MKO Abiola

Kazeem Ugbodaga

The Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG) has called on the Federal Government of Nigeria to release the official result of the June 12, 1993 Presidential Election, which was won by late Chief Moshood Kashimao Olawale (M.K.O) Abiola.

ARG Chairman, Olawale Oshun, in a message to commemorate the 23rd anniversary of June 12, said President Buhari, as the beneficiary of a ballot revolution that mostly mirrored that of 1993, owed Nigerians the duty of declassifying the result, particularly now that 23 years had elapsed and that the Official Secret Act could no longer be binding on the document.

Oshun said the ARG believed, this would “reverse the stigma occasioned by the foolish act of cancelling that election, adjudged to be the most peaceful in the history of Nigeria.” It will also open up the hypocrisy of military rule and help project democracy as a better form of governance.

“June 12 is no longer a struggle but now an obligation. The people have played their own part. It is now the obligation of the beneficiaries of that struggle to set the country on a truly democratic path by deliberately replacing every stamp of military rule on Nigeria’s nationhood, including the imposed governance structure and constitution, through democratic rights and tenets. There is no alternative way to deepen democracy in Nigeria.”

“Let nobody be deceived. Until the federal government takes conscious steps to restructure Nigeria, the country will continue to wobble from one crisis of nationhood to another. To continue to ignore this necessity is a tacit support by elected officials for everything that transpired during the military era and this is why military rule has transited to ‘do or die’ politics and citizens now believed they have a right to take up arms against their country,” he said.

Oshun said “ARG therefore called on President Buhari, as a former military ruler and now a self-confessed democrat, to see himself as best poised to help Nigeria make this transition. This can be his best legacy and the starting point, we dare say, is to release the June 12 presidential election result and its winner appropriately recognised and honoured.”