NLC wants President Buhari to grant Abiola Post-Humous Honour
The Nigeria Labour Congress has urged the Federal Government to confer a post-humous honour on Chief MKO Abiola for his role in the
June 12, 1993 elections.
The Deputy President of the congress, Issa Aremu, made the call in a statement on Saturday in Kaduna, calling on President Buhari to grant Abiola “a deserved national and global honour as the unacknowledged winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election”.
He said, “22 years after, the June 12 spectre repeatedly hunts Nigeria’s democratic process. It’s time we exorcised it.
“Given the free and fair election that led to his emergence in March this year, President Muhammadu Buhari is the best positioned Nigerian leader in recent times to rightly name, shame and damn the criminal annulment of the 1993 presidential election results adjudged to be the most free and fair.
“The violations of peoples’ mandates through varying subterfuge that included ballot snatching, alteration of electoral rules and falsifications of election results as we witnessed in particular in the 2003 and 2007 elections.
“The same impunity sadly snowballed to civil society and trade union organisations. Let’s close the chapter of June 12 by dignifying its victims as a matter of legitimate right not favour.
“Labour commends the outgoing INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, for standing firm and truly independent in upholding the mandate of Nigerians during the 2015 presidential elections and by doing so raising high the banner of Africa as democracy destination.
“If some of his predecessors had stood firm, Nigeria’s democratic mileage would have been far more remarkable.”
