June 12 Evocativus -By Loretta Oduware Ogboro-Okor

 It was 1993 in Nigeria. The elections were in full swing. The people were in high spirits. The nation was sailing towards Democracy in a ship where almost every Nigerian had a sense of shared navigation.

I too, was happy. I was sailing on my euphoric sea for reasons I could not at the time connect to our shared Democracy.

The year before, I did my thing. I did my thing how best I knew and left my mark. I knew I had left my mark.  However, what I did not realise at the time was that my mark could easily be erased by my very own Country. I competed in and was one of the winners of a nationwide essay competition, done in conjunction with some foreign donor agency. The prize was a six week all-expense paid trip to the United States for the top five winners.

MKO Abiola, after winning the June 12 election.

It was pre-mobile phone and electronic correspondence era when pen and paper held sway via the postal pathways. Every day, I went to the school office…. surely, I must have a letter. I knew how well I had written that essay.

Sadly, the letter never came.

But a message came…it came via a certain man who had just come back from Lagos. He sought out my father and asked him…What is your daughter still doing in Benin? They are looking for her in Lagos. She won the competition….

“If she won the competition, why then, were we not contacted?” My Father asked.

“I cannot answer that question. If I were you, I would send her to Lagos tomorrow” The information Samaritan replied.

That was when I knew that in every Dolphin there is a Tiger. I did not set out for Lagos the next day…no, I left for Lagos that night. My big sister and I set out for Lagos a few hours after this good Samaritan informant gave us the catalytic news. In Lagos, we went straight to source. Everyone in the office breathed a sigh of relief. The lead of the organising agency came to me and said “Thank goodness you made it. The other 5 students are visiting the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) today, then the Minister for Education and other officials will be meeting up with them. You can join them right away.”

Abacha and MKO Abiola

My mind was fuzzy with many questions. I asked the questions, but everyone pretended they were my soliloquy. Why are there five children already? If I am one of the winners, why are there already 5 and why am I 6^th in the row? Who came tops? As the days evolved, the story unfolded. My first clear cut stint with my Country! You see, a certain prominent family running a school in Nigeria, decided to buy my slot for their student. No one contacted the girl from Federal Government Girl’s College Benin City. There was no need…. the goal was to let it slide. However, the Samaritan Gossip, for some reason came and spilled the beans to my family and I in Benin.

I arrived in Lagos unexpected, technically not welcomed, yet confident that as usual I had topped the essay writing chats. At the time, I was naive and did not factor in a long-standing history of political influence and a mountain of financial affluence following a sustained looting of our shared commonwealth. In the face of all this and a father who believed strongly in merit, I did not stand a chance. My slot in the competition went to a student from the priced school for the children of the rich, owned by the politically induced elite in Nigeria.

I have absolutely nothing against wealth. I have said this in my write ups before. What I question is how the wealth is amassed and to what use it is put. Wealth used to deprive others of their hard-earned entitlements becomes a tool of societal repression which stifles human capacity building and the collective progression of the people.

The summary of this true-life experience was the societal norm in Nigeria then which has only become more magnified now. The position of excellence was slaughtered on the altar of corruption. The scales fell of my eyes and the wool came out from my ears.

I wept!

He heard my cry.

MKO Abiola listened. He told me to wipe my tears. He proffered a solution…. since I won the competition, there was no need to worry. Next year, 1993, he would sponsor me abroad for 6 weeks. I did not need to write the essay for the next year.

I was elated. Someone heard my cry.

Then it happened. June 12^th, 1993, saw the annulment of the freest and fairest presidential election at the time by the gap toothed general and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces.

With the annulment of June 12, came a numbness of my mind and a non-belief in our system that would haunt me for the rest of my life. June 12, 1993 was the one coin with the two sides of hope and hopelessness for me. Twenty-eight years later, as I watch the marches and protest on what we now call Democracy Day, I am determined to take the “lessness” out of one side of the coin and thump my chest with an unwavering hope in Nigeria. June 12 meant a violation and a consolation for me despite the fact that it holds a post traumatic residual aroma of my early exposure to corruption and demoralisation by my own people.

This June, I write this piece to find closure. I thought I could let the 12^th day of this month slip by again this year. I thought I could continue to repress my dampened faith in the fate of my Country’s renewed branding of the day. Alas, I could not any longer. There was nothing democratic in how I was deprived of what I rightfully earned and how the redeemer of my last shred of hope at the time, was imprisoned and then had life snuffed out of him by some very “natural” coincidence. The prizes were never the problem for me….it was the shear brazen process of undoing the honour and glory of our shared nationhood that baffled and still haunts me.

I shall not trade “Hope 93” for anything else. I will clutch to all residual hope year in and year out, 2021 and beyond because it is the audacity of doing this, that gives me the impetus to push for a new Nigeria. Reborn from the ashes, reloaded with the gumption of her people and repositioned for the future. Pass me the moral compass of our shared humanity so that together, we will sail towards our shared nationhood. A voyage devoid of entitlement from those “born to rule” or “born to loot” but full of mutual respect for Democratic principles and built on true Federalism.

Another June has come and gone.