamp all us in hell. Nigerians understand that Abiola was not an angel. People like Jamiu must know when to talk and when not to talk. If he wants us to talk, we will talk, open up the Pandora box and demystify his father. To say the least, Nigerians deserve an unequivocal apology from Mr. Jamiu Abiola.
Abuchi Obiora can be reached via abuchibios@gmail.com