June 12; Charting The Future From Knowing The Past: Abiola Sacrificed Himself To Save Nigerians From The Monster Of Unitarism Unleashed By The Class Of ‘66.
Tony Nnadi, NINAS
22 February 2025
(Being a Requiem to the Fading Class of ‘66 which gathered in Abuja on February 20, 2025, to Celebrate Their Conquest of Nigeria and the Weird Reconstruction of Nigeria’s Recent Political History).
PROLOGUE:
In seeking to extract and apply the Lessons of June 12, we must ask ourselves whether we now have a United, Stable Country after the Tremors that came with June 12; we must ask ourselves whether Nigeria is a Democracy despite the ritual of Elections every four years; we must ask ourselves whether we have addressed the issues of Justice and Equity thrown up by June 12. It will be dishonest to answer any of these questions in the affirmative, it is therefore necessary to ask ourselves Why? It is also necessary to ask ourselves: “What Can We Do To Arrest Nigeria’s Drift To Catastrophe and Chaos?”
For answers to the questions of Why things are the way they are in Nigeria and What we must do to avert what now seems a rush to Catastrophe, let us turn to the summary of a ringside witness to the entire June 12 saga, Tony Nnadi, who (along with many compatriots), is also a frontline participant in the search for viable answers to the complex Union issues that threw up June 12 and the Unworkable Unitary Union we now have:
For Nigeria, the search for a future that appropriates the lessons of June 12 will be better guided if we zoom in on certain fundamental factors that have largely been beclouded by the maze of emotions, pain, and intrigues but which hold the key to navigating Nigeria out the present chaos.
Let it be recalled that in the upheavals that followed the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Election, the Presumed Winner, Chief MKO Abiola, fled Nigeria and carried on with the efforts to recover his mandate in the international circuit while widespread agitations continued inside Nigeria.
These Agitations attracted a wide array of supporters including Students, Labour, and Civil Society, and eventually spread to include Senior Military Officers who were contemporaries of Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha.
Such was it that sometime in 1994, the Leadership of this amalgam of disparate forces united by grief eventually met with Chief MKO Abiola to aggregate their efforts and distill specific objectives that address the known anomalies of the Nigerian Federation occasioned by the incursion of the Military into Governance since 1966 when mandate recovery is achieved.
The Main Outcome of that Meeting was that Chief Moshood Abiola committed to getting rid of the Unitary Constitution that was imposed on Nigeria by the Murtala/Obasanjo junta in 1979 from the coup of July 29, 1975, (compounding the distortions that began with the 1966/1967 mutilations of the Federal Foundations upon which the Nigerian Union was anchored) as his first act in office when his Mandate is Restored. Both Chief Abiola and those Senior Military Officers knew that Nigeria’s downward plunge began with the truncation of the Federal Constitutional Basis by the Military, for which reason there had been a loud agitation for the Convening of a Sovereign National Conference in the years that the Military drove Nigeria through a winding and an unending Transitioning Process.
It was that Meeting and that Pact that birthed the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) which took over the coordination of the rest of the epic battle to Recover the Mandate of Chief Abiola, Return the Soldiers to the Barracks, and Return Nigeria to its Federal Basis.
Let it be known and above every other known factor, it was that commitment by Chief MKO Abiola to dismantle Nigeria’s Unitary Constitutional Order that eventually consumed his life. It could therefore be said that the Supreme Sacrifice made by Chief MKO Abiola was to rescue Nigeria and Nigerians from the Stranglehold of Unitarism.
Looking at what has become of Nigeria in the 32 years from the Annulment of June 12, 1993, Presidential Election, and 28 years after the 1998 Martyrdom of Chief Abiola, has the time not come for Nigeria and Nigerians to Honour MKO Abiola’s Sacrifice by finding the Courage to undertake that Unfinished Business of Constitutional Reconstruction for which Chief Abiola Laid Down his life?
With the confessions of General Ibrahim Babangida who presided over the Annulment of the June 12 Election, has the time not come for Nigeria to turn to the Constitutional Reconstruction Propositions of the Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self-Determination (NINAS) to chart its pathway to Redemption since the NINAS 5-Point Proposition is the culmination of all the processes undertaken in furtherance of the aforementioned Unfinished Business of both Chief MKO Abiola and NADECO, including the PRONACO that Convened a Sovereign Conference of the Peoples of Nigeria 2005-2006 producing a Draft Peoples Constitution, and MNN (now as NINAS) that went to Court in 2007 to Challenge the Legitimacy of the 1999 Constitution?
Now that we know that Abiola lost his life trying to rescue Nigerians from the Death-Dispensing Unitary Constitutional Order imposed on us by the Class of ‘66, is it not a tragedy that we should sit and clap for the Prefects of the Class of ’66 and Enforcers of Unitary Nigeria who gather to celebrate their Triumph over Nigeria in mockery of Abiola’s Sacrifice and the Suffering Masses of Nigeria INSTEAD of rallying behind the Task of Constitutional Reconstruction that will Liberate us from the Shackles imposed on us by these Soldiers of Fortune?
The Chief Legacy of the Class of ‘66 is the Imposition of a Unitary Constitution that has Nigeria made Nigeria the Poverty Capital of the World and Rendered Nigerians Slaves in their Homeland. The Institutionalization of Corruption and Impunity In Nigeria will also be to the eternal credit of this Class. What the rest of us owe to the Memory of Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Abiola is to banish the Unitary Constitutional Order Imposed on us by those who truncated the possibilities for Nigeria represented by the Victory of MKO Abiola in the June 12, 1993, Presidential Election.
NINAS Video Message: Nigeria In Ruins: Rejoinder To IBM Haruna & The Class Of “66.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-baFHRAjPA4
Tony Nnadi.
February 22, 2025