President Jonathan’s 2015 Political Desperation To MAUL UNILAG
Thousands of students and alumni of the world famous University of Lagos (UNILAG) woke up on May 29, to suddenly hear that their beloved citadel of academia has been renamed Moshood Abiola University, Lagos (MAUL) by the dictatorial civilian President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as one of the dividends of the unpopular Democracy Day enforced his corrupt ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
He said he has changed the name of UNILAG to MAUL to immortalize the late Chief MKO Abiola, the martyr of the presidential election of June 12, 1993, which he won, but was annulled on June 23, 1993 by the military fiat of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babaginda who actually had the right to annual the presidential election after he had earlier cancelled the presidential primaries of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and National Republican Convention (NRC), two political parties formed by his military regime.
General Ibrahim Badamsi Babaginda's Botched transition to civilian rule
In 1989 Babangida legalized the formation of political parties, and after a census was carried out in November 1991, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced on January 24, 1992 that both legislative elections to a bicameral National Assembly and a presidential election would be held that year.~ From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibrahim_Babangida
Babangida banned all political parties and formed two political parties by himself, namely the SDP (Social Democratic Party) and NRC (National Republican Convention) and urged all Nigerians to join either of the parties, which the Late Chief Ajibola Ige famously referred to as "two leper hands." The two-party state had been a recommendation of the 17-member Political Bureau.
The legislative elections went ahead as planned, with the Social Democratic Party (SDP) winning majorities in both houses of the National Assembly, but on August 7, 1992, the INEC annulled the first round of presidential primaries, alleging widespread irregularities. January 4, 1993 saw the announcement by Babangida of a National Defense and Security Council, of which Babangida himself was to be President, while in April 1993 the SDP nominated Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola (MKO) as its presidential candidate, with the National Republican Convention (NRC) choosing Bashir Tofa to run for the same position. On June 12, 1993, presidential elections were finally held, but the results were held back although it was announced in some states that Abiola had in fact won 19 of the 30 states, and therefore the presidency.
Rather than allow the announcement of the results to proceed, Babangida decided to annul the elections. Babangida then issued a decree banning the presidential candidates of both the NRC and the SDP from running in new presidential elections that he planned to have held. Widespread acts of civil disobedience began to occur, particularly in the Southwest region from which Abiola hailed, resulting in the killings. On July 6, 1993, the NDSC issued an ultimatum to the SDP and NRC to join an interim government or face yet another round of elections, and Babangida then announced that the interim government would be inaugurated on August 27, 1993. On August 26, amidst a new round of strikes and protests that had brought all economic activity in the country to a halt, Babangida declared that he was stepping aside as head of the military regime, and handing over the reins of government to Ernest Shonekan. Within 3 months of the handover, General Sani Abacha seized control of the government while Babangida was on a visit to Egypt
The 1993 presidential election was not free and fair as claimed by the purported winner Chief MKO Abiola, because both political parties rigged the election and the more affluent Abiola defeated his only opponent Alhaji Bashir Tofa who was relatively an unknown politician from Kano and obviously no match for the financial and political machinery of the billionaire MKO Abiola who was one of the richest people on earth at the time.
I was employed as an attaché to the Director of Publicity for the Alhaji Bamanga Tukur Presidential Campaign, therefore was an insider who was fully briefed on all the political developments in the country as the SDP and NRC campaigned for the presidential election. But when the late retired Major-General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua the main presidential candidate of the SDP was leading the presidential primaries by a very wide margin ahead of the presidential candidates of the NRC, the military regime of Gen. Babaginda suddenly cancelled the primaries. I tore my ID card and resigned immediately, because I knew that the whole political shenanigans of Gen. Babaginda and his ruling mafia would end up in a political fiasco. The presidential election was a hoax masterminded by Gen. Babaginda to hoodwink the ignorant Nigerians and the rest of the world. And he really fooled them, including his bosom “friend” MKO Abiola who went along with the so called transition to democracy plan. Then two new presidential candidates suddenly emerged to replace the previous ones and the late Chief MKO Abiola who was a very powerful associate and friend of Gen. Babaginda and his military regime suddenly became the presidential candidate of the SDP and Alhaji Bashir Tofa became the presidential candidate of the NRC after the intrigues of the political power brokers.
As far as I am concerned the whole June 12 Crisis was a power tussle of the corrupt Nigerian ruling class and the ignorant masses were used as pawns in the gambit of the power brokers and hundreds lost their lives in the end. But the same corrupt power brokers divided on two opposing sides have been using the MKO Abiola phenomenon for their political campaigns and those from the same south western region as MKO Abiola have been using it to sway the political passions of the masses to favour their political ambitions. But God knows that the late Chief MKO Abiola was never as great as the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, one of the leading founding fathers of modern Nigeria who deserves all the honours given to him for his unprecedented achievements in the political development of the western region and the nation building of a New Nigeria in the leadership of Africa.
President Goodluck Jonathan and his ruling cabal in the PDP are scared of their loss of many states in the southwest at the Election Tribunal and the unpopularity of their party among the majority of Yorubas. Therefore, the only way to prevent losing the 2015 presidential election to the main opposition party the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) is to do the most desperate thing by using MKO Abiola to sway the Yorubas to favour the PDP's presidential election master plan for 2015.
They also want to preempt the plan of the ACN to name a new university after MKO Abiola before 2015.
Chief MKO Abiola was a first calss graduate of Glasgow University in accountancy and later worked as a senior accountant at the University of Lagos Teaching Hospital, before going into private practice and becoming a business mogul and a billionaire. He was the undisputed Pillar of Sports and the National Stadium in Lagos would have been more befitting to be named after him as the same President Goodluck Jonathan renamed Liberty Stadium to Obafemi Awolowo Stadium on November 12, 2010 during his maiden working tour of Ogun State.
Imagine renaming Harvard, Yale or Columbia after the late Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. or any of the past presidents of America?
The University of Lagos is as important to Nigerians as Harvard, Yale or Columbia.
It is greater than the personality of any Nigerian living or dead. It is an academic institution that is a timeless heritage of the citadel of knowledge; the legacy of the Nigerian intelligentsia.
President Jonathan can name one of the new nine federal universities after MKO Abiola and leave the University of Lagos alone as the flagship of academia in Lagos, the former federal capital of Nigeria.
Infact, President Jonathan would have even won the support of the majority of Nigerians if he declared June 12 as the MKO Abiola Day.
~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima, Author of Children of Heaven, Scarlet Tears of London, Bye, Bye Mugabe, In the House of Dogs and other books.
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