June 12: Remembering MKO Abiola

In 1993, following widespread violent protests across Lagos and the South West, my parents afraid that another civil war was imminent moved back to the east in a large exodus known amongst the Igbos as Oso Abiola. They weren’t alone. All over the country, people temporarily moved or completely relocated in one of the worst moments in Nigeria’s political history. It’s been 26 years since then but the consciousness of that event still lingers on.

This is how it began:

The 12 June 1993 presidential elections had MKO Abiola defeating his rival, Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention. The election was declared Nigeria’s freest and fairest presidential election by national and international observers, with Abiola even winning in his Northern opponent’s home state of Kano and in every state in the south-south/south-east region except 3; this was despite his opponent running with an Igbo man as his vice presidential candidate. Abiola won at the national capital, Abuja, the military polling stations, and over two-thirds of Nigerian states. Men from Northern Nigeria had largely dominated Nigeria’s political landscape since independence; Moshood Abiola, a Western Muslim, was able to secure a national mandate freely and fairly, unprecedented in Nigeria’s electoral history till date. However, the election was annulled by Ibrahim Babangida, causing a political crisis which led to General Sani Abacha seizing power later that year.

Things further got out of hand when in the following year, Moshood Abiola declared himself the lawful president of Nigeria in the Epe area of Lagos island. He had recently returned from an international trip where he traveled to get the support of the international community for his mandate. After declaring himself president, President General Sani Abacha declared him wanted and accused him of treason; he was subsequently arrested and detained for four years, largely in solitary confinement with a Bible, Qur’an, and fourteen guards as companions. During that time, Pope John Paul II, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and human rights activists from all over the world lobbied the Nigerian government for his release. The sole condition attached to the release of Chief Abiola was that he renounce his mandate, something that he refused to do, although the military government offered to compensate him and refund his extensive election expenses.

Abiola died in suspicious circumstances on the day that he was due to be released, 7 July 1998, a month after Abacha’s death in June 1998.

Abiola was awarded the highest national honor, the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic, GCFR posthumously in 2018 and the date of the annulled election, June 12, made Nigeria’s Democracy Day. On June 10, 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari signed into law the Public Holiday (Amendment) Bill, which legalizes June 12 as Nigeria’s democracy day.

As we remember his sacrifice to democracy in Nigeria, here are more facts about MKO Abiola:

1. Moshood Abiola was his father’s twenty-third child but the first of his father’s children to survive infancy, hence the name Kashimawo (Let us wait and see).
2. While at the Baptist Boys High School, Kashimawo was a respected writer moving on to emerge the editor of the school magazine. His deputy editor at the time was Nigeria’s former Head of State and President, Olusegun Obasanjo and the magazine was called The Trumpeter.
3. At the age of 19, MKO was employed as a clerk at the Barclays Bank in Ibadan. Two years later, he left the bank for another financial institution but soon proceeded to Glasgow University where he graduated with a First Class degree in Accounting.
4. He married many wives including Simibiat Atinuke Shoaga in 1960, Kudirat Olayinka Adeyemi in 1973, Adebisi Olawunmi Oshin in 1974 among others, and fathered over 70 children.
5. Politics aside, Abiola was a renowned philanthropist, from 1972 until his death Moshood Abiola had been conferred with 197 traditional titles by 68 different communities in Nigeria, in response to his provision of financial assistance in the construction of 63 secondary schools, 121 mosques and churches, 41 libraries, 21 water projects in 24 states of Nigeria. He was grand patron to 149 societies or associations in Nigeria.
6. In addition to his work in Nigeria, Moshood Abiola supported the Southern African Liberation movements from the 1970s, and he sponsored the campaign to win reparations for slavery and colonialism in Africa and the diaspora. He personally communicated with every African head of state, and every head of state in the black diaspora to ensure that Africans would speak with one voice on the issues.