Oyo declares public holiday, wants Abiola immortalised

Oyo State Governor, Abiola Ajimobi, has declared today, June 13, as public holiday in commemoration of the annulment of the presidential election held 23 years ago.

The Special Adviser, Communication and Strategy to the Governor, Yomi Layinka, conveyed this in a statement.

According to him, June 12 remains a watershed in the history of the country, because of the day’s significance in the nation’s democratic journey, having broken all ethnic and religious barriers.

He said the annulled election is yet to be matched in terms of freeness, fairness, transparency, openness and widespread acceptability.

“Much as the electoral umpires that midwifed subsequent elections had tried, the annulled election remains the best in terms of organisation and no system adopted for the conduct of subsequent elections is yet to match Option A4 used to conduct the June 12 election,” the statement added.

He described the resolve of Nigerians to put aside their differences, by trooping out to collectively vote for a positive change, as a demonstration that Nigerians were not ready to negotiate the unity of the country even in the face of diversity.

The statement stressed that what has deepened democracy, which the political class is enjoying today, was the fact that the symbol of the annulled election, M.K.O Abiola, opted to pay the supreme price to defend his mandate.

Ajimobi urged the Federal Government to immortalise and officially recognise Abiola as a former president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and to confer on him the highest honour in the land befitting of a former president.

He advised that political leaders should be prepared to leave their comfort zones and make sacrifices to defend our democracy and not allow parochial interest to overshadow the collective interest of the electorate.

There is no doubt that Abiola won the election, despite failed attempts by those that contested the election with him to twist facts and re-write history, the statement added.