Fayemi, AbdulRasaq, others pay tribute to June 12 heroes
THE Governors of Ekiti and Kwara States, Kayode Fayemi, and AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, on Friday, paid glowing tribute to the winner of the June 12, presidential election, late Moshood Abiola and other Nigerians who died as martyrs of the democratic struggle.
Governor Fayemi, in a statement entitled: “Reminiscences on June 12 Struggle and its Imperatives” lauded the significant sacrifices made by Abiola and other Nigerians, describing them as sacrificial lambs for the enthronement democracy.
He advocated the commencement of a new conversation that will arouse the citizens’ confidence of a better life and a brighter future, adding that June 12 signposts a significant lesson that a new and better Nigeria is possible.
Fayemi commended President Muhammadu Buhari for giving official recognition to June 12 as the nation’s Democracy Day, describing it as a symbolic gesture which has provided a psychosocial healing for the people who sacrificed for the enthronement of democracy.
The governor noted that, Buhari, by the gesture, would be fondly remembered after he might have left office for giving June 12 a significant place in the national diary and acknowledging the symbol of the struggle, Chief Moshood Abiola, as the rightful winner of the election, and taking a step further to award him the nation’s highest honour of the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR).
In the same vein, Governor AbdulRazaq saluted the courage and sacrifices of Nigeria’s democratic heroes, stressing that, his administration is committed to fairness and justice to all, in the spirit of democracy, adding that democracy is meaningless where the interest of the majority is sacrificed for sectional interest.
In her message, former Senate Minority leader, Biodun Olujimi, called on Nigerians to use the significance of June 12 as the country’s democracy day to pursue and promote issues that would foster national cohesion and peaceful co-existence.
The Senator representing Ekiti South Senatorial District, in a statement, on Friday, in Ado-Ekiti, said Nigerians needed a united front to surmount the myriad of challenges currently affecting the country as exemplified by the June 12, 1993 election, when Nigerians shunned ethnicity and religion to vote for late Abiola.
Also, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, said a deep reflection on the ill-fated struggle for the actualisation of democratic rule in Nigeria through the June 12, 1993 presidential poll, confirmed that the bond of unity among Nigerians was strong and invincible.
Saluting the martyrs and victims of the presidential election in a statement, on Friday, Bamidele described the supposed winner of the botched election, late Abiola and other pro-democracy activists who lost their lives as the real pillars of the country’s democracy.
