June 12, kayfabe, and defining moments, By Uddin Ifeanyi

The events leading up to and succeeding the elections of 12 June, 1993, were remarkable in several respects in Nigeria’s political (and if all their consequences are included, economic) annals. The near farcical nature of the election’s annulment. The latitude that key players looked to in order that they could plausibly deny their respective roles in certain events. The cozenage that characterised the accounts of witnesses to the same events. The seeming, and in this sense, unprecedented willingness of civil society to undergo hardships in pursuit of higher ideals. Even now much sentimental guff still surrounds descriptions of these events from certain cohorts of our society. All of which leads to one question “Was June 12, 1993, a defining moment in Nigeria’s political evolution?” The metaphors it bred do not offer a definitive answer, alas. Looming large over the many attempts to encapsulate all of the events in one moment, and to express this moment in as few phrases as possible is the “On June 12 we stand!” declamation.

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Largely, this watchword masqueraded as a rallying cry. It was, in this rather restrictive reading, the “La Marseillaise” of our prematurely snuffed-out revolution, but without the ringing verses of the former “War Song for the Army of the Rhine”. In truth, though, it was also part shibboleth, a multifunctional identifier useful for telling apart diverse attitudes to that unfortunate series of events. For one tribe of politicians, it was World Wrestling Entertainment’s (WWE) equivalent of the chokehold. An illegal move. But, as in the make-believe space that is professional wrestling, even the referee was willing to ignore its use as long as those who spouted it stayed in kayfabe. And so, partisans of this view impressed their weights on the idea, hoping, eventually either to force a tap-out from those who were insistent on doing anything it took to actualise the outcome of that day’s vote, or, preferably, simply to snuff the life out of the idea completely.

Did the “wrestlers” succeed? Yes. But not by their efforts alone. The “trampolinists” were especially helpful. These cadre did not create, nor need to stand on a chokepoint – and so, were not immediately threatening to the idea of actualising the election’s outcome. They, instead, bounced around a lot in search of opportunities – not for improvement in the collective’s outcomes, more for outlets to advance their own personal welfare. The June 12 ecosystem was, in this sense, analogous to both the competitive pole-vaulter’s vaulting pole and vault box – a means for extra leverage. Did it matter that every leap cut deep into the trampoline? Or that, thus, by a thousand cuts, the idea of ever realising the outcome of the polls died? Not really.

Opposition to the idea that the “On June 12 we stand” mantra was all about, was, arguably more honest – even though no less nuanced. Three categories of the opponents to the idea stood out. First, were folks whose salaries depended on their not understanding why it was important to uphold the outcome of a free and fair vote no matter how personally disagreeable the winner was. (Call these “Uptonians” if you wish, after Upton Sinclair. He it was that the quote, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it”, is attributed to.) Significantly, the “Uptonians”, who stood against the idea of actualising the vote’s outcome, were just as exercised by opportunities for personal aggrandisement as were the “trampolinists”. The second grouping of “June 12 advocates” included those who were persuaded by authority no matter how it was obtained. (This category was and still is the knee-jerk response of large and significant sections of our society to so many years of rule by the military – “Kakistocrats”?) Finally, there were those who took their disagreement with the winner of the elections very personally and elevated this above society’s collective interest.

Were there genuine “June 12 activists” – folks who believe(d) that the country’s long-term outcomes improve with its ability to transmit the will of the people to its governance through the regular exercise of free and fair elections? I believe there were. Otherwise, the opposition to the ideas that the “On June 12 we stand” mantra represented would have lacked a raison d’être. What was the organising principle that galvanised this opposition? If we interrogated this as we are doing ex post facto, it is safe to assume that it was not the sacrosanct nature of elections. For we have conducted elections of varying quality since then and in fact, some in which the more visible advocates of June 12 played lead roles. None of the elections post-June 12 have moved the country any closer to the economic, social, or political El Dorado that free elections are advertised to bring in their wake.

Which leaves us with two other possibilities. That as a community, Nigerians are incapable of internalising useful lessons over long term periods. Or that June 12, 1993, and all that it has come to personify was not as defining a moment as some of our modern-day political fabulists suggest.