MKO Abiola is the symbol of the nation’s quest for a soul. He sacrificed everything to fight governments that took everything but his Hope away from him. In losing his life, he gave Nigeria a soul to know the capability of a desperate government and the hope to fight injustice.
Unfortunately, most of the characters who fought alongside Abiola then, with some fleeing the country and others ending up in jail, have become the dictators they once fought.
On this anniversary of injustice, some Nigerians are again on the street to protest, and that #BuhariMustGo. Of course Buhari won’t go. Anywhere.
I’m also suspicious of attempts at removing a President in a democracy as uncertain and a state as unstable as ours through a channel other than an election.
The masterminds of the ongoing #June12 protests know Buhari will never voluntarily resign nor would the legislature remove him, no matter the storm. It’s not realistic, but it’s their right to protest. Nobody should blackmail or kill them for doing as our Constitution allows.
We inherited a nation that’s quick to shoot the unarmed agitator where sincere dialogue is advised, and yet incapable of demonstrating similar energy in neutralizing actual threats like the bandits serially invited to government houses for tea and cash-driven amnesty.
Even the most powerful countries on this planet haven’t succeeded in silencing voices of dissents, let alone one that can’t defeat a band of armed civilians lurking around its forests and captured villages.
Seven years ago, the people in power now protested Jonathan’s alleged conspiracy to decimate the North. They wove wild conspiracy theories to appeal to sectional sentiment that Jonathan was the sponsor of Boko Haram and had an agenda to depopulate the North and wreck its economy.
The wild conspiracy theories that Jonathan was sponsoring Boko Haram, driven through obvious fake news shared on Facebook and Twitter, were deployed in the “activism” of then opposition in their quests for power. Today, Jonathan, although not a model leader, has been vindicated.
The opposition of Jonathan’s days were unmistakably vile on social media and deployed it to “threaten the sovereignty of the state,” as they would’ve said if they were in power. So, Jonathan had more convincing reason to ban social media to “save” Nigeria, if we are being honest.
In less than three years, Nigerians will be in the street again to oppose another breed of politicians. Buhari will be in Daura then, reading about them as Jonathan and Obasanjo do today. Some of the people protesting today may swap places with the politicians they antagonize.
But transience of power is exactly the beauty of democracy. Democracy, however flawed, is the system of governing we’ve designed and codified in our constitution to prevent anarchy; it’s a perpetual quests for better representation and freedom to demand it.
The best way to preserve a democracy isn’t by cracking down on dissenters; that’s the surest pathway to anarchy. You preserve a democracy by acknowledging every injustice instead of shooting it out of your sight. Happy Democracy Day, Nigeria. #June12
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