BY KEN UGBECHIE

There is something about June 12 beyond being just a date. It has come to represent curious but pleasant ironies. June 12, 1993 was a date of national irony in Nigeria. A people thought to be apolitical and dangerously divided along ethno-religious lines came out en masse to vote for their president.

They voted for Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola popularly known as MKO. He ran on the ticket of Social Democratic Party (SDP). His running mate, Babagana Kingibe just like himself is a Muslim. So, it was a Muslim-Muslim ticket. Together, they defeated Alhaji Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention (NRC) whose running mate, Dr. Sylvester Ugo is a Christian; a Harvard-trained economist who came into the fray with both scholarship and experience. Yet, they lost to persons of the same religion.

That’s the first irony. The second pleasant paradox is that the election was largely free and fair, void of the bloodletting that usually attended elections including regional elections in the country. The reason MKO won was down to the man himself. He was popular with the people; a giver, philanthropist, detribalized, nationalistic and truly a people charmer. He carried a certain measure of grace, was accessible to all categories of people. He had friends from all over the country.

Boisterous in presence and speech, MKO was uncommonly humble and was never one to flaunt his opulence to the hurt of others. Rather, he distributed to the poor, the needy and even to the affluent. A genuine people’s man from a humble background, he connected and resonated with Nigerians with his grass to grace story. His people skill was his X-factor. And he was the reason SDP won.

But MKO was robbed and raped. That’s another irony. How can a man so rich, influential and profoundly blessed with legion of equally if not more influential friends from America, Great Britain and everywhere be treated in the manner he was arrested, detained and killed. His wife, Kudirat, was murdered to pepper the injury. He was treated like a common criminal, a felon and a crook. Yet, he was none of these. He was a champion of the people, a true winner of a rancour-free election. Suddenly, the people’s hero was tagged a villain by the military junta. Brutal oxymoron!

And here comes the fattest of the contradictions. A good 25 years after he clearly won the presidential election, it has taken someone from the same military clan that robbed MKO of his electoral victory, killed him and murdered his wife, to recognize him as the winner of an iconic presidential election. More ironical is the fact the person honouring MKO is the least expected to ever as much as think of doing him such honour. President Muhammadu Buhari, a retired military General, a war veteran, perceived to be mean, austere and ascetic, is the one to cut the ice. He is an unlikely hero here. And he deserves all the plaudits and laudatory even emotive bursts of commendation.

So, a tough and mean Buhari did what his fellow Generals – Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha, Abdulsalami Abubakar, Olusegun Obasanjo could not do. He excelled where presumed democrats and bloody civilians like the late Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan woefully failed. This is the irony of life. Never judge a book by its cover. Even the Bible says that the first shall be the last and the last first. Buhari has turned out the genuine hero of our democracy. And he turned Obasanjo, Babangida, Abubakar et al to political scoundrels. And it has to be. The best of diamond was once covered in dirt.

I have never been in denial of the fact that something must be done to appease the Abiola family, the pro-democracy movements, the real actors in the June 12 stage and Nigerians who were deceived and dribbled by the military even as some paid the supreme price during the post-election trauma. This is just the tipping point. Nigerians can hold on to this as they hope that other injustices across the nation would some day be redressed.

Perhaps, some day in our lifetime, the civil war pogrom in Igboland would be re-visited. The organized massacre of men in front of their wives and children in Asaba during the war would be addressed; the mysterious murder of Dele Giwa, James Bagauda Kaltho, the mindless mass murder in Odi in Bayelsa and Zaki Biam in Benue; the 2015 death by a strange fire of the then Resident Electoral Commissioner of INEC in Kano State, Alhaji Munkaila Abdullahi, his wife and two daughters and many more unresolved incongruities haunting the nation would benefit from a national inquest. There is hope. I saw optimism in the wife of the late Gani Fawehinmi and his son Mohammed. I saw hope in the scions of MKO. I saw a renewed sense of being Nigerian again in them. We need more of such reconciliatory therapies.

And while we were festooned in mollifying cerebration in Nigeria, the mystery of June 12 spread its wings to Singapore, the majestic Asian nation that sprouted from the ruins of war courtesy of the great statesman, Lee Kwan Yew. On June 12, 2018, a ‘Little Rocket Man met with a ‘Dotard’ in a historic summit. Kim Yong Un of North Korea met with President Donald Trump of America. None trusted each other so they chose a neutral ground, Singapore, for the meeting. And it was all for world peace.

The irony of this summit is that it took two most unlikely personae to achieve this. One is a ruthlessly taciturn dictator who has amassed Nukes as toys; the other is a garrulous and rabidly unconventional democrat. Ordinarily, these two characters would repel each other. There is no nexus, no denominator, no common ground. But they were the one who demonstrated that we can find friendship in fiendishness. They taught the world that the cords that bind humanity is usually stronger than the force that pulls us apart.

Without dwelling on the finer details, the very fact that both men could plan it and execute it; that they could meet, shake hand, sit, talk and even sign a document to seal their agreement raises a banner of hope for a world without fear.  The world can build on this historic moment to foster global peace. And it happened on June 12, a date that throws up pleasant paradoxes.

Truly, Buhari has rekindled hope that a greater Nigeria is possible. He has appeased the gods and spirits baying for the nation’s soul. Those pointing at the illegality of the process should also consider the moral of the gesture. We can amend laws and canons but we cannot redeem a life lost. Abiola, his wife and those who lost their lives to the June 12 struggle including hundreds of Nigerians who died on our dangerous highways while running away from the theatres of war after the annulment of the election deserve our collective honour not legal inquisition into the propriety of such honour.

Let’s not use legal abracadabra to spoil the fun of the moment. I congratulate the pro-democracy movements and my constituency, the media, for standing on June 12.

First published in Sunday Sun