June 12: Our New Democracy Day

Today is June 12, a date stamped in the memory of Nigeria’s democratic journey, not just as a calendar memorial, but as a symbol of what proponents of the day see as a day of deferred justice and recurring betrayal.

I still recall my fierce argument in 1993, as a young student in Bauchi, with a close friend, an ardent supporter of Bashir Tofa and the National Republican Convention (NRC). I was aligned with the Social Democratic Party (SDP), drawn to the progressive promise of the leadership of the party and MKO Abiola, who we felt represented the ideals of the party. I was too young to vote, but I was politically conscious. We saw it not just as a matter of political affiliation, but a generational choice between the suffocating status quo and the faint stirrings of national rebirth.

After Abiola’s victory, my friend told me bluntly “They won’t hand power to him.” I asked why. He had no logical answer, only a quiet certainty rooted in Nigeria’s political DNA. He was right. The June 12 election was annulled, not because it lacked legitimacy, but because it was too legitimate for a system built on impunity. The explanation by IBB about the reason for annulling the elections is still debatable, despite dedicating pages in his book "A Journey in Service" to explain his reason for annulling the election. That moment shattered the illusion of sovereignty belonging to the people.

What followed was not just political crisis, but institutional trauma. From the jackboot of Abacha to the courage of civil society, from the exile of journalists to the death of hope in detention cells, Nigeria was never the same. The pages of TELL and Newswatch magazines bore witness to a country in slow implosion.

By 1995, I feared Nigeria’s fragile federation would splinter. Yet somehow, the nation limped on. IBB exited, not in glory, but in disgrace. Abacha died, not by the people’s hand, but by fate's. Abdulsalami handed over swiftly, not out of magnanimity, but to cauterize a bleeding state.

Olusegun Obasanjo returned – a recycled patriot imposed to pacify the South-West. His third-term ambition after his two terms in office was a test for him. The project started gaining momentum, audacious and tone-deaf, the project was crushed. Then came Umaru Musa Yar’Adua — gentle, purposeful, but terminally ill. His death once again exposed the fragility of our constitutional order. Jonathan succeeded him amidst crisis of rotation. Somehow, under elite consensus he won the 2011 elections. 

What came next was neither progress nor purpose. It was violence. Boko Haram emerged from the margins and took the centre stage. The headlines turned to mass abductions, scorched-earth terror, and later Jonathan was removed through the ballot in 2015. The 2015 elections offered a brief window of hope. Buhari, once lionised as a moral alternative, was given a rare gift: goodwill, popular mandate, and time. He squandered all three. What followed was the creeping normalisation of banditry and kidnapping. Each act of insecurity was a symptom of a state that had outsourced its monopoly on violence to non-state actors. His governance style was characterised by inertia – a dangerous cocktail of silence, nepotism, and economic mismanagement. The promise of democracy was replaced by what I call “democrataxation” – a system that extracts obedience and pain from citizens while delivering nothing in return.

And now we are here: two years into the Tinubu presidency, governed by the logic of survival, not strategy. The removal of fuel subsidy – a policy that might make economic sense on paper was executed without a transition plan for the poor. What followed was not reform but chaos. Inflation soared, hunger returned to the dinner table and public trust collapsed.

June 12 should not be remembered as a static event. It should be a mirror. A mirror that forces us to confront the uncomfortable truth: Nigeria is still at war with the idea of democracy. Not the ritual of voting, but the deeper culture of accountability, transparency, and justice. The event of June 12 and what followed in our democratic journey should force us to ask these hard questions; why does every transition in Nigeria feel like a reboot of the same dysfunction? Why is political power still viewed as conquest rather than stewardship? Why do our institutions serve the elite rather than protect the public?

June 12 teaches us that elections alone do not guarantee freedom. In fact, not only June 12, but May 29, 1999, May 29, 2007, May 29, 2015, and May 29, 2023. Systems do. Institutions do. A politically conscious citizenry does. We must stop romanticising democracy and begin to engineer it – structurally, legally, and morally.

Until we fix the root causes – elite impunity, politicised security, and economic exclusion – every election will be a reset of failure. Nigeria doesn’t just need to remember June 12. It needs to complete it. The unfinished business of June 12 is not about Abiola. It is about all of us.