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June 12, Milestone and Albatross

Brampton, Ontario, Canada
yemiadegbite@nigeriahorizon.com
June 11, 2008

Nigeria is a nation with many unfulfilled dreams and aspirations, many including some of our leaders believe that Nigeria has a messianic role to fulfill in Africa, it is the believe of many people after independence that Nigeria is destined for greater role in the emancipation of black people in the world. Many phrases such as “big brother’, giant of Africa etc were used to describe Nigeria, and our leaders imbibed that mentality and African nations look up to Nigeria for leadership, the discovery of oil and the consequent influx of petro-naira puts the country in good stead to carry many nations along. Our leaders put together aggressive foreign policy that saw Africa as the centre-piece of Nigeria foreign policy, Nigeria demonstrated the spirit of good neighbouliness, we protect instead of bulling our neighbours. Our foreign policy experts developed the 3-concentric circles policy, which means Nigeria, Africa and the world in that order will be the corner stone of Nigeria foreign policy. Whether or not other African nations buy this idea or whether they appreciate our good gestures is a matter of conjecture. The oil boom and the money we generated blinded us to the stack reality of the unstable part of our body politic. The leaders lost every touch with reality, corruption runs deep in every aspect of our national life. From Gowon to Babangida, they pursued shadows and lust the substance. Agriculture that used to be the corner stone of our economy was neglected, it was a matter of time before our over dependence on oil will boomerang, and then came the oil gluts of the 70s which rudely awoke us to the stack reality of our folly. We began to run from pillar to post to fix the problems we made for ourselves. From SAP to FEM and SFEM, nothing seemed to work for the nation. People groan under the heavy yoke of structural adjustment, we went from one military regime to the other, from WAI to MAMSER, the symptoms persisted! Many people resigned to fate. Nigeria lost many professionals that have been trained with public money to western countries all in search of the proverbial greener pasture, every aspect of the economy was collapsing before our very eyes; nobody appeared to have the remedy. From multi-party to 2 party system, yet the military held on to power, from one generation of military officers to the other, things moved from bad to worse, I grew up in Nigeria thinking that military rule is the norm around the world.

Out of the chaos, appeared the man MKO Abiola who happened to come when people needed change and a break from the usual, just like Obama came at the right time and moment; Abiola, the unlikely messiah stole the hearts of millions of Nigerians. People accepted his epistle and rallied round him form west to east and from north to south, but the military forces abhor his type of change and hated his guts, hence the military circumvented the peoples’ will and jettisoned our collective agreement. The aftermath was grave, heaven was let loose and people rejected the military with all the will-power they could muster and in response, the military unbleached its attacking machines. The rest is history today.

June 12 will remain indelible in the history of the struggling masses of Nigeria. It was the day the country elected one of her illustrious sons in a flawless election which the military arbitrarily and unscrupulously annulled, just to satisfy their ego and hidden agenda to the detriment of and at the peril of the entire nation. Contrary to the belief of our people and the picture that the military painted about the organization, it clearly revealed how unpatriotic and sacrilegious the military could be.

Babangida and his cabal defied the voice of the people, annulled part of our history and then rolled out their military machine to suppress the people in a fashion that we have never experienced before. Despite the threat of violence and actual use of violence and intimidation, people looked them in their eye balls and returned fire for fire. June 12 has become a national monument, a true day of national political independence, a milestone, a reference point and an albatross tied to the neck of people who oppose the ascent of Nigeria, the enemies of progress, the irresponsible ones among the ruling elites and the neo-colonialists who are still living in the past. Leaving the military, they now recycle themselves into politics and use their ill-gotten money to impose their will on the people. It was a period that the whole nation stood still and demanded justice, equity and fair-play. The military forces cornered themselves, and found their hands tied to their back right in the middle of boxing ring. The people insisted that they have had enough of the junta.

The military even though won the physical part; my people won the psychological and moral part of the war. The good and progressive peoples and nations of the world identified with the masses of Nigeria, they sent strong message to the military brass that, coups and usurpation of the peoples’ will are no longer fashionable anywhere in the world.

It is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when June 12 would be declared as the “National Day of Democracy” A peoples’ regime would emerge in the very near future that would recognize the struggle of Nigerian masses, the role they played in sending the army to the barracks permanently, and thus ensuring the political superiority of electorates, such government would do the right thing and accord the people’s victory the pride of place and declare June 12 as the authentic and indisputable “National Day of Democracy” It is very clear that over 300 million Nigerians could not be wrong. This date (June 12) cannot be wished away by any group of people however strong the group may be. It is the day and date election was won by the people’s choice and lost by the government stooge. The day the military lost its strategic calculations and misread the intelligence supplied by their cannon fodders.
Those who perpetrated the illicit actions would regret it for the rest of their lives, whether they admit to it or not, the shadows will follow them to their graves, because, the evil men did leaves after them, the truth will emerge and the criminals would be brought to the court of public opinion and convicted. I am eagerly awaiting Humphrey Nwosu’s revelations, even though he had waited too long to set the records strait, I don’t know what should take him15 years to come out leaving field for the perpetrators to pervert history, but still, it is better late than never. The Criminals –In- Chief would always go around and maintain a bold face and told people that they had no regret, but the bottom line is that, the annulment was and still a pain in their flesh. In their characteristic manner, they gathered in Kano over the week-end shamefully telling us that, Abacha did not steal a kobo when all evidence pointed otherwise. Don’t they get it that Nigerians are no longer the fools they took us to be? They should be told loud and clear that, Nigerians know them one by one and the role each of them played before, during and after June 12, jointly and severally, they will atone for their sins, and those sins would be visited on their children and ground children from one generation to the fourth generation because June 12 has become an albatross that would sink them one by one.

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NigeriaHorizon.Com

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