Have A Taste of Piece from Comrade Abiodun Aremu About June 12 Struggle !! By Cde Bolakale

Have a taste of piece from Comrade Abiodun Aremu about June 12 struggle

• Cde-Bolakale

JUNE 12 WAS BEFORE OUR EYES: THE CRUMB SEEKERS FROM THE LOOTERS’ CLASS CANNOT DISTORT OUR HISTORY!
Since the Buhari Presidency magnanimous” or “benevolent declaration of June 12 as a Democracy Day, which the eternal living legend Abami Eda Fela Anikulapo-Kuti had better explained as “Demo-Crazy: demonstration of craziness”, a lot has happened on the social and regular media, with everyone in a rancorous race for public attention as champion of June 12. Opportunism, vain glorification of Buhari by crumb seekers and historical distortions have been the disorder in the polity. Yet informed opinions by very few have been subjected to ridicule, simply because those few critical opinions have not adopted the praise singing of the Buhari desperation for votes.
As I had written in a lecture to LASU students on June 12, 2012 (6 years ago), some of us are not products of June 12, 1993, nor were we made by June 12, but rather, June 12 was just a passing phase in our numerous struggles at the barricades to redeem our country.
We saw June 12, 1993 coming, we struggled before it, we provided the leadership and courage for the struggle and we will continue to defend the principles involved in it. When I said we, I mean the LEFT forces in Nigeria and in the diaspora and the allies of Left forces across the continent and the world who were in solidarity with us and the Nigerian people at the most epic period of struggle against military dictatorship.
When we talk of the roll call for honour, names of which are beyond me to recount here, we shouldn’t be carried away by the Buhari’s state ephemeral identification with June 12. Buhari and few elements from our ranks, who are busy writing the Presidency script cannot do better than they are doing at the moment. They cannot do better than playing with admixture of few names in our midst and their ruling class padipadi like Kingibe!
Attempting to placate and mislead that the June 12 is a Southwest affair is the first wrong act committed by the Buhari presidency. June 12 was a national struggle led by the Left forces across the country following the radio announcement of June 23, 1993 that annulled the June 12 presidential elections, and subsequently the dissokution of all the democratic structures.
It took the impromptu visitation by Beko Ransome-Kuti, Gani Fawehinmi and Femi Falana, acting on behalf of the Campaign for Democracy, to MKO Abiola House, to encourage him to make the first pronouncement: I am the President-elect. None of the politicians could dare Ibrahim Bababgida dictatorship at this point. Former Governor Bola Tinubu and Hon. Wale Oshun were part of the very few among the politicians who came near CD/ Beko and are better placed to document and recount the opportunism and sellout among their ranks.
That visitation had its repercussions on the CD leadership crisis, which is an issue for another time.
We cannot talk of June 12 without appreciating three major struggles by the LEFT that became clear that IBB was not prepared to exit except he was disgraced out of office, which we accomplished. The struggles were the 1986 Political Debate in which Nigerians opted for Socialism, 1989 Anti-SAP Revolt and the 89/1990 National Consultative Forum/ the aborted National Conference of September 6 – 9, 1990, which led to the resolve for the formation of CD in November 11, 1991 and the inaugural Convention in Jo’s on May 2, 1992.
The point being stressed is that the Campaign for Democracy with a pan-Nigeria leadership of Beko, Chima Ubani, Chom Bagu, Gloria Kilanko, Salihu Lukman, Ishaya Daniel, and Zonal Coordinators from the six geopolitical zones of the country (John Gimbason, Abubakar Waziri, Festus Iyayi, Titus Mann, Dele Olojede and Ken Saro-Wiwa and Ex-officio comprised of Alao Aka-Bashorun, Baba Omojola and Femi Falana provided leadership for the June 12 Struggle. It was under this leadership and that of the CD engine room known as the Expanded Secretariat that all the major struggles of July 5 – 7, August 12 – 14 & August 25 – 27 that forced IBB to quit on August 26, 1993
There were various annulments by the IBB dictatorship before the 1993 presidential elections. There was Option A8 used to discredit and eliminate all the so-called heavyweight politicians. There was the dissolution of all the elected executives of the state, local govt and wards of both the NRC & SDP carried out on the order of IBB, respectively by Tom Ikimi and Babangana Kingibe.
Rather than harp on Buhari’s obsession to take advantage of June 12, we should see the Democracy Day as the day of struggle against arbitrariness, a day to protest against a polity that is sustained on ethnic violence, and a day of protestation against a regime anchored on an economic arrangement of looting, foreign dependency and punishing the poor masses. More importantly, is for the working people and oppressed masses to use the Democracy Day to rally together for a POLITICAL ALTERNATIVE to put an end to the rule of the Looters’ Class.
We cannot allow our history to ever be distorted – the Ibadan Ola Oni group, the Ife Collective, the Benin-Delta axis, the Borno Coalition, the Ilorin rebels, the Kano-Kaduna-Jos axis, Enugu-Port Harcourt- Calabar axis, Obayuwana and the Lagos Mainlanders, NANS 1989 – 94, the Mushin and Lagos West end combatants, affiliates of CD such as CLO, CDHR, PAYCO, ASUU, etc and unions (NUPENG, PENGASSAN, SESCAN, Group of 17 union affiliates of NLC, the Guerrilla journalists from different media and of course our street combatants in barricades & bonfires,, were the heroes and heroines of June 12.
And our historical document on June 12 is eternal and emphatic as said by Beko on February 5,1994 at the 2nd Convention of CD in Ibadan: “It is significant to recall that the phenomenal agitations to realise the June 12 mandate were largely mobilised by the CD until the ticket became completely compromised by its principals and large section of the political class”.
THE REST DOCUMENTATION LIES IN MY YET PUBLISHED MANUSCRIPT!