…Presidency vows “no authority” will again overturn Nigerians’ will
President Bola Tinubu on Thursday joined senior government officials at the national premiere of MKO, a documentary on the late Chief MKO Abiola.
The screening recalled the security-enforced crackdown on the June 12 pro-democracy movement. The presidency used the occasion to pledge that the people’s will must never again be overturned.
The premiere, held at the Wole Soyinka Centre for Culture and Creative Arts, was part of events marking Nigeria’s 66th Independence Anniversary. The President was accompanied by the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu.
The film, by US-based filmmaker Ose Oyamendan, covers Abiola’s life and political struggle. It recounts the military annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, which is widely regarded as a watershed in the country’s democratic history. It also covers the campaign to restore civilian rule.
Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, said Nigerians had suffered persecution, detention, exile and other forms of repression during the struggle. He led guests in a minute’s silence for those who died.
Onanuga said many people were imprisoned without trial, and others were jailed as accessories to a coup d’état. He said some were driven into exile, lost their livelihoods or had their homes and businesses attacked for refusing to abandon their democratic convictions.
He also recalled that journalists and media organisations defied “clampdowns, arrests, kidnapping and seizures of publications” to keep the struggle alive. He said printers defied the security clampdown to produce banned publications.
He paid tribute to lawyers who defended detainees, students who protested, academics, Nigerians in the diaspora, and oil workers’ union NUPENG, whose members withdrew their labour. Among those he named were Chief Anthony Enahoro, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, Dr Beko Ransome-Kuti, Pa Alfred Rewane, Chief Frank Kokori, Rear Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu, Commodore Dan Suleiman, Chima Ubani, Chief Bola Ige and Oba Sikiru Kayode Adetona.
“Many paid the supreme price. Many carried wounds that history may never fully record,” Onanuga said.
Onanuga said the country now enjoys 27 years of unbroken democracy since 1999. He added that Abiola has been officially acknowledged as the winner of the 1993 election. “We owe them a duty to ensure that no authority ever again overturns the freely expressed will of Nigerians,” he said.
Minister of Art, Culture, Tourism and the Creative Economy, Hannatu Musa Musawa, said the film traces the annulment of the election, Abiola’s arrest in 1994 after he declared his mandate, and his death in detention in 1998. She urged citizens to “jealously guard” the nation’s democracy.
Oyamendan praised the President for his conviction on democratic principles. He recalled interviewing Tinubu as a senator in 1992.
Senate President Godswill Akpabio, House Speaker Tajudeen Abbas and Chief of Staff to the President Femi Gbajabiamila attended. Governors present were AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq of Kwara, who chairs the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos, Dapo Abiodun of Ogun and Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau. Ministers Jumoke Oduwole and Joseph Utsev, members of the National Assembly and former Ogun State Governor Chief Olusegun Osoba were also there.
