Prosecution of June 12 culprits,
Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP’s, call on President Bola Tinubu to bring the instigators of the June 12, 1993 presidential election annulment to justice is very thought-provoking. A recent statement by SERAP’s Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, called for the investigation and prosecution of those found culpable regardless of their current political affiliation.
This call is understandable, given that the annulment of Chief Moshood Abiola’s June 12, 1993 presidential election victory and consequent actions taken to sustain it, irrevocably changed the direction that Nigeria would have taken into its future. The derailment of that future has largely resulted in our current state of multidimensional state failures characterised by overwhelming poverty, insecurity and wholesale corruption, especially in the public sector.
The annulment also wrecked the Abiola family after its breadwinner tragically died in government custody and his wife, Kudirat, assassinated.In a properly functional society, this call for proper closure by SERAP would be the best way to address the issue in order to put it to rest. But Nigeria is far from being a properly functional society. A probe panel would be akin to the Justice Oputa Panel, officially called Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission, HRVIC, which President Olusegun Obasanjo formed on June 14, 1999. It was supposed to be Nigeria’s version of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It merely raised geopolitical temperatures but achieved nothing.
Many of the retired generals (including Ibrahim Babangida and Muhammadu Buhari) who were summoned by the Panel refused to appear. Ironically, Buhari still went ahead to win presidential elections twice in alliance with prominent June 12 activists like Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s current president. What can another panel on June 12 achieve beyond what has already been done as palliatives to cushion its effects?
These include the National Constitutional Conference (1994-1996), the mysterious “removals” of Abiola and General Sani Abacha to give Nigeria the chance of a new beginning, and the sacrificial assuagement of the South-West by Northern political leaders who brought out Obasanjo from prison and gave him the presidency? Since 1999, the North and South-West have cosily been sharing presidential power.A new constitutional order has overtaken June 12. Abiola’s victory has been officially acknowledged.
Several honours have been lavished on him and some frontline June 12 activists. June 12 is now Democracy Day. What remains is for the money owed Abiola to be paid to his family to rescue them from financial distress. More importantly, Nigeria also needs to take steps to restore the purity of our democracy back to the June 12 standards, through massive electoral and judicial reforms. Most actors of the June 12 saga are either dead or very old, which shows how much in the past it has become. Learning the lessons of June 12 is more practical than chasing after its ghosts.
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Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP’s, call on President Bola Tinubu to bring the instigators of the June 12, 1993 presidential election annulment to justice is very thought-provoking. A recent statement by SERAP’s Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, called for the investigation and prosecution of those found culpable regardless of their current political affiliation. This call […]
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, , Emmanuel Okogba, {authorlink},, , Vanguard News, June 26, 2025, 2:55 am
