Between Col Nyiam, Kola Abiola and June 12. By Terry Fade Adewale
If anything, the recent rebuttal by retired Col Tony Nyiam, (born again democrat and ex coup leader) to Kola Abiola’s account on his father’s political odyssey has amplified a long concealed fear of mine about June 12. In years to come, the anniversary would remain but facts and details of June 12 would dwindle.
In celebrating the anniversary this year, there have been pockets of cacophonous voices aside Nyiam – about the events of the period between June 12 and the dawn of democratic government in 1999. Save for students of history and few elements that are incline to invest in reading historical accounts and books on June 12, plus also individuals that may be given to undertaking painstaking research of the various publications of the period in libraries, it would almost certainly be difficult in the next few decades to have a true account of events of that period between 1993 and 1999. Already loads bordering on half truths and counter claims are coming up in the explanation of June 12. At just over 2 decades, conflicting accounts are already emerging from chroniclers of history and many of the main ‘dramatis personae’ of that huge drama that has made June 12 and those period a monumental era it has become in our national history. Chroniclers of history must be quick to make corrections at this point. A quick detour here; I’ll return to Col Nyiam later.
Any close observer would not miss the jostle for attention between the foreign battalion (made mostly of NADECO stalwarts) that fought from the rear in foreign lands – in the United Kingdom and the US majorly and the home grown activists that confronted the deadly military junta at great risks to limbs and all on the streets of Nigeria. In the past weeks, I’ve sat back and read loads of accounts with amusement and interest. In the absence of specific claims in the direction of who made what happened, it remains for now, largely unspoken who made the biggest ‘exploit’ in actualizing June 12; but we’re getting nearer.
The din is getting louder by each celebration year in year out. Nyiam’s intervention on behalf of Bola Tinubu is one of such ugly signposts towards that direction. As a living witness and active participant in the events of June 12, I would not discount the big roles played by both sides – locally and abroad in seeing to the demise of the military junta. While the battle royale was on the streets of Nigeria with no where to hide from hot pellets and dark goggled goons, the foreign efforts of NADECO gang were complimentarily supportive in exposing the atrocities and senseless killings of the time. Without mentioning names, the sacrifices made by many activists, journalists and several others from the civil society there would indeed certainly be no June 12; notwithstanding the many rallies and meetings held elsewhere outside the shores of Nigeria. To assume that only those efforts outside Nigeria culminated in actualizing June 12 – as being postulated by the likes of Nyiam is to dance on the grave of many – bourgeois, students, journalists, politicians and proletariats that lost their lives on the streets of Lagos, Abuja, Owerri, Ibadan and other cities across Nigeria.
We should salute visionaries that fled abroad to propagate the gospel and exposed the evil machinations of the military junta then, but organising rallies on the streets of London with adequate protection from the Metropolitan Police isn’t anything near the brutality and the criminality that Abacha unleashed on those inside the country. It’s a fact that for many who took flight in the heady days ahead of June 12, Abacha was just a very convenient excuse. Just as I know of many who took that route to continue campaigning under a much welcoming atmosphere in America and the UK, so also I know of many who refused to take flight but remained and faced the hardship and the risk of confronting Abacha in his rawest form in Nigeria.
Understandably so, the accounts of participants from both divides are most likely to differ. It’s not a surprise therefore that Col Nyiam would come up to reply Kola Abiola in the way he’s done. For one, Nyiam had been a fugitive in foreign land since the failed Major Gideon Gwarzo Orkar coup of 1989. The events leading up to the Abacha period as narrated by Kola Abiola which could be attested to by concerned observers at the time cannot be faulted, not even by an Nyiam who had fled Nigeria almost 6 years before. For Col Nyiam to come up with that hogwash as narrated by him is the height of displaying ignorance about the way the polity panned out pre and post June 12. His explanations tended to give the impression that the battle of June 12 was just about those solemn meetings at cool restaurants on the high street of London. No sir.
June 12 was beyond that.
Fact remains that, the crowd – which the likes of Nyiam joined abroad under the guise of NADECO as the war raged on back home in Nigeria – was not completely free of residue of indeed very disgruntled, battle weary politicians who couldn’t get their ways thru the Abacha maze unlike Babagana Kingibe – the fat cat who got the cream off the criminality of that period. Kola Abiola indeed spoke the truth and nothing can alter that fact about June 12.
