Lt. General Alani Akinrinade (Rtd) was one of the major actors in the June 12 struggle. The former minister (Agriculture, Transport, Water Resources), Chief of Army Staff (COAS) and Chief of Defence Staff suffered personal losses as an active member of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) that fought the military to a standstill. Recently, he spoke with AYODELE OJO and SINA FADARE on the June 12 struggle, his losses, and state of the nation. Excerpts:

Today is the 20th anniversary of June 12, 1993 election, is there any lesson to be learnt from the historic presidential poll?

I think apart from anything else, it was a torturous time for Nigeria, because it was the culmination of the disillusionment of the people against military rule and all forms of dictatorial tendencies. Therefore we are all looking for a form of government which we would all be part of. That was the hallmark of June 12. Even it was all agreed that the April 2011 elections were not as good as June 12.

June 12 signified the determination of a people. Irrespective of their background, religion, cultural affinity, Nigerians spoke in one voice on what they needed and who should be their leader. Death did not allow Chief MKO Abiola to prove whether we were right or not in the action we took on the crisis, but the struggle stands on its own. It is the catalyst that enabled us get to where we are today.

Do you think the democracy fought for has been achieved today?


People have a lot of divergent views on whether we have actually got democracy or not. But to me I would say no, because a situation where we get freedom of movement, expression, and right to live, yet our leaders are not accountable to us, then we still have a long way to cover. The so-called representatives of the people whom most of the time are selected instead of being voted for are not accountable to the people. Therefore, democracy has fallen down on the face.

Virtually everywhere you turned to in the public sector is wanton corruption in high places. When Kaduna Nzeogwu and his colleagues had the first coup, the politicians who were then accused of corruption were not in such a massive magnitude to what we are witnessing today. He was talking about corruption of the ‘ten percenters,’ but what we are witnessing today is embarrassing and there is no limit to it. Based on this, I will say we are not yet there, but what we have now is a resemblance of democracy. Democracy is what you use to make sure that people who are put into position of authority are
accountable to the people? Unfortunately they failed woefully on this.
What is your regret on June 12?
Abiola’s death is regrettable with all he put into the struggle to make sure that we are liberated. We just killed him and that is highly regrettable. Again to those who died during the struggle, especially those who were not known and were not sung, who lost their lives in order that democracy should be restored, and to say that here we are after 20 years with the situation remain virtually the same before the struggle, it is regrettable.

Before June 12, there was the Afenifere in the West, which was strong to articulate the problem of their people, the Middle Belt Forum, the South-South and the Ijaws had the opportunity to get together in 1992 to form the Central Committee of Understanding (CCU) with the notion to see what we can do after the madness of the military and return the country to democracy.

We have a lot of people there like TY Danjuma, Dan Suleiman, Joe Garba and Afenifere people, both old and young. We therefore agreed that we are going to campaign for anyone that meet our standard no matter where such a person come from, and such a person should meet us. That was my main encounter with Abiola, having met him for five minutes in his house earlier in 1975. We met about 15 people and Abiola came out with a vision.

His vision about Nigeria tallied with ours that was why we decided to galvanise support for him to achieve his goal. Therefore to see that election annulled was an affront on us and the people. So, we confronted the military and damned the consequences. That is why most of us are emotionally attached to the June 12 struggle, whether it ended well or not, history is there to judge us.

http://nationalmirroronline.net/new/my-regrets-over-june-12-gen-akinrinade/