By June 12 and the MKO Abiola Metaphor
•OTF Abanikanda, PhD
Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola is mostly known as a philanthropist cum politician, but most people fail to see the primordial humanism in this man loved by many but envied and hated by his “friends”, associate and acolytes.
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Without sounding blasphemous, if the man had lived in the days of old, he would probably be regarded as a prophet or a deity. However you may wish to classify this uncommon limited edition of a man, you cannot take away from him his milk of human kindness.
MKO never lied about his background and upbringing, nor did he fake to be a quintessential gentleman to warm his way into people’s’ heart. He was just a real man with all its attendant shortcomings as a human being and in fact will make jest of such vices about himself.
By any classification, you cannot rate him as the most handsome, even with his intelligence and eloquence, he remain an obvious stammerer, who despite his disability will deliver one of the most congruent and intelligent speeches on practicable and sustainable governance.
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So how come this man was so loved by most but yet hated by the powerful few? It is all fault of MKO who like a good statistical analysis had CONFIDENCE, was SIGNIFICANT but lacked POWER!
His education and business prowess and acumen earned him the Confidence, while his foresight and circle he kept made him Significant. But his inability to detect a false friend / associate and isolate such people from his life cost him Power! In statistics, power of an analysis is your ability to detect a false null hypothesis and reject same! MKO failed to heed the advice of our elders that “mo eni an sa fun, ati eni an ya fun!”. His large heartedness beclouded his thinking faculties to know those that he should run from and those he should avoid.
He might have stepped on a couple of toes but those were not the people that fought him nor killed him. He was hated by beneficiaries of his help and killed by those envious and scared of his rise as Nigerian President. The only consolation is that all those that played a part in his humanly designed downfall had all gone under the same way Judas became irrelevant after the crucifixion of Christ! By the way, let somebody remind me of the current status of all the dramatis personae of the June 12 Annulment debacle.
As consolation for all his good deeds, his name today is legally and officially etched in the annals of Nigerian history as a man who contested an election with so many reasons not to be voted, but yet won convincingly against all odds, but was robbed of his joy by the same elements that benefited from him.
Who knows? May be we did not deserve leadership of such a kind man, since God Almighty always bestow on people a leader they deserve. But God proves a point that irrespective of how you chose to tag a man, justified or otherwise, He could still endear such men in the hearts of those that never benefited from him.
As a little reminder, MKO never lied to us he was monogamous and would always remind you about Simbi, Kudi, Bisi and Doyin. As if that is not bad enough he went ahead to pick a Muslim running mate, an action sufficient to set the multi-religious country ablaze. Christians, Muslims and Traditionalists all trooped out to massively vote for the man they trust, just as he was voted by the Ebiras, Kanuris, Ibibio, Tiv, Jukuns, Igbos, Hausas and Yorubas.
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The moral of this all can be summarised as follows;
That you have a humble beginning does not mean you cannot end great.
That you assist people is not a guarantee they can turn against you.
That you’re real to yourself without deceit, lies or hypocrisy does not mean you won’t be accepted by good intentioned people.
That some “powerful” people momentarily hijack your success does not mean you’re still not more relevant than them.
And finally, the fact that you’re denied what you deserve does not mean it cannot be restored by God at His own time.
May God Almighty continue to rest the soul of MKO Abiola and all the good intentioned people that fell in the course of restitutions of the injustice perpetrated against the Nigerian State.
I wish you all Happy Democracy Day.
