NADECO urges Fed Govt to immortalise Abiola

NADECO chieftain Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu (fifth left); President, Woman Arise (WA), Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin (sixth left), MKO’s sons, Alhaji Abdulmumini Abiola and Alhaji Jamiu Abiola; Nollywood Actor Ayo Badmos and others during an event to mark the 18th anniversary of the death of the presumed winner of the 1993 presidential election, Basorun MKO Abiola at his home in Ikeja, Lagos...yesterday. PHOTO: MUYIWA HASSAN

EIGHTEEN years after the demise of the acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, members of National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) and pro-democracy activists yesterday called on the Federal Government to immortalise Abiola for paying the supreme price for the country’s democracy.

Abiola, after four years’ incarceration by government for fighting for actualisation of his mandate, allegedly died on July 7, 1998, as a result of cardiac arrest.

Speaking during 18 years remembrance organised by Women Arise and Kudirat Initiative for Democracy (KIND) at Abiola’s graveside at his residence in Lagos, the Leader of NADECO, Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu (rtd), urged Nigerians to be united the way they were united for Abiola during the June 12 election.

“For a country who wanted to become a nation-state, unity is not geography. It starts from sense of belonging of different people there. And it was the sense of belonging that brought the unity that produced MKO Abiola because people voted for him from all corners of the country.

“Today, we are having a situation where people have less sense of belonging. Our unity is not to do MKO any favour but if we want a nation-state Nigeria, we must go back and do justice. If we don’t; there is no running away from it. All those who work against injustice in any shape or form must know that if our country does not become a nation-state, they caused it,” he said.

The President of Women Arise and Centre for Change, Dr. Joe-Okei-Odumakin, urged government to set up a judicial commission of inquiry to unravel the circumstances surrounding MKO Abiola’s death.

She urged the incumbent administration to consider the immortalisation ofAbiola by renaming a key national institution or infrastructure in the deceased name.

“President Abiola displayed uncommon courage, unparallel dignity and unusual candor in defence of the mandate reposed in him by change-seeking Nigerians, who trooped out to vote for him in 1993 and engaged all the illegal regimes that held sway while the legal president languished in jail.

“Eighteen years after his elimination in circumstances that are yet to be resolved, President Abiola still stands tall than all his adversaries and his murderers. He represents what Nigeria is capable of being, but which we are not because of the machinations of a greedy cabal.

“We enjoin Nigerians to continue to insist that the gazette of June 12 election results as belatedly declared by Humphrey Nwosu. We also insist on the post-humous recognition of Abiola as President of Nigeria and his portrait to be displayed among past Nigerian’s Presidents and Heads of State.”

Abiola’s son, Jamiu called on President Muhammadu Buhari, who once declared annulment of the June 12 as a crime against Nigerians by General Ibrahim Babangida’s regime, to ensure that the perpetuators were punished for annulling the most credible, free and fair elections in the nation’s history