Acting National Chairman of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, Prof Tunde Adeniran, has said that the annulment of June 12, 1993 presidential election, aborted the bright prospects of Nigeria for greatness.
He said that Nigeria would have made real progress in critical areas of infrastructural development and welfare of Nigerians if Moshood Abiola was allowed to lead the country as president and implement his grand ideas.
“Given the very good programmes and policies contained in Abiola’s manifesto and his demonstrable passion and commitment, it is widely believed across the country and the outside world that Nigeria would have made real progress,” Adeniran said in a statement made available to the Next Edition.
He said that in the annals of the country’s political history and democratic evolution, June 12 has come to symbolize the most epochal national event of contemporary Nigeria.
Adeniran described the election as quite interesting, stressing that Nigerians momentarily buried the twin evils of ethnic bigotry and religion in their decision to vote for the presumed winner of the poll, Abiola.
According to him, “It was a historic day when Nigeria truly existed as a nation through the unprecedented action of her disparate people who demonstrated through the power of the ballot, the right sense of nationhood that transcended our bifurcating polarities.”
Adeniran said that the SDP, the same platform on which Abiola used to achieve the great feat in 1993, is currently determined to lift the nation out of the vicious cycle of poverty.
“For us in the SDP, it is most gratifying that our party was the same platform that was used by Abiola to achieve the great feat of winning the Presidential Election in 1993.
“MKO Abiola‘s quest for power as well as his grand vision and mission was essentially to engender shared-prosperity and sustainable emancipation of the masses of the poor Nigerians. It is very much in sync with the guiding ideology of today’s SDP, almost three decades after,” he said.
“In the spirit of June 12, and the ideals of human dignity, freedom from want and pervasive poverty, which Abiola lived his adult life in promoting, the SDP is committed to working to lift out of the vicious cycle of poverty, the over 90 million Nigerians that are reportedly living in extreme poverty.
“We should all be committed to promoting the building of a nation run on the pivotal pillars of truth, justice, reconciliation, integration and national unity. We must commit ourselves to ensuring that no more shall any Nigerian be too poor to access the very basic necessities of life.
“It is important that governments at all levels, as well as the political elite in general, focus on and work towards achieving the great potential of the country. We must consolidate the democracy that Abiola and other martyrs laboured and died for to make significant meaning in the life of the average Nigerian.
“While maintaining those noble attributes that made the SDP the preferred of the electorate back then, we remain committed to those noble ideals that best represent the true interests of Nigeria and Nigerians, with an abiding commitment and progressive orientation in this era,” he said.
Adeniran, also commended President Muhammadu Buhari for declaring June 12 as the nation’s new Democracy Day, saying that such action elicited excitement from true patriots and genuine democrats.