Dr. Sina Okanlomo is the President of Yoruba One Voice Worldwide, a socio-political group for Yoruba sons and daughters in the Diaspora. In this interview, he speaks on the importance of June 12 in the annals of Yoruba history.
The annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election won by late Chief MKO Abiola is 29 years today. Have the Yoruba learnt any lesson?
Certainly, no lesson has been learnt because those who were responsible for the ignoble annulment of June 12 were not held accountable. They continue to take our unity for granted and are more emboldened to the extent that they accelerate their internal colonization agenda as we have seen in the just concluded primaries where the North wanted to monopolize power.
It was at the expense of other nations within the geographical entity called Nigeria. What is actually shocking is that our people who were directly affected by the annulment of June 12 election remain disorganized and lack a clear agenda to ensure our survival as a people.
The build-up to the 2023 election and all antecedents are showing signs of the usual divide and rule process, which may destabilize the center from holding. If we are careful, anarchy and disintegration may happen. And it may lead to the emergence of a new system in Nigeria. We would no longer accept carnages like the Owo massacre and Igangan incident.
Already, June 12 is Nigeria’s Democracy Day. Is that not enough?
It was too little too late. We could have been grateful to Buhari for that declaration but the rationale behind the declaration was shameful. It was a ploy to appease Tinubu and the Yoruba nation to support his re-election. What is actually sad is that those who directly benefited from June 12 annulment like Obasanjo and Jonathan, ignored the significance of June 12. In fact, Obasanjo, who was from the same town as MKO was deceitful about the significance of the day and this is shameful.