Ekiti Recovery Movement (ERM), on Saturday celebrated the 20th year of the death of the presumed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, Chief Moshood Kashimaawo Olawale Abiola (MKO) in Ekiti State, branding him the pillar on which Nigerian democracy rests.
The group commended President Muhammadu Buhari for honouring the business mogul by conferring the highest honour of Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR) on him.
In his address at the memorial lecture held in Ado Ekiti, the ERM Coordinator, Barrister Olalekan Soyombo, said the essence of the ceremony was to further restate the fact that those who worked assiduously to rekindle the passion for democracy must be celebrated to serve as a guiding principle for the coming generations.
He said the past administrations headed by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the late Musa Yar’Adua and Dr Goodluck Jonathan betrayed Nigerians by their refusal to honour Abiola despite paying the supreme price for Nigeria to stand democratically.
Soyombo said: “After Abiola was incarcerated, what followed were surreptitious and subtle moves to coerce him to abandon the mandate that was freely given to him by Nigerians through ballot on June 12 1993; he resisted this vehemently and doggedly.
“His arrest and detention gave birth to the growth of the Pan-Nigeria pro-democracy movements. Many activists and patriots both in Nigeria and diaspora, came together to form many organizations that were instrumental to the cause that finally led to the permanent confinement of the military to the barracks and set the country on the path of democracy which we enjoy today as a people.
“Pro-democarcy organizations like NADECO, CDHR, CD, CLO and CDD kept organizing mass resistance movements in collaborations with Trade Union movements like NLC, NUPENG, PENGASSAN to force the military to recognise the democratic rights of the Nigerian people to elect a leader of their choice which is what that June 12 election represents”.
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