By Bolanle BOLAWOLE
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Last week Wednesday, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu marked the second Democracy Day in office. Ordinarily it ought to have been an occasion of great celebration for Tinubu in particular for his pro-democracy credentials and the role he played, known and unknown, to shift Democracy Day from May 29 to June 12. Unfortunately, the occasion was soiled by cries of “we are hungry” all over the place. That is a dent on Tinubu’s democratic credentials.
Nevertheless, we must not stop recalling how Democracy Day came about, if not for anything but for the sake of our youths who know nothing about their history. Here again today, I recall the story as was told by a news medium “The declaration of June 12 every year as a public holiday in Lagos State may have pitched Gov. Bola Tinubu against the Federal Government in a fresh face-off, with the Attorney General of the Federation and Justice Minister, Mr. Kanu Agabi, saying yesterday that the state had no constitutional right to proclaim a public holiday…
“Mr. Agabi told State House correspondents in Abuja at the end of the weekly meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) that declaration of public holiday was an exclusive responsibility of the Federal Government. Gov. Tinubu had, on Tuesday, said June 12 would be observed as a public holiday in the state in view of its importance in the political history of Nigeria.
“However, Mr. Agabi said: “I heard that one of the states has declared June 12 as a public holiday. You cannot do that because only the National Assembly and the President can do it. If the President declares June 12 as a public holiday, it would be a valid declaration but if any other person in this country does so, it is invalid.”
The minister pointed out that what the Lagos governor should have done was to persuade the President to make the declaration.
” His words: “The power to declare a public holiday can only be vested in the President because it is an executive function. It is not a judicial function, it is not a legislative function; it is an executive function. We have in existence a law called the Public Holidays Act Cap 378 of Volume 21 of the Laws of the Federation of Nigeria. This law was in existence at the time the Constitution came into effect on May 29, 1999. It is an existing law and all existing laws are valid to the extent of their conformity with the Constitution… “
“He pointed out that it was on the basis of this law that the President declared May 29 of every year a public holiday… Speaking on why he did not go to court over the issue of Sharia, the minister stated that there was nothing in the Constitution that empowers the Federal Government to take any state to court over Sharia”
The realities of our present circumstances tell us how the then president, Olusegun Obasanjo, and his A-G/Minister of Justice, Kanu Agabi, left leprosy (Sharia/Jihad) and pre-occupied themselves with skin rashes (Tinubu’s declaration of June 12 as a public holiday), possibly out of Obasanjo’s alleged inveterate hatred for MKO Abiola, winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election. Remember that ever before he became civilian president, the same Obasanjo had, in far-away South Africa, declared that MKO was not the messiah Nigeria desired. Had Obasanjo done the needful when the fire of Sharia/Jihad was ignited under his watch, we possibly would have been spared our current ordeal. So when men like Obasanjo and Agabi point accusing fingers these days, we need to point them in the direction of history.
Now, we all know how June 12 came about: After many rigmaroles and shifting of goalposts which one of my favourite musicians, Orlando Owoh of blessed memory, described as “Babangida don fuck Nigeria tire”, we eventually had the June 12, 1993 presidential election which was free, which was fair, which was peaceful and which, in fact, was the best the country ever had – and this was attested to by both local and international observers and the winner was MKO Abiola.
Abiola, a Yoruba moderate Muslim, like most other Yoruba Muslims, won convincingly in most parts of the country, beating his challenger, Bashir Tofa, even in his ward and state (Kano). Tofa had no qualms accepting defeat but Babangida annulled the election and will forever have that decision as an albatross around his neck. It is a yoke, and a burden, he will carry into his grave and even beyond to wherever he is destined.
Opposition to the annulment was massive and universal at first but as it is with all human affairs, human factors gradually set in as some people began to compromise and negotiate away the popular mandate freely and overwhelmingly bestowed on Abiola by the people. At a point, the June12 struggle was, in the words of those who traded it away, reduced to a Yoruba ethnic agenda, which they now gave as both an excuse and a reason for their treacherous and lecherous a
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