MKO ABIOLA DESERVES MORE THAN UNILAG

        The controversy that trailed the renaming of  the University of Lagos [UNILAG] after Moshood Aboila, the acclaimed winner of June 12, 1993 presidential election was certainly uncalled for. The gallery games being played by Action Congress of Nigeria and the People’s Democratic Party shouldn’t be connected with the well deserved honour bestowed on Abiola post-humously by Goodluck Jonathan. Any objection to the president’s action should be settled in court and not on the pages of newspapers especially for political gains.

      Though I did not vote on June 12 1993 because I was not yet eighteen years, but I was not too young to recollect events on that very Saturday. I was in senior secondary school and I can still remember the ‘MKO is the man’ jingle on both radios and televisions especially NTA then. The voters queued at the polling booths and it was an instant declaration at various booths after headcounts. It was called option A4 by the then military president, Ibrahim Babangida who imposed National Republican Convention and Social Democratic Party on Nigerians in an American-styled Democrats and Republican. The NRC was in power in Lagos with Michel Otedola as the governor of the state while SDP controlled Oyo, Osun and Ogun states with late Kolapo Ishola, Isiaka Adeleke and Olusegun Oshoba respectively as governors.

       The Nigeria Television Authority was busy with the broadcast of the counting of election results conducted by the then National Electoral Commission that was headed by Professor Humprey Nwosu.Abiola was obviously winning when Babangida suddenly ordered for the counting to be stopped! The rest events were history. Many politicians and right activists were arrested and incarcerated. I remember the then publisher of The Sunday Magazine, Chris Anyanwu was arrested and partially gone blind in a very dark and decongested prison. Some activist went on exile till the death of Sanni Abacha. The so-called Emperor of Lagos politics who was in exile then was the first to enjoy from the Abiola’s martyrdom when he was picked by Alliance for Democracy as the gubernatorial candidate and eventually became the governor of the state.

       Moshood Aboila’s wife, Kudirat Aboila was killed in cold blood by Abacha’s agents of death; his media house, Concord Newspapers was proscribed and has never seen  the light of the day since then; he was arrested and later killed in the no victor/no vanquish game of conspiracy by the later ruler who then enjoyed the backing and conspiracy of international communities. The claim by Al-Mustapha that Abiola was beaten to death shouldn’t be overruled.

      Abiola invested his money in Lagos than he did in his home state, Ogun.  His financial assistance led to construction of 63 secondary schools, 121 mosques and churches, 41 libraries and 21 water projects in 24 states of Nigeria, and was grand patron to 149 societies or associations in Nigeria. Because of this, Abiola reached out and won admiration across the multifarious ethnic and religious divides in Nigeria.

     The election was conducted and won by Abiola 19 years ago and the majority of the protesting students of UNILAG were not born, or were toddlers, then. The public disturbance by the self-claimed pro-MKOs remind me of some lines in the fuji music icon,  Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Barrister’s record ‘precaution’ that was released on the heels of June 12 struggle when he said that ‘Yorubas don’t love one another wholeheartedly. We are the one punishing Abiola and not other tribes’.    

      Obasanjo was in power for eight years and he never mentioned Abiola’s name [his kinsman] for eight seconds. May 29 was declared as Democracy day instead of June 12 that is the real one. I believe that if it was an ACN’s president that renames UNILAG, there won’t be much arguments and debates like these ones. The point remains that ACN leaders are afraid of Jonathan’s political point on this singular action! I am not a PDP apologist but I believe Nigeria has not reached her political destination where people criticize objectively and not subjectively. We need to applaud Jonathan on this action of renaming UNILAG as MAU-LAG. We should forget politics and strive to address the school as MAU=LAG like  University of Ife did after it was renamed Obafemi Awolowo University.