Continued from yesterday & concluded
…Abacha could therefore confidently adopt a position that power was it, and since he already had the yam and knife, he didn’t require overkill, as long as Abiola refused to recognise the new reality that power was his, and that he intended to gift Nigeria with a democratic transition that would finally condemn the June 12 election and its mandate to the dust bin of history.
Abacha was completely wrong. Painfully, he didn’t live to see it. The moment he died, the question was not just that a new military head of state was now inside Aso Rock, but that Abdulsalami Abubakar’s regime was confronted with the very ghost of the June 12 annulled elections that had wrongly presumed to be dead. 5 years down, it was alive and kicking. And the owner of the mandate didn’t just want to be released but wanted his mandate back. Indeed, the wild celebrations on the streets at the news of the death of Abacha were also a call for the release of Abiola and the revalidation and swearing-in of Abiola as president.
Of course, it is a fact that Abacha died inside Aso Rock. No one contests the fact of how he died. Was he murdered by a “third force” who wanted a new beginning for the country? Or is it that the third force emerged after his death and in the spirit of reconciliation with the Abacha crops of boys, who had lost out and to “allow for peace to reign” settled the score with a designed plot to get Abiola out of the picture.
It explains the fact that the new head of state was not opposed to the June 12 annulment; all members of the inner circle of the IBB boys and the Abacha boys are beneficiaries, since annulment guaranteed a continuation in the corridors of power. Indeed, Abdulsalami Abubakar owes his rise to power and continued stay in power to doing their bidding. IBB was back in the picture.
At no time was Abiola offered the opportunity to re-participate in a new transition programme. What was on the table was for him to renounce his mandate and be awarded his freedom. To even think that this was not so must demand that we pose the question: why then was Abiola not immediately released by the Abdulsalami Abubakar regime when he came to power? Why invite the so-called “International community”. Was the visit of the UN Secretary and the Commonwealth Secretary not at the instance of the military regime? For what purpose other than to help gauge the possibility that Abiola will acquiesce to renouncing his mandate and allow a new transition programme to commence?
So what then was the mandate of our two visitors to Abiola in custody? Did they bring a message of his impending release from prison? Certainly, it was not a visit to commend his unrelenting spirit and help strengthen his resolve not to give up on his mandate and democratic right to have won the June 12 presidential elections. They didn’t encourage him to continue to stay strong. So is the visit not on behalf of the Abdulsalami Abubakar regime? And if so, could it have been otherwise than a negotiation for his freedom?
Should Abiola’s freedom be subjected to any negotiation? Yes, there are questions that cannot be truthfully answered on the basis of existing facts and records of the historical characters who falsify the facts and present their opinion and the other side to us as the facts of history. Our two visitors met with Abiola on July 1, and of course they reported back to those who invited them that his spirit was still as strong as ever and he will not renounce his mandate. It is not impossible that they didn’t use those particular phrases. But what alternative agenda did they put forward to the general public other than canvassing the agenda of the new occupants in Aso Rock.
Absolve them as much as you can; our two visitors provided the intel with which to set in motion the next course of action. The Abdulsalami Abubakar regime had gotten what they wanted. Apply the same treatment of death to Abiola, without such a treatment of oblitrating Abiola out of life, they will not suceed in exorcising the ghost of June 12, even after five years of the annulment it was still all powerful to arouse the working masses to threaten their control of power, if he was ever released alive.
Prof. is, however, correct, though not stated directly, that Falana’s claim that “Abiola was killed in government custody” will never be accepted by the apologists and historians of military dictatorship. In adopting a position in the middle line, such historians can only see and write history from the broadcast and widespread views of the powers that be, who employ all of the channels, instruments, and resources of the state to attempt to authenticate their views as facts.
Falana chooses to interpret history as felt by the victims of military dictatorship; he offers no pretentious attempt at a non-existent neutral or objective positioning to hear out those same forces that trample on the democratic rights of the working masses. He chooses to side with the future. A future that will challenge the status quo and will ask the same question of why things are the way they are in Nigeria for millions of our folks. Of course, an understanding of history in this context will help in some way to see why the working masses cannot trust the Military’s top brass as well as the fact that the whole sections of the ruling class cannot be trusted to rule any differently in thier disastrous mis-management of our affairs and destiny. How then is Prof expecting the future to now trust their version of history? Is IBB not very much alive, inside his Minna Villa and safe from condemnation, and still much inside Aso Rock with the continuation of the same Structural Adjustment Policies?
What is “Subsidy is gone”, if not the continuation of IBB’s SAP? History, indeed, our history of the present is stuck dead in the very tracks of its failed past. And there can be no break away from it on account of historians’ selective objectification of the past, questioning the memory of the victims and their interpretation of historical happenings to be able to accommodate aggressors and oppressors who continue to deny the country a different reality. The annulment of the June 12 election and the refusal to revalidate it was nothing more than denying the future of democratic rights to the working masses. Falana has plainly refused to craft history on behalf of those who annulled our future.
(Aj. Dagga Tolar is of the Movement for a
Socialist Alternative)
