Hafsat Abiola-Costello, daughter of the acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, Chief MKO Abiola, is the founder of the Kudirat Initiative for Democracy (KIND). In this interview, she speaks on the struggle that claimed her parents and her documentary, “The Supreme Price”
What lesson do you want Nigerian leaders to learn from your father, MKO Abiola, who died 17 years ago during the struggle for the actualisation of June 12 presidential mandate?
We need to encourage our leaders to emulate his quality of selflessness, commitment to the betterment of Nigeria because without that, we will not be able to get Nigeria to the height of greatness that we all aspire to. I want them to learn that time is a privilege; it is not guaranteed and that everybody has deadline and end date. We don’t know when the end date is but we know everybody has end date.
And everybody in politics today; everyone on the political stage today, no matter what level they are operating, there would be a date they would be no more. It is so important now that we think of the future, that we think about how to make Nigeria great and we think about what sacrifices that are needed for us to make Nigeria great.
If we think about our personal interest, houses, women we want to marry, cars we want to buy, then we are not ready to do what we need to do for Nigeria. When you look at country like United States of America, United Kingdom or even China where I lived for some years, their history, their success are all about sacrifices.
And at one point, Nigerians must be willing to make sacrifices for the country so that we can be a beacon in Africa and not have our children trying to escape Nigeria to go to Europe. We should have our children from all part of Africa coming here because we would have made a great prosperous country.
What message are you passing to the Nigerians with the documentary titled “The Supreme price” which detailed your parents’ struggle and participation in the June 12 saga?
The documentary is called “The Supreme price” and we want to communicate to the Nigerian people that we have history; that we have democracy and our democracy did just not drop from the sky. There was a struggle for democracy that involved young people, labour, market women, activists, politicians and people in the military system who believed in reform. It involves so many people across Nigeria.
And it is beyond religion and ethnicity. And that democracy that we have today even though it is not perfect, we fought to have it and people died to have it and we should do whatever we can do to make it work. It cannot work if it is only about the elite’s interest in position and in power. It has to be about the popular interest in eating and having a descent way in having work and farewell to poverty.
It is 17 years that your father died and many activists have been calling for his immortalisation. How do you feel that nothing concrete has been done by the Federal Government to immortalise him?
I am mystified by that and I think it doesn’t speak well of all the past presidents. But for President Muhammadu Buhari, I think he is just out because he just started his government few weeks before June 12, 2015 anniversary. And when he started, he started in the middle of crisis.
So, if he is busy putting off the fire he may not have the time on the issue of June 12 being recognised by the Federal Government. One hopes by next year, he would have had time to think about what should be done. Certainly one thing, we need to recognise is that the June 12 struggle was the people’s struggle and it was the struggle for their rights.
There was no crime we committed in demanding that we have democratic government and that democratic government should be based on free and fair June 12 election. We did nothing wrong and the Nigerian government continues to ignore June 12.
During the last June 12 anniversary, some activists urged President Buhari to appoint a member of the Abiola family into his cabinet as a mark of honour for the man who paid the supreme price for Nigeria’s democracy. What is your take on that?
I think President Buhari has spoken well in saying that he wants to make sure that he appoints people who can do well and I think Nigerians will continue to support decisions of who makes his team. Whether or not any of them should be from the Abiola’s family, that depends on him. There are certain people in the Abiola family who are well qualified to serve at any level in Nigeria and if the president feels that he can work with anyone of them, that would be appropriate. It is not for us to tell him that he should appoint one of us into his cabinet.
Will you be ready to serve in Buhari’s administration if you are called upon?
Well, I am ready to serve Nigeria. Since the June 12, 1993 annulment, I have been going round the country and that is what the documentary, ‘The Supreme Sacrifice’ is all about; showing me going all around the world to serve Nigeria. At a certain point, if government wants to recognise me, that it is all well and good.
With the deaths of your parents in the struggle, what gives you strength to continue in your activism?
My parents died for the country because they actually believed in Nigeria and if we are to even draw strength from what we see on a daily basis, even from many of our leaders in Nigeria today, we would have been disillusioned long ago. But just that MKO in spite of the apparent treachery in the genotype of many Nigerians, including people he closely worked with, still believed in Nigeria and really believed in the people.
And I always think of MKO as one of the most brilliant human beings I know. And since such a brilliant man cannot be wrong, since he started in that direction and he is my father, I should just continue in the way that he taught me. We need to look at certain issues in our society. Right now we have eight per cent women representative in the political system. I think that percentage is too small. We need to do something to get about 30 per cent women representation. Let us also do something about the use of public fund.
We shouldn’t leave government to the people at the top; we should be involved and informed. We should work together to make sure that things function well in Nigeria. I have gone all over the world; the only thing that separates the country that works and the country that doesn’t work is just vigilance of the citizenry. We should not just leave our leaders; we should also be involved. So, let us work together, form a coalition and let us start working and doing what we can. Let us do the needful for Nigeria.
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