Chief MKO Abiola: The Complicity Of SilenceByClarius Ugwuoha
Basking in the euphoria of our nascent democracy, there is the tendency to forget the dreary days of military dictatorship and the heroes of our present emancipation. It is, however, inexcusable that Nigerians have so easily consigned Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola to the trashcan. It is more awful that successive Governments, since his demise in questionable circumstances, have refused to absolve themselves of moral complicity, by according Chief Abiola his rightful place in the historical development of Nigeria. Not a single national monument has been raised in honour of the man who only a few years ago bestrode this terrain like a colossus, the man whose blood watered the path to bourgeoning democracy in Nigeria. It is quite predictable that without Abiola’s struggle the military would still hold the forte. It is a sad and tearful reality that the African pillar of sports, the forerunner of our present democratic experience, the man who clothed the naked, airlifted pilgrims and sportsmen alike, the philanthropist extraordinaire whose eventful life touched off on every nook and cranny of Nigeria, remains forgotten and deserted in death.
The June 12 1993 presidential election was signalized. It remains a historical watershed in our polity. For the very first time, Nigerians voted massively in a threat-free atmosphere, not only choosing a Southerner, but also endorsing a Muslim-Muslim ticket. This in itself was proof of the reach and penetration of the Abiola personality. Prior to the elections, Nigeria was in the grasps of iron-cast dictatorship. Through mind-blowing prevarication, and foot-dragging we finally arrived at an election that must remain a national standpoint. But the very proponents tactically stymied the actualization of the June 12 mandate. They deserted Abiola and embraced a placatory, counterfeit mandate. The beneficiary of that largesse with only the military oligarch as his constituency ran riot. The rest is history.
Upon Abiola’s demise, an insensate country was for once scandalized. The national hysterics, however, quickly whittled down to isolated protests, then to complete quiescence. The spontaneous outrage was real, the ensuing blackout inexplicable. Abiola went under, into the catacombs of our forgotten heroes, as swiftly as our collective volatility, only reappearing yearly as an appendage of the June 12 memorial. Chief MKO Abiola is a hero forgotten, sadly, by even those levered up the heady heights of power by his historic struggle. Was Abiola an accident of history, a parenthesis, a sad reminder of our circuitous path through time? Was Abiola a meteor whose tempestuous flash through our stygian polity was just a brief interpose? History will not forgive our complicity of silence in refusing to accord Chief Abiola his rightful place in the history of our great country.
Chief Abiola died betrayed and forsaken by his very cheerleaders, who quickly re-embraced his detractors and consigned him to the archives. Have Nigerian players, in the elation of their current enhanced conditions, for once stopped to ponder over the gory fate of that great man to whom they cried for succour in the dreary days of yore? Where are the virulent national critics who stampeded Chief Abiola against nefarious military juntas? It is disgraceful that these critics are not leading protests for recognition and immortalization of the late industrialist and politician. It is shameful that these critics who knew from Abacha’s antecedents the ordeal that awaited Abiola in his gulag, yet goaded him on, are today unperturbed at the scruffy treatment of their erstwhile hero. Not even the lead, from a USA court, of probable complicity of the government then in his death could spark that storm of outrage of before. Our collective reflex as a nation is so unexcitable as to be on the edge of catalepsy. In a more responsible polity, Abiola would have assumed the toga of a national metaphor. His birthday would have been in celebration as a national holiday and his tomb would have been recast as a national monument. Mr. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela of South Africa, whose ordeal in Robben Island drew the attention of the entire world to the apartheid cataclysm in South Africa, remains immortalized while alive. Steve Bantu Biko of the same country, who, as a young black consciousness student activist, was wasted in prison by the agents of racial segregation, lives through the years. Dr. Martin Luther King junior, felled in his prime for fiery civil rights activism, remains canonized in the USA with motley of awards most of them posthumous, honorary degrees and, according to some sources, with over seven hundred cities naming streets after him!
Our loss of collective values is the crux of the matter. Streets are named after looters of the economy. Monuments are raised in honour of those who caused us so much pain and losses, who, by their omissions and commissions, led to marked reconfiguration of our collective psyche, spurning militants and criminals alike – for, yes, these are creations of our very system. How else do you justify the defeated proposal by the Ekiti State Government to immortalize the late Gen. Sani Abacha, not even on the more obvious ground that he looted the economy and caused us so much pain, but that he (sic) created Ekiti State! This incomprehensible proposition was coming at a time the lesions of his autocratic reign were still fresh, some of them subject of court proceedings in nearby Lagos. Who do we forgive this gaffe? Where are the monuments raised in honour of Chief Obafemi Oyeniyi Awolowo, whose free education in then old Western Nigeria gave Ekiti State her first crop of intellectuals? Where are the lofty headstones for Chief Michael Adekunle Ajasin, who presided over Ekiti as part of old Ondo state and who, at the military tribunals of 1983, was about the only civilian found not to have corruptly enriched himself? That is not a virtue actually, not a sign of emulative good breeding. It belonged to the same trashcan as Abiola’s martyrdom and the death of his wife, Mrs. Kudirat Abiola for our political liberation from the military oligarch. Smarting from his irreparable losses and taking thought for the demerits of intransigence, it is this incongruous logic of ours that made Kolawole Abiola, the eldest son of the late sage, to wisely shun untoward controversies. He did not want to be buoyed up and deserted mid-air, to be applauded to self-destruct in broad day and laughed to scorn in the confines of darkness.
Abiola’s sudden loss of caste, if not, total eclipse from our scheme of things begs urgent rectification. The late sage should be accorded the full privileges, even in death, of an ex-head of government. This is not asking too much against the backdrop of his uncommon sacrifices at the altar of our nascent democracy.
Chief Clarius Ugwuoha writes from the Ezeali Palace in Egbema |