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Ibrahim Babangida’s recent confession, finally admitting that Chief M.K.O. Abiola won the 1993 presidential election has reopened an old wound, a wound that never truly healed.
With a boldness only those unburdened by consequence can possess, he claims that "democracy was interrupted, but Nigeria survived." But the question that burns in the heart of every true patriot is this: How did Nigeria survive?
Did Nigeria survive in the blood of those who were gunned down during the protests for June 12?
Did Nigeria survive in the cries of mothers who lost their children to bullets while demanding the return of their mandate?
Did Nigeria survive in the agony of a nation forced into the shadows of military tyranny while the will of the people was mocked and discarded?
When Babangida and his circle of power annulled the freest and fairest election in our nation’s history, they did not interrupt democracy, they killed it.
They did not merely pause the democratic journey, they derailed it into a pit of authoritarian darkness. And in that darkness, we lost more than an election; we lost trust, we lost hope, and we lost countless lives.
Who survived when our democracy was strangled? Was it the average Nigerian struggling under the weight of economic hardship? Was it the families who were thrown into deeper poverty as corruption became the order of the day?
Was it the voices silenced, the press muzzled, and the hopes shattered in the years that followed?
No, they did not survive.
What Babangida and his cohorts fail to admit is that their actions did not just "interrupt" democracy, they plunged Nigeria into a cycle of political instability, poverty, and institutional decay from which we are yet to recover.
That single act of injustice in 1993 birthed a monster, a monster that still haunts our democracy today, where elections are a game for the elite while the masses remain pawns in their ruthless ambition.
And what of Chief M.K.O. Abiola? A man who stood for Hope, Democracy, and Freedom, a man who won the people’s mandate, only to be robbed of it. He died a prisoner of conscience, his dream of a better Nigeria buried with him. Tell me, Babangida did Abiola survive?
Nigeria did not survive. We are still bleeding. We are still crawling through the rubble of the destruction you caused.
We are still paying the price for your greed, your power hunger, and your contempt for the will of the people.
So, spare us your riddles, your justifications, your carefully crafted lines. Nigeria did not survive, you killed something precious in us. And until justice is done, until truth is fully spoken, until those responsible acknowledge the true scale of their crimes, this nation will remain haunted by the ghost of June 12, a ghost that refuses to be silenced.
How did Nigeria survive? The answer is simple: IT DIDN'T.
Credit: Khaleed Yazeedu
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