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12 June, 2012
Jonathan, the Vultures of June 12 and the Nineteenth Season of Truth
Today is June 12, the 19th anniversary of the day that the bloodied eyes of our country opened to the possibilities of what true democracy can bring! Those eyes were quickly and brutally forced shut by killers of national dreams. They are still on the prowl. However, for years, we've had vultures from within feeding merrily on what they consider to be the carcass of June 12! Oh, I'm not talking the killers here; I'm talking the blubberers who filled tanks and craters with crocodile tears while they munch up all opportunities in the name of democracy activists and June 12 defenders by day as they scuttle around to their cozy covens with the dream-killers at night. Like the ants in the vegetables, they've been feeding fat on our national sorrows, running with the hares and hunting with the hounds, 'chopping and cleaning mouths, like say nothing happened'! Today, they occupy all levers of power nationally as beneficiaries of June 12; but this year, this 19th season has exposed many of them as the true dream-killers!
Yes, this year, one man did what others in his shoes before him couldn't do. Those others didn't do it, because doing it means going back to their vomit. These others are part of the establishment that devoured our democracy babies and mashed up their brains, so why should they be induced to give birth to great beginnings with an acknowledgment of a fundamental truth? Why should they give honour to whom it is due when they've kissed the forked tongues of supposed democracy activists and June 12 defenders?
So, President Olusegun Obasanjo nakedly strutted round the national stage and spat on Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola's grave. President Umaru Yar'Adua, irrespective of his own brother's martyrdom in the vortex of June 12, still dragged his feet and was actually already looking the other way when the Grim Reaper unfortunately claimed him as well. Enter President Jonathan, unremarkable, uninspiring and annoyingly timid. If Yar'Adua was Baba Go-Slow, Jonathan is Baba Do Nothing! But no one doubts that his rise to the presidency is a divine story of what has to be. His election last year may not have been perfect, but it was only second in the annals of our national electoral history to the June 12 election in terms of credibility. Yet, for one full year, he's fed us frustration with what a lot of us consider to be a failing presidency – failing in the sense that he promised an elephant and so far is struggling to deliver a piddling mouse!
Then he struck! On May 29 2012, he daringly broke away from a bad tradition, rose all 19 feet tall and delivered! What Abiola's kinsman could not do, what the brother of Abiola's bosom friend could not do, what the blood-sucking establishment will not have him do, he did! He honoured Abiola by naming the University of Lagos after him! Then all hell broke loose, or so they made it look like. Why? Well, there were all sorts of ridiculous reasons that the oguro- quaffing protesters and the big lawyers and political godfathers behind them were putting up and are still putting up! There are those who claim ignorantly that they do not know Abiola as a man interested in education; there are the ones that have declared the honour an attempt to 'regionalize' Abiola's legacy and then some who claim Jonathan is attempting to win over the West on one hand, while claiming on the other hand that he is trying to sow division amongst the Yoruba - all ridiculously ignorant, jingoistic and puke-worthy stuff!
Who does not know that Abiola's record as an education philanthropist has still not been bettered in Africa, even with its many billionaires today? Who does not know that till this day, he remains the biggest benefactor to that same University of Lagos amongst other tertiary institutions? What bigger national honour could Abiola have received than having a federal university in the former federal capital where he had his home, his political and activist base and the headquarters of his business named after him? Where else is ideal than the place he declared himself the President which he truly was?
Those claiming Jonathan is doing this to win over the West must be suffering from selective amnesia. Have they forgotten that barely a year ago, the same Jonathan swept the West in a landslide in an election that Yoruba political leaders of other parties were falling over themselves to endorse him? Didn't these big beasts, according to their own testimonies, say they only did so because of his personality and not because of his party? If Jonathan was fishing for favour in 2015, would he be so daft as to do it now, a whole three years before the election? Are the supposedly politically sophisticated Yoruba so fickle or fragile that a presidential honour for Abiola, no matter in what guise, should be enough to shatter them to smithereens?
The truth is the opposition has mishandled this whole thing and they know it! All the talk about alternative ways to honour Abiola, especially those calling for the National Stadium to be named after him instead of the University of Lagos (because he was the Pillar of Sports) is insulting! It is insulting because the eclectic man did not pay the ultimate price for being a sports philanthropist and honouring him by naming the University of Lagos after him is not too much! In fact, he needs more honours from the Federal Government than that! Of course, there are millions of things Jonathan could have done; but in the end he has to do only one or only some and he is the one with the discretion to make that choice! Why can't people respect his choice, rather than think their own choice is it?
