The best thing to have happened to Nigeria in her 19 years of democratic dispensation is the proclamation of June 12 as a public holiday by President Muhammadu Buhari, to commemorate Chief MKO Abiola for the supreme price he and many other Nigerians paid in the struggle to entrench democracy and civil rule as a norm in our country. The election that was generally acclaimed to be the freest and fairest in Nigeria’s contemporary history was annulled by the military regime. With nostalgia, one recalls that this particular election survived all the barriers of our fault lines as a nation. The dimension of the conspiracy against the June 12, 1993 presidential election was greater than the self-styled evil genius, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, whose military regime “arrested” the result and thereby created a political impasse unprecedented in our political history. Therefore, the declaration is highly commendable not only because it has come as a response to the yearnings of a majority of...

Buhari P resident Muhammadu Buhari has directed that effective 2019 Nigeria’s Democracy Day, marked every May 29 for the past 18 years, be shifted to June 12 to honour Moshood Abiola, the winner of the 1993 presidential election. Election data showed Mr Abiola won the polls but he was never formally declared winner and was not sworn into office by the military government of Ibrahim Babangida. Mr Abiola was later imprisoned by the Sani Abacha’s military regime as he struggled to actualise his mandate. He died in prison in 1998. READ ALSO :  THE POLITICAL ADIABATIC STINT OF RT.HON. LARRY ODEY AS ACTING GOVERNOR: A WASTED OPPORTUNITY TO THE YALA NATION. Successive governments have brushed aside calls for Mr Abiola to be honoured and for the federal government to recognise June 12 as democracy day. The Buhari government said Mr Abiola will now be conferred with nation’s highest honour, the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic, GCFR. The honour is exclusively conferred ...