The mood of the nation was lifted once again as the news of the posthumous recognition of Chief Moshood Abiola hit the airwaves.
Before now, the people have been inundated with politically charged narratives that had little or no nexus with the average Nigerian.
For reasons best known to the nation’s past leaders, Abiola was denied his well-deserved recognition as one of the heroes of our democracy.
Expectations were high that late President Umaru Yar’Adua and former President Goodluck Jonathan, being civilians, would do what the military, in its conspiracy to offend the democratic sensibilities of the people, had failed to do by giving honour to this icon of our democracy. But they failed to do so.
The foundation of an enduring democracy was established in Nigeria through the struggle and the martyrdom of Abiola who insisted on the actualisation of the mandate conferred on him through the ballot at a time late military Head-of-State, Gen Sani Abacha, was playing the Russian roulette with the electoral process and was brutally morphing towards a military aberration of civil order.
Many politicians of national reckoning today are beneficiaries of the June 12 denouement, although some of them would rather play the ostrich by recognising May 29 as Democracy Day.
It is most commendable that President Buhari has refused to toe the line of his predecessors who have wished for a complete entombment of June12. The President has once again put his detractors on the defensive.
Bukola Ajisola,
