Lekan Sote
[email protected] 08050220816
Never again should members of one professional group appropriate and use state powers to frustrate the will and legitimate political aspirations of fellow Nigerians. The Nigerian military establishment turned itself into an interest group, and torpedoed the actualisation of the presidential mandate freely given to Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola by Nigeria’s electorate on June 12, 1993.
In annulling that election, the military effectively stifled the tradition of dialogue that is a sin qua non of a democratic dispensation. Even when democracy – that some merely describe as civilian, but undemocratic – came with the Third Republic, Nigerians hardly knew what to do with it. It took a smart Alec to invent the phrase, “dividend of democracy,” before Nigerians could get on to it.
Even then, the military that has taken so much advantage of its…
Read More…..Punch Newspapers
