The Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership (CACOL) has urged the Federal Government to name June 12 Democracy Day after Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, the presumed winner of the June 12, 1993 election.
The group, in a statement issued by its Executive Chairman, Mr. Debo Adeniran in Lagos, noted that the day symbolised a new dawn in the nation’s history.
The CACOL boss, while acknowledging that May 29 had no political significance, except being a handover day, June 12 marked a rebirth of a new nationhood, which was about to spring up, but was unfortunately aborted by Gen. Ibrahim Babangida (IBB) military regime.
He said that June 12, represented by Abiola, was a unifying factor for the various nationalities that comprised the nation.
Adeniran stated: “June 12 incident was the day Abiola acquired the instrumentality of struggle that made him commit class suicide apparently by taking side with the majority of the Nigerian people that were very poor and ordinarily outside his original bourgeois class.
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“Abiola rekindled the hope of the Nigerian people and fought on their side, ultimately sacrificing his life for what an ordinary and average toiling Nigerian stood for.
“He campaigned throughout the length and breadth of the nation to give hope and succour to man in the street.
“He shocked members of his economic class by declaring that his emergence would signal a new beginning in the annals of socio-economic cum political affairs in the nation and would herald a time where ‘No Nigerian would go to bed on an empty stomach’.
“To the majority Nigerians, this was the galvanising factor the MKO Abiola’s presidency represented. He had demonstrated this before with his enormous wealth put at the behest of many unfortunate and struggling Nigerians, from the West, East and South of the nation.
“It was therefore, not surprising when he defeated his main rival, Bashir Tofa, at his own polling booth in Kano and most other parts of the nation.
“It was a day Nigerians collectively put aside their religious, ethnic and nationality grouping aside to vote a Muslim-Muslim ticket throughout the length and breadth of the nation and gave a general mandate to their symbol of ‘Hope 93’ as the slogan adopted by all.”