Those who claim he should have consulted with the 'stakeholders' in the University of Lagos before doing this are simply grappling at straws. Why should he? Why should he consult with them when the result is going to be what we are seeing now? Why should he consult with them when the law does not require him to and when he is the one with the discretion to make the choice? Are these same people accusing him of dictatorship and inconsideration not exhibiting same by telling him he should have named the National Stadium after Abiola instead of the University of Lagos? Or are there no stakeholders in sports he should be consulting with as well before doing that? They keep raising, as evidence of their wisdom, some half-hearted attempt by some elements of the National Assembly to have the National Stadium named after Abiola, but what became of that effort? If it had the national consensus they so claim, why is it not law today?
Indeed, we've had some of these protesters struggling to explain to us that their protest isn't against Abiola, but that this is about the rule of law. They claim that the president should have first sent a bill to amend the University of Lagos Act to the National Assembly and should have only announced this if the bill was passed. Jonathan the Dictator is playing a fast one with Abiola's name and they aren't going to stand for it! I have no problem with such a view except to say that the courts will determine if the president acted unlawfully. I believe he didn't and if indeed he acted unlawfully, sending the bill to the National Assembly after the act will not make the act lawful. So, the opposition need not fret. The alumni are in court, some students are in court; so let's see what the courts would say. But people should stop holding the nation hostage over this. They can go on insulting the President for having the courage to do what is right, but the joke is on them! At the end of the day, it wasn't their agitation that made Jonathan act; it was his conviction as a person and for that, history will uphold him.
But we need to also properly contextualize the so-called uproar that greeted the president's Pronouncement. Compared to the protest that greeted the renaming of the University of Ife, the University of Lagos one is admittedly more high-profile. More alumni and university staff, students and ex-students are protesting. The political vultures have gladly added the oomph it needed by plying their washed-up wisdom on the sidelines. But when all is said and done, it was and still is a localized protest. Not all University of Lagos students and ex-students protested; no students or ex-students of any other institution joined the University of Lagos students protesting; no staff of other universities or tertiary institutions joined the protest; most of those protesting, even amongst the movers and shakers of society are Yoruba; most of the politicians protesting are from one party with a strong regional base. It is not a national protest by any stretch of the imagination.
But like a well-drilled army of discontents, the protesters made so much noise that the protest appeared as though universal. Every Tola, Delani and Bodurin who could wield a pen or keyboard invaded the public space, fortified by a rash of editorials in the Lagos-Ibadan axis of the press. Soon, the news was abroad that clueless President Jonathan was being buried alive in our very eyes! But, it was all a puff of smoke. The man was hardly troubled. Nothing that was being said was raising any new point outside the well-worn one of the president supposedly acting unlawfully by renaming the University of Lagos without first going to the National Assembly to amend the University of Lagos Act, quickly followed by zillions of threats of court action and balloon-full statements of determination to stop Dictator Jonathan! Honestly, it's grandly hilarious!
However, I'm not saying every protester has an untoward agenda, because I do know a few who are genuinely not happy with President Jonathan's decision, but not because of any animosity towards MKO Abiola or a lack of appreciation of his legacy. As I said, these are very, very few. In the main, the hordes of baying protesters are simply not worth listening to.
If I were Jonathan, I would have made my first June 12 national address today. I would tell the nation that we need to cut off the head of that dragon we started slaying on May 29 this year with the renaming of the University of Lagos after MKO Abiola. I will tell my people that I am a beneficiary of June 12, a product of a nation awoken by the sweet smell of justice for big and small. I will tell them it's still a work in progress, but that I am rededicating myself to the dream of a nation that June 12 portended nineteen years ago. In the midst of Boko Haram diminution of our national confidence and aspirations, I will tell my people that the ideals of June 12 are the perfect antidotes to their senseless insurgency. The more we are all standing up for justice, the better for our nation. Yeah, Jonathan may look like the unlikeliest hero of a post-June 12 era, but he has cleared a path for himself with his May 29 address honouring Abiola with the renaming of the University of Lagos and establishment of a national democratic institute in his name. He shouldn't listen to the woof-woof snorters of hot air! Rather, he should listen to the faint chimes of the bell of history, beckoning him to step up!
President Jonathan should stick with his instincts here, because if there's one thing he has done right as President, it is to slay the anti-June 12 beast with the honouring of Abiola and from this can come a lot of positives once the smoke clears. It may be too late to make the June 12 speech this year, but there is always the 20th anniversary of June 12 next year. Activities marking that 20th Anniversary can include renaming of Aso Rock Villa as MKO Abiola Villa, posthumously declaring him the first President of the 4th Republic and topping it up by declaring June 12 MKO Abiola National Holiday! Yes, Jonathan has proved himself to be the real child of June 12! He should go the whole hog and claim all the glory and save us from the June 12 contractors and those opportunistic vultures that won't allow him to give honour to whom honour is due!
Kennedy Emetulu,
London
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